---- Chapter 16 Desmond Day POV: | rented a small hotel room near Evelena' s apartment building. Every morning, | sent a bouquet of white lilies, her favorite, to their address. Every evening, | cooked the simple meals she used to love-spaghetti carbonara, chicken pot pie-and left them with the doorman, along with a handwritten letter pouring out my regret, my love, my desperate hope for a second chance. For two weeks, there was no response. Then, one afternoon, my phone rang. It was her. "Meet me at the park on the corner in ten minutes," she said, her voice cold and distant, a stranger' s voice. Then she hung up. | found her on a bench overlooking a small pond. She looked .. different. Healthier. The perpetual sadness that had clouded her eyes for years was gone, replaced by a calm, clear strength. She didn' t look at me as | approached. "What do you want, Desmond?" she asked, her voice flat. | sat on the far end of the bench, my hands trembling. "I want to say I'm sorry, Ariel. For everything." "l know," she said. "You' ve said that in twenty-eight letters." ---- "l want you back," | whispered, the words raw with a pain that was almost physical. "| made a mistake. A terrible, life- ruining mistake. It was never a real divorce, it was just... business. You know that." She finally turned to look at me, and her eyes were filled with a chilling, pitying contempt. "Stop lying, Desmond. You' re not even good at it anymore." My heart stopped. "What?" "The night | signed the papers," she said, her voice a dead, emotionless monotone. "I heard you. In the study. On the phone with Aurora." The blood drained from my face. "| heard you tell her you were going to propose on the day of the IPO," she continued, each word a hammer blow. "I heard you call the ten years we spent together a 'shameful nightmare' ." | couldn' t breathe. "Do you have any idea what that feels like, Desmond?" she asked, her voice still terrifyingly calm. "To have your entire life, your entire love, dismissed as a bad dream? | cried for three days. | didn' t eat. | didn' t sleep. | just replayed your words in my head, over and over, until | thought | would go insane. And then... | just stopped. | stopped feeling anything at all for you." She looked away, back at the pond. "So, you see, there was no ---- 'fake' divorce. It was very, very real. We are divorced. We are done." "No," | choked out, desperation clawing at my throat. | slid off the bench and onto my knees in front of her, ignoring the stares of passersby. "Ariel, please. Give me another chance. | can' t live without you." She looked down at me, at my pathetic, kneeling form, and her expression was one of complete indifference. "You know, it' s funny," she said, a small, mirthless smile on her lips. "| used to think that too. | tried to kill myself for you twice. | thought my life was meaningless without your love. How stupid | was." She stood up, brushing off her skirt. "No one is indispensable, Desmond. | learned to live without you. Now, it' s your turn." She walked away, leaving me kneeling on the cold pavement, my world collapsing into a black hole of my own making. | didn' t give up. | couldn' t. | started following her, keeping a respectful distance, just needing to see her, to be near her. | watched her go to her language classes, to the art supply store, to the library. And then, one day, | saw him. He met her after her class, a handsome, smiling man with kind eyes. He was carrying a coffee for her. She smiled when she saw him, a genuine, radiant smile that | hadn' t seen on her ---- face in years. A smile | had forgotten she was capable of. He tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear, his gesture easy and intimate. She didn' t flinch. She leaned into his touch. A savage, primal jealousy, so intense it made me physically sick, tore through me. She was mine. She had always been mine. | would not let some other man take her from me. | would find out who he was. And | would destroy him.