The sun rose gray over the city.

The ivory dress still hung from the bedroom door. The fifty gold-inked cards still sat on the kitchen counter. I didn't tear them up. I didn't call the venue to cancel. Not yet.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror. I brushed my hair and tied it back. I applied concealer under my eyes to hide the dark hollows, then swiped on a layer of red lipstick. I put on my long black wool coat and wrapped a scarf tight around my neck.

Maverick was in the kitchen, scrolling on his phone by the coffee maker. He wore his charcoal suit.

"I have to run an errand for tonight," I said evenly. "Pick up some extra ribbon for the favors."

He barely looked up from his screen. "Fine. Make it quick. My mother wants you at her apartment by two to help her dress."

"Sure," I said.

I waited downstairs in the lobby. Five minutes later, Maverick stepped out into the crisp air. He raised his hand and hailed a yellow cab.

I stepped onto the curb, flagged the next taxi, and slid into the back.

"Follow that cab," I told the driver.

We drove downtown in stop-and-go traffic. My hands rested flat on my lap. They were completely steady now. The panic from the night before had frozen into a cold, hard lump behind my ribs.

The cab pulled over near Fifth Avenue. Maverick got out, buttoned his suit jacket, and walked briskly down the sidewalk.

I paid the driver and stepped out into the biting wind.

I kept thirty feet behind him, pulling my collar up. He didn't look back once. He never looked back. He was a man who only saw what was directly in front of him.

He stopped in front of a luxury jewelry boutique.

A woman was already waiting near the polished brass doors. Violeta Fisher. She wore a cream cashmere sweater and a pleated skirt, her dark hair falling over her shoulders. When she saw him, her entire face brightened. She took a step toward him, and he smiled.

It was a soft, open smile. A smile I hadn’t seen on his face in four years.

They walked inside together.

I moved close to the tall glass window. The boutique was warm and bright, filled with velvet display cases and sparkling glass. I stood on the sidewalk, half-hidden behind a decorative stone pillar.

Maverick pointed to something in a velvet tray. The sales associate lifted out a diamond bracelet. Platinum and stones

, sparkling under the recessed lighting.

Violeta gasped softly. She held out her slender wrist.

Maverick didn't just hand it to her. He reached out and took her wrist in his hand. His touch was slow. Tender. He fastened the clasp with careful fingers, his eyes focused completely on her skin. When he finished, he didn't let go right away. Instead, he lifted his other hand and gently tucked a stray lock of dark hair behind her ear.

Violeta tilted her head. She looked up at him through her lashes and smiled.

It was not a shy smile. It was the calm, victorious smile of a woman who knew she had won.

Something inside my chest snapped clean in half.

I turned the corner and pushed through the heavy glass door.

The brass bell gave a soft chime. The store smelled of expensive perfume and leather.

"Maverick."

My voice was not loud, but it cut through the quiet room like a knife.

Maverick froze. His hand dropped from Violeta's hair. He turned around, his eyes widening in shock for a fraction of a second before hardening into cold stone.

Violeta took a half-step back, lowering her head like a startled bird. But her fingers stayed rested right on the new bracelet.

"Leanna?" Maverick’s voice was sharp. "What the hell are you doing here?"

I walked toward the glass counter. My boots clicked against the marble floor. My voice shook, but every word came out clear.

"Our engagement party is tonight," I said, looking straight at him. "Fifty people are coming. And you are here, buying diamond bracelets for your associate."

The sales associate immediately backed away, staring at the floor.

Maverick didn't flinch. He didn't blush. He took a step toward me, his jaw clenched tight, crowding my space.

"Lower your voice," he snapped in a low hiss. "Did you follow me? Are you spying on me now?"

"Answer the question, Maverick."

"I don't have to answer to your delusions," he said, sneering. He didn't care that the staff was watching. His eyes were full of pure contempt. "Violeta hit a major publication milestone yesterday. I bought her a congratulatory gift from our departmental research fund. It is none of your business."

"You touched her hair," I said.

"You are insane," he said. He shook his head, looking disgusted. "God, you are so pathetic, Leanna. You're insecure. You're suffocating. You have no career, no ambition of your own, so you spend your whole day projecting your petty frustrations onto everyone around you."

Every word hit like a slap.

Behind his shoulder, Violeta glanced at me. Her lips curved up into a tiny, cruel smirk. She lightly stroked the diamonds around her wrist.

Maverick pointed a finger at the door. "Go home. Clean yourself up. If you ruin tonight with your childish drama, we are done. Do you hear me?"

I looked at him. I looked at the man I had cooked for, cared for, and buried my own life for.

I didn't yell. I didn't cry.

"I hear you," I said softly.

I turned around and walked out into the street.

The cold wind hit my face. My legs felt hollow, like they belonged to someone else, but they carried me forward, step by step, away from him.

I reached the apartment just as the gray afternoon turned to black.

The rooms were freezing. I didn’t turn on the heat. I took off my coat, hung it in the closet, and stood in the hallway.

The ivory dress hung on the bedroom door. In the shadows, it looked like a pale ghost. On the table, the place cards caught the dim reflection from the streetlamps outside. Fifty people. Fifty names written in gold. My hand had cramped while writing them. My back had ached. Now, they just looked like little headstones.

I sat on the kitchen stool and waited.

At eight o'clock, the lock clicked. Maverick pushed the door open. He stepped inside, shaking the winter chill from his shoulders. He tossed his keys into the small ceramic bowl on the table. The metal rang loud in the quiet room.

He didn’t mention the boutique on Fifth Avenue. He didn’t apologize for screaming at me in front of the clerks. He didn’t even look embarrassed. He took off his suit jacket, draped it over the back of a chair, and set his laptop down.

"I skipped dinner," he said. He didn't look at me. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled them up. "Is there any chicken left?"

"No," I said.

My voice was quiet. It barely traveled across the counter.

Maverick sighed. It was that sharp, irritated sound he made whenever a store clerk was too slow. "Fine. I’ll order something later. I have forty pages of peer reviews to clear before tomorrow."

He opened his laptop. The screen cast a pale, cold blue glow over his face. His fingers began clicking against the keys. Fast. Steady. Like clockwork.

I stood up and walked over to the other side of the dining table. I rested my hands flat against the dark wood.

"Maverick."

The typing didn't stop. "If this is about the store, Leanna, drop it. I already explained it to you. I don't have the bandwidth for another scene."

"Look at me."

His fingers hesitated. Then he lifted his eyes, his brows pulled together in tight, impatient lines. "What?"

"Do you know what happened three years ago?" I asked.

He blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"October fourteenth," I said. Every syllable was distinct. "Three years ago. October fourteenth."

He stared at me. His face was completely blank. There was no flicker of recognition. No sudden tightening around his eyes. His brain searched for the date, found nothing, and discarded it immediately.

"It’s a date, Leanna," he said. "Am I supposed to remember every random Tuesday?"

"It wasn't a random Tuesday." My throat felt dry, but my voice didn't shake. "I was eleven weeks pregnant. I woke up at two in the morning because the pain ripped through my stomach like a knife. I fell off the bed. I crawled on my hands and knees to the bathroom."

Maverick didn't move. He leaned back in his chair, his jaw setting into a hard line.

"I bled all over the white tile," I continued, looking straight into his eyes. "I sat against the bathtub in the dark, holding my stomach, shaking so hard my teeth rattled. I called you five times. Your phone rang and rang, but you never answered. You didn't come home until seven the next morning."

The blue light from his screen reflected in his eyes. He didn't flinch. He didn't show a trace of grief.

Instead, he lifted his right hand and waved it through the air. He swatted at my words as if they were nothing more than a bothersome fly buzzing around his head.

"That was years ago, Leanna," he said. His voice was heavy with disgust. "Why are you always dragging up the past?"

The room went dead still.

The air left my lungs, but it didn't hurt. Inside my chest, the very last thread snapped. It didn't make a sound. It was just a clean, quiet break. The invisible chain that had bound me to him for seven years simply turned to dust.

The blind girl who loved him was gone. The girl who made his tea, ironed his shirts, and prayed for his approval had died.

I looked at him. I saw only a stranger. A small, cold man sitting in the dark.

"We're done," I said.

My voice was so calm it startled me.

Maverick let out a short, contemptuous laugh. He shook his head and looked down at his keyboard.

"Right," he scoffed. "We're done. Very dramatic."

"I mean it, Maverick."

"Leanna, stop it," he snapped, his fingers already back on the keys. "You do this every single time we have an important milestone. You get anxious, you pick an absurd fight, and then you play the victim. It’s exhausting."

"I am not fighting."

"You'll feel differently after the party tomorrow," he said dismissively. He didn't even bother looking up again. "Once the guests are here and everyone congratulates us, you’ll calm down. You always do."

He didn't believe me.

In seven years, I had never walked away. I had swallowed every insult, excused every late night, and buried every tear. He was entirely certain that I had nowhere else to go.

Maverick clicked his mouse a few times, then reached out and slammed his laptop shut. The plastic made a loud, sharp crack.

"I’m going to sleep," he said, standing up. He stretched his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck. "Turn off the lights when you're done sulking. And make sure the steamer didn't leave water spots on my suit."

He turned his back on me and walked down the hall.

The bedroom door shut. The latch clicked into place.

I stayed standing by the table. Five minutes passed. Then ten.

The apartment was pitch black except for the amber glare of the streetlamps filtering through the blinds. Down the hall, the sound began. Low, even, steady breathing.

He was asleep.

A man who had betrayed me. A man who had left me to bleed alone. A man who had just thrown seven years into the dirt. He fell asleep within minutes, his conscience entirely clear.

I pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table.

I rested my hands on the wood. The cold air surrounded me, but I didn't shiver.

There was no anger left in my veins. No grief. No tears. There was only a terrifying, crystal-clear stillness.

My decision was made.