---- Chapter 15 Gael arranged for Julian to be airlifted to a modern hospital in a neighboring country. Julian refused to go, thrashing and yelling for Ember, but he was too weak to resist. As they were loading him onto the plane, Ember appeared. She stood on the tarmac, her arms crossed, her face a blank mask. Julian' s eyes widened. "Ember!" he cried, struggling against his restraints. "Ember, please! Talk to me! Let me explain!" The medics ignored him. Ember didn't move, didn't speak. She just watched him with those cold, distant eyes. As the plane's ramp began to close, he saw her turn and walk away without a backward glance. In that moment, he knew. She didn't want to see him. She didn't want his apologies. She wanted to be free of him. He was sent back to New York. The first thing he did was escalate his search. He poured what was left of the Copeland fortune into it, offering a massive reward for any information leading to Ember. He went on live television, crying, begging her to come home. He became a social media phenomenon, the "billionaire searching for his lost love." The world became obsessed with ---- their story, a global soap opera. Mercenaries, adventurers, and reporters fanned out across the globe, all looking for the mysterious, scarred woman. But Ember, with the help of Gael King and his powerful, discreet Washington D.C. family, had vanished. Julian' s obsession began to affect the Copeland empire. With him ignoring the business, the company's stock plummeted. His father, furious, tried to intervene, but Julian had him locked away in the family estate. "You kept me from her once," Julian had snarled. "Never again." The shareholders, seeing their fortunes disappear, grew desperate. They arranged for an "accident." Julian was ambushed on his way home from yet another fruitless meeting with a private investigator. He fought back, but he was outnumbered. He was beaten and left for dead in an alley. He woke up in the hospital, unable to feel his legs. He was paralyzed from the waist down. The empire was lost. His body was broken. He had nothing left. But his obsession remained. "Find her," he begged his father, who had been reinstated as head of the family. "Please. Find Ember. She can fix me." Meanwhile, Gael King finally confessed his feelings to Ember. "| know about your past," he told her, as they stood on a dusty road in a new, equally desperate country. "And | don't care. | ---- fell in love with you the moment | saw you." Ember was stunned. She tried to refuse him, telling him she wasn't ready, that her heart was too broken. "I'll wait," he said, his blue eyes full of a love so patient and pure it made her ache. "But | hope you won't make me wait too long." They continued their work, their bond growing stronger with each life they saved together. And slowly, cautiously, Ember ' s heart began to heal.