Chapter 3

Just then, my phone vibrated against the barren kitchen counter. It was Riannon.

When I picked up, she hesitated for a long, agonizing minute before her breath hitched over the line. "Vesper... I don't know how to tell you this. I'm parked outside the hospital. I just saw Draven. He's... he's entirely wrapped around another woman. They're holding onto each other like the world is ending."

"I know," I said, my voice flat. "Let him."

Riannon choked on a gasp. "Vesper... are you in shock? Did you hear what I just said?"

Hearing the raw panic in my best friend's voice pulled a dry, humorless laugh from my throat. "I'm perfectly fine, Ria. Draven and I finalized our dissolution today. We're divorced."

"Divorced?!"

I gave her the clinical breakdown. The terminal diagnosis. The courthouse. The memory-suppressant serum currently working its way through my bloodstream.

By the time I finished, the line exploded with violence.

"That absolute, undeniable motherfucker!" Riannon snarled, her voice shaking with rage. "You walked away from a guaranteed fellowship at the Lumière Institute for him! When his startup was bleeding out, you pulled every string in the European pharma market to finance his empire! And now he feeds you a neuro-toxin so he can play groom for another woman without feeling guilty? The sheer, unadulterated audacity!"

I closed my eyes. A phantom ache blossomed in my chest, draining the blood from my face.

Five years ago, when Draven Hale had nothing but debts and a hollowed-out corporate shell, I had practically bled myself dry to resurrect his company. Back then, he would hold me in the dark, his face buried in my neck, swearing to whatever god would listen that I was his religion.

But over the years, the pedestal he put me on became a cage. He started demanding I be the "understanding" wife, the graceful anchor who could politely endure his lingering pity for Lenora Veyra's fragile health.

Why was unconditional devotion so effortlessly simple for me, yet so impossibly hard for him?

On the other end of the line, Riannon had finally screamed herself out. She caught her breath, her tone dropping into something lethally cold.

"He's going to choke on this, Vesper. When he realizes what he threw away—and what he strapped you to—he is going to drown in his own regret." She paused. "He doesn't know there's no counteragent. Let him suffer. It's the perfect way for you to sever the cord."

I opened my eyes and looked toward the balcony. Through the glass, I could see the freshly turned soil in the empty planter where I had buried the envelope and my wedding ring.

I knew Draven better than I knew my own pulse. Whenever the stress of his empire—or the weight of his own guilt—became too loud, he would stand out on that balcony with a glass of neat scotch. If there was ever a day he woke up and realized what he had done to me, he would find that letter.

Later that night, the sharp clatter of hangers scraping against wood dragged me out of an uneasy sleep.

I stepped out of bed and moved to the doorway. The clock read 2 A.M.

Draven was tearing through the shelves of my walk-in closet.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

He froze. He turned around, taking in my thin silk nightgown and bare feet against the cold hardwood. A fierce frown cut between his brows. He immediately stripped off his heavy cashmere overcoat and entirely enveloped my shoulders in it, pulling the lapels close to my neck.

"It's freezing. Why are you out of bed dressed like this?" he murmured.

I ignored the warmth radiating from his coat. The toxic duality of his care was suffocating. "What are you looking for, Draven?"

He didn't miss a beat. "I need to borrow your wedding dress. Lenora wants to wear it for the ceremony."

He looked at me with faux-gentleness, utilizing the very lie he'd constructed. "You probably don't remember, given the symptoms. It's the gown you wore when you were married."

I stared at him in utter silence.

Of course I remembered. Draven had spent two grueling months personally sketching that gown with a master couturier, just because I had offhandedly mentioned I wanted something completely unique.

"This dress will always, only, belong to you," he had whispered against my lips on our wedding night.

Yet here he was, gaslighting me into surrendering the very fabric of our vows to fulfill his dying ex-lover's fantasy.

"Is the dress really that important?" I asked. "Why that specific one?"

My question seemed to snag on a memory in his mind, because his hands stalled. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before the smooth, corporate liar returned.

"Because it's a vintage masterwork," he lied. "There's only one in the world. Lenora loves it, and it's her dying wish to walk down the aisle in it."

Seeing my gaze drop, he quickly added, "Don't worry. The second the ceremony is over, I'll have it dry-cleaned and returned to the closet. In the meantime, tell me whatever you want. I'll buy it for you."

Another flawless, watertight lie.

The day after our wedding, I had watched him meticulously seal that gown in archival bags, treating it like a sacred artifact. I had teased him for being so dramatic about silk.

"Because you gave this dress its soul, Vesper," he had told me, his eyes dark and serious. "I'm preserving this memory forever."

And now, because Lenora casually decided she liked it, the sacred artifact was just another prop to pacify her.

"It's late. Go back to sleep. I have to head out," Draven said, oblivious to the fracture in my gaze. He draped the garment bag over his arm and brushed past me into the dark hallway.

I stood alone in the dim room and let his coat slide off my shoulders. I stared into the gutted closet, a crushing wave of disappointment and grief rising in my throat to suffocate me.

"It doesn't matter," I told myself, staring at the empty space. "Just wait. Once the sweep is finished, I won't care anymore."

As if summoned by the thought, a vicious, jagged spike of agony drove through the center of my brain.

My breath caught. I gripped the doorframe as my vision whited out. Another massive block of memory fractured and dissolved into the dark.