Chapter 2

The next morning, I woke to the sound of my phone buzzing relentlessly on the nightstand. I groaned, rolling over and burying my face in the pillow. It was too early. Way too early. But the buzzing didn’t stop.

With a curse, I sat up and grabbed my phone, squinting at the screen. Notifications from every social media platform I had accounts on were flooding my inbox. My heart skipped a beat as I read the first headline.

“Nathan Sterling Hijacks Social Media: Posts Heartbreaking Ultrasound Image.”

I froze. No. He wouldn’t.

But he had.

My fingers trembled as I opened Instagram. There, plastered across his profile, was a grainy ultrasound image. Our daughter. The little girl we’d lost. The caption read: “She was real. And she mattered.”

The comments were already in the thousands.

“OMG, this is so sad!”

“Team Nathan forever! Isabella is such a witch for what she did.”

“I’m literally crying right now. Why can’t they just move on?”

“Because she’s a monster who didn’t want her own baby!”

My stomach churned. He’d done it. The bastard had actually done it. Uploaded that image for the whole world to see, to pity him, to turn against me.

I switched apps, but it was the same everywhere. Facebook. Twitter. TikTok. He’d posted it all, spreading our private grief across every platform like a digital wildfire.

My phone buzzed again, and I saw the notification from my own app. “Ex-Husband Emotion Monitoring” had gone into overdrive, fans on both sides duking it out in the comments section.

“He’s such a liar!”

“Prove it!”

“His heart rate is 150 BPM! That’s GUILT right there!”

“No way! That’s just stress from dealing with her crazy ass!”

I tossed the phone aside, unable to bear it anymore. Nathan had played his card. Now it was my turn.

But as the day dragged on, I found myself unable to focus. The numbers on my computer screen blurred together, the code I was supposed to be writing looking like gibberish. All I could see was that ultrasound. Her tiny little form, frozen in time.

I pushed away from my desk and stood, pacing the length of my office. The glass walls seemed to close in around me, trapping me in this nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.

A soft knock at the door made me jump. I turned to see Maya standing there, a look of quiet concern on her face.

“You okay, Bella?” she asked, using the nickname only she dared to use anymore.

“I’m fine,” I snapped, though we both knew it was a lie.

Maya sighed and walked into the room, closing the door behind her. “You’re not sleeping again, are you?”

I shrugged, turning to stare out the window. The city lights twinkled below, a sea of strangers living their blissfully ordinary lives.

“I don’t need sleep,” I muttered.

“You need something,” Maya said gently. “You can’t keep going on like this. The nightmares—”

“I said I’m fine!” I spun around, my voice sharp.

Maya flinched but didn’t back down. “Bella, listen to me. You’re running yourself into the ground. Physically, mentally, emotionally. You need to rest.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but she held up a hand.

“Just for a few hours. Please. You can’t fight if you’re exhausted.”

I clenched my fists, wanting to scream, to throw something, to break this endless cycle of pain and rage. But Maya was right. I couldn’t keep going like this.

“Fine,” I bit out. “I’ll try.”

Maya nodded, a small, sad smile on her face. “That’s all I can ask.”

The next morning, I was still in my office when the chaos erupted.

Helicopters buzzed overhead, their rotors slicing through the quiet dawn. Paparazzi swarmed the streets below, cameras flashing like a strobe light.

I rushed to the window, my heart pounding, and that’s when I saw him.

Nathan.

Kneeling in the middle of the sidewalk, directly across from my corporate headquarters. The rain poured down in sheets, soaking through his dress shirt, plastering his hair to his forehead. He didn’t seem to notice.

His eyes were fixed on my building, on my office window, and I could feel the weight of his gaze like a physical touch.

“Oh my god,” Maya breathed from behind me. “He’s—”

I didn’t wait to hear the rest. I was already running, my heels clicking against the marble floors as I sprinted toward the elevators.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, the app alert going off like crazy.

“Heart rate 180 BPM!”

“190!”

“200! Oh my god, he’s going to give himself a heart attack!”

I didn’t need the app to tell me. I could see it in the way he swayed slightly, his skin pale, his lips blue from the cold.

“Isabella!” he called, his voice hoarse, breaking through the storm. “Please! I’m sorry!”

The paparazzi went wild, snapping photos, shouting questions.

But I just stood there, frozen in the doorway, staring at the man who’d destroyed me.