Chapter 7

Leah's POV

The surgery lasted three hours.

When they wheeled me out of the operating room, the anesthesia was still wearing off. Everything felt heavy and blurred. Even lifting my eyelids took effort.

I was brought back to the recovery room. The walls were bare white. The silence was complete.

Some time later. I wasn't sure how long. A nurse came in to change my dressings.

She took one look at me, alone in that room, and sighed. There was something protective in her voice when she spoke. "You poor thing. Your husband should be ashamed of himself. A surgery this serious and he can't even show up? Not even once?"

I stared at the ceiling above me, my eyes unmoving. My dry lips barely parted. "He's dead."

The nurse choked. Her face froze. She let out an awkward half-smile, clearly unsure what to say, and finished the dressing change in silence before slipping out.

I stayed in that hospital for three days.

For three days, my phone was completely quiet. No call from Ethan. No text. Not even the most basic, perfunctory message to check if I was alive.

It was as if I had ceased to exist. Me, and the child I had just lost, both of us erased from his world entirely.

On the fourth day, I pushed myself upright and checked out.

The nurse offered to call a car for me. I shook my head.

I walked out of the hospital on my own, slowly, one step at a time, carrying a body that had just been through surgery and hadn't fully come back to itself yet.

The midday sun was harsh. It hit my skin and I felt nothing but cold. A cold that came from somewhere deep inside, the kind that couldn't be warmed.

I found a bench on the sidewalk and sat down. My hands were shaking as I opened my social media app and pulled up Ethan's profile.

His most recent post was from last night.

The photo showed soft, romantic lighting. Clara was seated at a grand piano in an elegant gown, playing. Ethan stood behind her, slightly leaned in, his expression tender. Watching her with a warmth in his eyes I had never once seen him direct at me.

The caption was short.

Lost and found. For the rest of my life. It's you.

I stared at that photo for a long time. Long enough for the screen to dim. Long enough for my vision to go blurry.

Then I closed out of his page, went to my blocked list, and added his name.

From this point on, his future belonged to Clara.

Mine had nothing to do with him.

I went back to the villa and finished packing.

There wasn't much left.

Everything worth discarding had already been discarded. Everything worth deleting had already been deleted.

I had one suitcase. A few old clothes, and my acceptance letter.

The butler saw me coming downstairs with the suitcase and startled. "Ma'am, where are you going? Does Mr. Faulkner know?"

I stopped and looked at this man who had looked after me for three years. I smiled, gently. "I'm leaving. And please don't call me ma'am anymore. This house will have a new lady soon enough."

He stood there, not knowing what to say.

I didn't say anything else either.

I picked up my suitcase and walked out the front door without looking back.

Three days until I leave.

I wasn't going to wait another three days in this house.

I would check into a hotel tonight and go straight to the airport from there.

I was done with this place where I had buried three years of my life and my love.