Chapter 2

Sophia drifted through the rain like a ghost. She didn’t even remember leaving the Sterling tower. She left her car in the garage and walked all the way back to the mansion. The cold rain soaked through her thin clothes, seeping into her bones.

She had never set foot in Adrian’s study. Not once. But tonight she pushed the door open.

The first drawer she pulled held a torn pair of black stockings. Stained with something she didn’t want to name.

Those weren’t hers.

Every night Adrian claimed he had work, he was here. Pleasuring himself with his secretary's stockings.

Bile climbed her throat. She doubled over, dry-heaving onto the polished mahogany.

Underneath the stockings, she found the divorce papers.

Adrian had already signed them.

Before the wedding, he had knelt before her. “If I ever betray you, you will leave me forever. I will die alone.”

Her fingertip traced the dark stroke of his name. A dull, splintering pain bloomed behind her ribs.

A flood of memories washed over her. When she was mocked as the housekeeper’s daughter, Adrian shielded her.

“Who dares bully her?” When someone confessed to her, he announced to the world, “Sophia is my future wife.”

When she felt she wasn’t good enough, he proposed five times. Five rings worth a fortune. She still kept them safe.

By the time she came back to herself, her face was wet.

Stroke by careful stroke, she signed her name beside his.

Ten years of love. And in the end, Adrian had betrayed her anyway.

A tear fell on the paper. She saw him again—the first time he proposed.

When his mother had ordered Sophia out of the Sterling household, had thrown himself into the lake and threatened to drown unless they let her stay.

After the staff had pulled him out, blue-lipped and shivering, he had pressed a ring into her palm and proposed for the first time.

*Sophia, you are the only choice I will ever make. Forever.*

The diamond had been just as bright then as it was now. Only the heart that had given it had changed.

Sophia walked out to the manor’s private lake. She pulled the ring off her finger and let it fall into the dark water. It sank without a sound. Like their love had been swallowed, beyond any hope of rescue.

She stood in the night wind until dawn broke. She collapsed in the foyer of the mansion.

The maid screamed. Everyone knew Sophia was Adrian's whole world. She fumbled for the phone and called him at once.

The call connected, then dropped.

She tried again. And again. Nine calls in a row before someone finally picked up.

It was not Adrian's voice on the other end.

It was a woman's moan.

The maid froze, the phone shaking in her hand, and turned slowly toward Sophia.

Sophia had woken at some point. She did not know when. She lay on the marble floor with her chest squeezed in a fist of pain, every breath a knife.

She let out a soft, broken laugh. “He won’t come. Call an ambulance.”

Her fever spiked. Seizures. The paramedics rushed her to the ER. Through the haze, she saw Adrian carrying a woman—Bella. He was lowering her onto a gurney with terrible, tender care.

A doctor said, “Mr. Sterling, your friend just has a small tear from… enthusiasm. She’ll be fine.”

But Adrian still panicked. “Call every specialist. Operate now.”

“Sir, there’s only one OR left. Another patient is critical—”

*“She can wait.”* His voice was ice.

Sophia's gurney was pushed against the corridor wall. A fire burned inside her—but it burned away every last ember of their youth. Of her love.

Her belly cramped, sharp and wrong. A nurse gasped. “Blood! So much blood! This patient is miscarrying!”

Adrian glanced over. He saw nothing but half a face, drained of all color.

The nurse begged. *“Mr. Sterling, this patient won’t make it. Could we—”*

“My friend is my love, she is badly hurt. As for the other… she was just unlucky.”

Each word drove a knife into Sophia’s heart. In Adrian’s eyes, she meant nothing.

She blacked out.

When she woke, her abdomen still ached. A nurse looked at her with pity.

*“I’m sorry, miss. Ten minutes earlier, and we could have saved your baby…”*

The child she had waited ten years for. Dead. Killed by its own father.

*Adrian,* she thought. *I wonder how you’ll feel when you find out.*

She pressed her palm to her flat belly. *I’m sorry, little one. If there’s no love, better you never came.*

Her tears had all run dry. Her voice was sandpaper. *“Can I see him?”*

The four‑month fetus was tiny. No fingers or toes yet.

Sophia took the body to the crematorium herself. The small urn fit in her arms.

Afterward, she did two things.

She filed for divorce at the courthouse.

And she bought a plane ticket. One month away.

She would leave Adrian.

Forever.