Chapter 3
After Julian left, I stood in the entryway for a long time.
He was still watching me when the elevator doors began to close.
There was possession in his eyes. And certainty.
He was certain I would stay exactly where he left me.
Certain that no matter what he did, I would still be there when he turned around.
When the doors shut completely, I went back into the living room.
The penthouse was huge and silent.
I had chosen every piece of furniture myself. I remembered where every painting had been hung.
Once, this place had made me believe I finally had a home.
Now it looked like an expensive cage.
I went to the study first.
The safe code was our wedding anniversary.
Julian had never changed it.
He assumed that even if I opened the safe, I wouldn't understand the documents inside.
When the door clicked open, I found two authorization forms.
One transferred control of my forty-percent stake.
The other transferred the rights to Starlight.
My name had already been signed on both.
The handwriting was almost perfect.
Even the slight hook at the end of my signature had been copied.
I stared at my own forged name as my fingers slowly went cold.
The betrayal hadn't started last night.
He had been planning this for a long time.
Maybe even while he held me and promised he would never let me go, he was already preparing to sign my name for me.
I photographed every page and sent the images to Arthur.
His reply came quickly.
This is enough. Leave the rest to me.
I didn't tear the documents up.
I wanted them intact when they became evidence at the board meeting.
Then I began to pack.
I didn't have much that truly belonged to me.
A few clothes. My grandfather's old camera. A notebook filled with storyboards.
Most of the jewelry in the dressing room had been bought by Julian.
I left every piece behind.
They looked like chains with price tags.
When I opened the nightstand, I found a photo from our first year of marriage.
In it, I was leaning against Julian's shoulder, smiling without a trace of caution.
Back then, he would finish a meeting at two in the morning and drive across the city to pick me up from set.
When I had a fever, he stayed beside my bed all night.
When my grandfather died, Julian held me and said he would be my family from then on.
We had once kept each other warm.
Those good memories were real.
That was why the pain was real too.
If he'd never loved me, this would have been easier.
The cruelest part was that he had.
But his love had always been tangled with possession, selfishness, and the belief that he knew what was best for me.
He could love me and hurt me at the same time.
Then expect me to stay.
My phone rang.
It was a video call from Julian.
When I answered, he was standing beside his private jet.
Sea wind pushed through his hair while staff loaded luggage behind him.
"What are you doing, baby?"
"Working on the script."
I turned the camera toward Starlight on the desk.
He couldn't see that every page inside had been replaced with blank paper.
Julian smiled.
"Thank you."
A woman's laugh sounded off camera.
It stopped almost immediately.
Someone must have warned Isabella.
Julian's expression didn't change.
"Are you eating properly while I'm gone? Your stomach has been bothering you. I told the chef to make something light, so don't skip it."
"I'll eat in a little while."
He even asked whether I missed him.
I looked at the face on the screen.
This man was the father of my child.
Only hours earlier, I had still wondered whether I should give him one last chance.
All he had to do was turn back.
All he had to do was tell me the truth once.
He didn't.
"I miss you," I said.
The smile in Julian's eyes deepened.
"I miss you too. I'll be home soon."
When the call ended, I sat on the edge of the bed.
Only then did the tears come.
There was no sound.
No breakdown.
They simply wouldn't stop.
A moment later, an anonymous message arrived.
It was a photo taken from a bed.
Julian was asleep, naked, with his face against the chest of a woman covered in kiss marks.
I didn't have to guess who sent it.
Below the photo, Isabella had written:
He says holding you is like holding a block of wood. Stiff. Boring. Look at how wild he was with me last night. This is what real desire looks like.
I didn't answer.
There was no point.
I pressed one hand over my stomach and was suddenly afraid.
Afraid the baby could feel my grief.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"Mommy chose the wrong father for you."
By the time the doorbell rang, I had dried my tears.
Damien stood outside.
He didn't come in. He only handed me a document envelope.
Inside were confirmation that my proxy authority had been revoked, the divorce papers, and a new form of identification.
Serena Davis.
Not Vance.
The name I had been born with.
For a moment, I barely recognized it.
Since the wedding, everyone had called me Mrs. Vance.
It had been so long since anyone remembered that I once had a name of my own.
"Everything is ready," Damien said. "The car is downstairs."
I nodded.
He saw the luggage in the living room. He saw my red eyes.
He didn't ask a single question.
Only when I started to close the door did he speak.
"Leaving someone who hurts you doesn't mean you lost."
My hand tightened around the handle.
"I know."
The truth was, I didn't know it yet.
I only knew I had nowhere else to go.
I removed my wedding ring.
A pale band remained around my finger.
I placed the ring on top of Starlight.
Then I opened the first page and wrote one final line.
You can't take what was never yours. That includes me.
Before walking out, I looked back once.
Three years of marriage lived inside those walls.
So did the child I had once planned to tell Julian about.
I didn't leave the ultrasound photo behind.
He didn't deserve to know.
The elevator doors slid shut.
I thought leaving would hurt.
Instead, I felt light.
At nine the next morning, Pioneer Media's board meeting began on schedule.
Julian would be waiting in a villa in the Maldives for me to hand him Starlight.
Instead, I was going to tell him the truth myself.
His wife, his shares, and his movie had never belonged to him.