I strode straight toward them. I didn't have a plan, just a magnetic pull toward the epicenter of my destruction.

Elia spotted me first. Her eyes narrowed into slits, then instantly widened into a mask of faux concern. She whispered something to Bennett. He turned, his face hardening into stone when he saw me approach.

"Kelsey," he said, stepping slightly in front of Elia, as if to shield her from a threat. "Where have you been? People were asking."

"I was learning history," I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "Fifteen years of it."

Bennett's face drained of color. Elia just smirked, a tiny, imperceptible twitch of her lips.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Bennett said, his voice dropping to a lethal hiss. "Not here."

"Why not here?" Elia chimed in, her voice pitched precisely loud enough to carry. "We're all family, aren't we? Or at least, we will be soon."

She reached for a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray. Her movements were exaggerated, theatrical. She swirled the glass, looking at me with pure venom disguised as sweetness.

"You look tired, Kelsey," she said. "Maybe you should go home. Bennett and I have things to discuss regarding the... future."

She took a step toward me, then feigned a stumble on her high heel. It was clumsy, yet entirely intentional. She flailed, her arm sweeping out and knocking into the towering pyramid of champagne glasses displayed on the buffet table next to us.

The world seemed to freeze.

The crash was deafening-a cacophony of crystal shattering against marble. Glass exploded outward like shrapnel.

A sharp, searing heat tore through my arm. A large shard of crystal had sliced through my sleeve and into my skin.

"Ah!" Elia screamed. She hadn't been touched by a single piece of glass. She had stumbled backward, safely landing into Bennett's arms.

"Elia!" Bennett roared. He didn't even glance at me. He spun her around, checking her frantically. "Are you hurt? The baby! Is the baby okay?"

"I'm scared, Ben!" she wailed, burying her face in his chest.

I stood there, blood soaking through the white silk of my dress, dripping in a steady rhythm onto the marble floor. The pain was throbbing, hot and vicious, mixing with the cold sting of spilled champagne.

Guests were gasping, forming a tight circle around us.

"She's bleeding!" someone shouted, pointing at me.

Bennett looked up then. His eyes met mine. For a second, I saw shock. Then, immediately, his gaze flicked back to Elia, erasing me completely.

"Get the car!" he yelled to his assistant. "We need to get Elia to the hospital. The shock could be bad for the pregnancy."

"Bennett," I said. My voice was weak, trembling against my will. "I'm bleeding."

He looked at my arm, at the red stain spreading rapidly.

"It's just a cut, Kelsey," he snapped, impatience flaring in his eyes. "Don't be dramatic. Grab a towel. I have to take care of Elia. She's carrying my child."

He turned his back on me.

He scooped Elia up in his arms and ran toward the exit. The crowd parted for him, granting him a hero's path while I stood bleeding in the foyer.

I stood alone in the wreckage of the champagne tower. The smell of alcohol and metallic blood was nauseating.

"Ma'am?" A waiter approached me, looking terrified, hesitating to touch me. "I called an ambulance."

"Thank you," I whispered.

I sat on a chair someone offered. I watched the door where my husband had disappeared.

He hadn't hesitated. Not for a microsecond.

In the ambulance, I didn't cry. I stared at the IV drip, watching the clear fluid count down the seconds.

At the hospital, they stitched me up. Twenty stitches. The doctor asked if I had someone to call to drive me home.

"No," I said, my voice hollow. "I'm alone."

I checked my phone. No calls from Bennett. No texts.

I opened social media. Elia had posted a photo five minutes ago. It was a picture of her hand holding Bennett's hand on a hospital bed sheet.

Caption: Scary night, but Daddy is here keeping us safe. Baby is strong. Love wins.

I stared at the screen until the pixels blurred.

Daddy.

He was sitting by her bedside, holding her hand, while I was sitting three floors down, stitching my skin back together.

It wasn't a tragedy. It was a clarification.

I called the nurse over.

"Can I borrow a pen and paper?" I asked.

"Of course, honey," she said, looking at me with pity. "Do you need to write down instructions for your husband?"

"No," I said, taking the pen. The plastic felt cool and solid in my hand, grounding me.

"I need to write a list for my lawyer."

The following morning found me sealing the last box in the living room when the front door opened.

Bennett walked in. He looked wrecked, his tie loose and dark circles bruising the skin under his eyes. He stopped short when he saw the suitcases lined up by the door.

"What is this?" he asked.

"I'm leaving, Bennett," I said. I continued to run the tape gun across the cardboard flaps. The sound of the tape ripping was a harsh tear in the quiet house.

He let out a short, incredulous laugh. "Leaving? Because of last night? Kelsey, don't be childish. It was an emergency. Elia was in shock."

"And I needed twenty stitches," I said, not looking up.

"I asked my assistant to send you flowers," he said, waving his hand as if that gesture absolved him of all guilt. "Look, I know you're upset. I brought you something."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet box. He tossed it onto the table, where it slid to a halt next to the divorce papers I had left there.

"It's a diamond necklace," he said. "Custom made. It's worth more than your car."

I looked at the box. I didn't touch it.

"I don't want your necklace, Bennett," I said. "I want a divorce."

He froze. The veneer of arrogance slipped from his face, replaced by genuine confusion. "Divorce? Over a cut on your arm? You're being irrational. We have a life here. We have a plan."

"We?" I laughed. It was a dry, rasping sound. "There is no 'we'. There is you and Elia. I was just the funding. I was just the cover story."

"That's not true." He stepped toward me. "I love you, Kelsey."

"You love yourself," I countered. "And you love the idea of an heir. You don't even know who I am anymore. You don't know my favorite color. You don't know that I stopped painting three months ago. You don't know anything."

His phone rang, cutting through the tension. He glanced at it.

"Answer it," I said. "It's probably her."

He hesitated, then picked it up. "Hello?"

I watched his face change. The color drained from his skin, leaving him ashen. His hand gripped the phone so tight his knuckles turned white.

"What do you mean?" he whispered. "What do you mean the trust fund is contingent?"

He listened for another moment, then looked at me with wide, panicked eyes.

"Father says... he says if I go through with a divorce, the morality clause in the inheritance kicks in. I lose the voting rights. I lose the CEO position."

I smiled. It was a cold, sharp expression.

"That sounds like a 'you' problem, Bennett."

"You can't do this," he stammered, dropping the phone to his side. "You can't leave now. Not when everything is on the line. Just stay. We can live separate lives if you want. Just stay on paper."

"On paper," I repeated.

I walked over to the shredder in the corner of the room. I picked up our wedding photo, the one I had taken out of the frame days ago.

"Kelsey, don't," he warned.

I fed the photo into the machine. Bennett watched in horror as his smiling face was sliced into ribbons. The machine whirred and crunched, a mechanical appetite devouring our past.

"I'm not your employee, Bennett," I said over the noise. "I'm not your asset."

I picked up my purse. I walked to the door.

"Where are you going?" he shouted. "You have nowhere to go! You gave up your apartment! You gave up your career for me!"

"I'm going to find the woman I was before I met you," I said.

I opened the door. The air outside was crisp and clean.

"Kelsey!" he yelled. "If you walk out that door, you get nothing! No alimony! Nothing!"

I turned back one last time. He stood there, surrounded by his expensive furniture and his crumbling empire, holding a velvet box that meant absolutely nothing.

"Keep the money, Bennett," I said. "You're going to need it to pay for your sins."

I slammed the door.

I walked to the waiting taxi. I didn't look back at the house. I didn't look back at the life I had wasted.

My arm throbbed under the bandage, a reminder of the pain. But my chest felt lighter than it had in years.

I checked my phone. One notification. A flight confirmation.

Destination: Paris.

One way.

The news broke on a Tuesday morning, blaring from the flat-screen mounted on the beige wall of my hotel room.

"Randolph Enterprises in High-Stakes Gamble for the 'Twins' Legacy."

Bennett had leveraged the company's oldest assets-properties that had been anchored in his family for three generations-to secure a hostile takeover of a rival tech firm.

It was reckless. It was borderline criminal.

And he was doing it because Elia had whispered in his ear that her unborn twins deserved an empire that spanned the globe.

My phone buzzed against the nightstand.

It was his mother, Mrs. Randolph. I let it go to voicemail.

I could imagine her voice, shrill and terrified, asking me to talk sense into him. But I had no sense left to give, and certainly no influence.

A sharp knock on the door interrupted the news anchor's speculation about Bennett's sanity.

I checked the peephole. It wasn't room service.

Elia stood in the hallway, wrapped in a cashmere coat that likely cost more than my first car. She looked perfectly put together, her skin glowing, her hands resting protectively over her stomach.

I opened the door. "What do you want?"

"Can I come in?"

She didn't wait for an answer. She breezed past me, her perfume-a heavy, floral scent that Bennett once claimed gave him a migraine-filling the small, impersonal room.

"Cozy," she said, her eyes sweeping over my unmade bed and the half-packed suitcase. "Bennett told me you were staying here. He thinks you're just cooling off."

"I'm leaving, Elia. Permanently."

She laughed.

It wasn't a warm sound. It was the sharp, delighted noise of a child pulling the wings off a fly.

She sat on the edge of the desk, swinging her legs.

"He's doing this for me, you know," she said, gesturing to the TV where Bennett's face flashed alongside plummeting stock graphs. "Risking everything. His reputation. His freedom. All for our babies."

"He's going to go to jail," I said, my voice flat. "Or lose the company. Or both."

"He's romantic like that," Elia sighed. "He told me he'd burn the world down if I asked him to. It's almost pathetic, isn't it?"

I froze. "Pathetic?"

She looked at me, her eyes devoid of the innocence she projected when Bennett was around.

"Oh, come on, Kelsey. You lived with him for two years. You know how desperate he is to be the hero. He needs to save someone."

She tilted her head, a shark-like smile playing on her lips.

"First it was you, the struggling artist. Now it's me, the damsel with the golden heirs."

She hopped off the desk and walked toward me, stopping inches from my face.

"He's not a husband, Kelsey. He's a tool. A very rich, very stupid blunt instrument. And right now, he's hammering exactly where I tell him to."

My stomach churned. "You don't love him."

"I love what he can give me," she whispered. "And I love that he is currently dismantling his own legacy just to prove he loves me more than he ever loved you."

She patted my cheek. Her hand was cold.

"Enjoy Paris. I hear it's lovely when you're alone."

She left, the door clicking shut softly behind her.

I stood there for a long time, staring at the wood grain of the door. My chest ached, not from jealousy, but from a profound, sickening pity.

Bennett was destroying himself for a woman who viewed him as nothing more than a credit card with a pulse.

I grabbed my phone. My fingers trembled as I dialed his number.

I didn't want him back. I just didn't want him to die.

It rang once. Twice. Three times.

"What?" Bennett's voice was breathless, angry. Background noise roared behind him-shouting, the frantic trill of office phones.

"Bennett, listen to me," I said. "You have to stop the takeover. Elia doesn't care about the legacy. She's using you. She just told me-"

"Stop it," he snapped. "God, Kelsey, are you that jealous? I'm in the middle of the biggest deal of my life. I'm securing my children's future."

"She called you a tool, Bennett. She said you're pathetic."

"The only pathetic thing here is you calling me to spread lies because you can't handle that I moved on!" he shouted. "Don't call me again unless it's to apologize."

The line went dead.

I looked at the phone screen. The call had lasted forty seconds.

"I tried," I whispered to the empty room.

I walked over to the suitcase and zipped it shut.

The sound tore through the silence like the zipper on a body bag.