---- Chapter 10 "No," Julian repeated, shaking his head as if he could physically deny the reality crashing down on him. He grabbed his father's arm, his grip surprisingly strong. "Where is she? Tell me where she went! | need to talk to her!" Carlo looked at his son, his expression a mixture of pity and disappointment. "She's gone, Julian. She left the country. She asked me to tell you... to be happy with Estelle. And to never look for her." The words were a death sentence. Julian's body went limp, all the strength draining out of him in an instant. He collapsed to his knees, a raw, animalistic sound of despair tearing from his throat. "No! It's not like that! | was going to marry her! It's always been her!" he cried, the words tumbling out in a broken, desperate torrent. "Why doesn't she believe me?" 2 He tried to stand, to run, to find her, but his father's security guards materialized, blocking his path. "Let me go!" he screamed, struggling against them. "| have to find her! Ember! | can't live without you!" In that moment of pure agony, the truth hit him with the force of a tidal wave. It wasn't gratitude. It wasn't debt. He was in ---- love with Ember. Deeply, irrevocably, and he had only realized it now that she was gone. The thought of Estelle now felt like a phantom limb, an old ache that meant nothing compared to this gaping, vital wound. "You fool," his father said with a heavy sigh. "You only value what you've lost." Carlo's face hardened. "She knew, Julian. She knew about you and Estelle at the hospital. She knew everything." Julian froze. He looked up at his father, his face a mask of horror. She knew. She had stood outside that hospital-room door and heard him say he loved another woman. She had heard him say she didn' t matter. The memory of every time he had chosen Estelle over her, every casual betrayal, every dismissive word, flooded his mind. He had done this. He had taken her pure, selfless love and ground it into dust with his own selfish, blind obsession. He let out a guttural scream of pure, unadulterated pain. He fought with renewed, desperate strength, finally breaking free from the guards. He ran, stumbling and falling, out of the church He didn' t know where he was going. He just had to find her. He had to explain. He had to beg for her forgiveness. He tripped on the curb, his head hitting the pavement hard. Blood streamed down his face, but he barely felt it. He got up and kept running. He ran all the way back to the penthouse. He burst through ---- the door, his chest heaving, calling her name. The apartment was silent and cavernously empty. He saw the bare walls, the empty closets, the trash bags full of his life that he hadn't even noticed before. He remembered seeing her pack. He remembered asking her what she was doing. She had been planning this. She had been saying goodbye, and he had been too blind to see it. He sank to the floor in the middle of the living room, a broken man in a broken home. A single, sharp line of pain shot through his chest, and he knew, with a certainty that terrified him, that something inside him had just snapped. He had hurt her. He had destroyed the one person who had ever truly loved him. He had thrown away his own heart. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed, a profound, soul- crushing regret consuming him whole.