---- Chapter 16 Julian' s father looked down at his broken son, a pathetic creature trapped in a hospital bed. "Fix you? You think she is a miracle worker? Look at yourself, Julian. You are finished." He was. The family abandoned him, cutting him off completely. He was moved to a cheap, state-funded nursing home, a forgotten relic of a fallen dynasty. One day, he sawit on the small, flickering television in his room A news report about a terrorist attack in a remote African village. The camera panned across the chaos, and for a fleeting second, he saw her. Ember, her face smudged with dirt, working tirelessly to save a wounded child. And then he saw him. The handsome doctor with the blue eyes. Gael King. He was working alongside her, their movements synchronized, a team. And Julian saw the way Gael looked at her, with an open, honest adoration that Julian had never been capable of. Anew, venomous emotion took root in his heart: jealousy. Gael saw the same news report. He saw the world still celebrating Julian as a tragic, romantic hero. He saw the online comments, thousands of them, urging Ember to "stop being so dramatic and go back to the man who loves her." ---- Rage, cold and absolute, filled him. He picked up his satellite phone. "It's time," he said to his family's chief of security. "Let's burn them to the ground." While Julian was playing the heartbroken lover for the world, Gael King, with the silent, ruthless efficiency of his immensely powerful family, dismantled what was left of the Copeland empire. He orchestrated stock market crashes, instigated corporate espionage, and leaked damning information to the press. The Copeland name became synonymous with scandal and failure. They were ruined, completely and utterly. Julian, trapped in his bed, knew nothing of this. His world had shrunk to the four walls of his bleak room and the desperate, fading hope that Ember would come back to him. A year passed. One evening, Gael found Ember sitting alone, watching the sunset. "I'm tired of running," she said softly. He came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Then let's go home," he said. "Come back to D.C. with me." He kissed the scarred skin on her neck. "I'll give you everything, Ember. My name, my fortune, my heart. Just say yes." She turned in his arms and smiled, a real, radiant smile that he had waited a year to see. "Okay," she whispered.