---- Chapter 13 Connor Tate POV: The bankruptcy was swift and brutal. The company | had poured my life into was dismantled and sold for parts. The mansion was seized. My cars were repossessed. One day | was a tech mogul, the next | was standing on a street corner with a single box of my belongings and a bank account that was deep in the red. Katerina left, of course. The moment the money was gone, so was she. Not before she tried to sue me for child support for a child that no longer existed, a desperate, greedy move that was quickly thrown out of court. | heard she tried to salvage her reputation with a tearful tell-all interview, but her story was so full of holes and lies that it only made her a public laughingstock. The last | saw of her, she was being arrested for trying to slander Harley, a final, pathetic act of defiance that landed her in a world of legal trouble. | was alone. Truly alone. | got a job bartending at a dive bar downtown, the kind of place | used to play my guitar in before Harley. The irony was a bitter pill | had to swallow every night. Months passed. | saw a magazine cover one day while wiping down the bar. It was a picture of Harley and Killian, their faces ---- glowing with happiness. She was pregnant, her hand resting on her swollen belly. The headline read: "The Copelands: A Billion-Dollar Baby and a Love Story for the Ages." | bought the magazine. | read the article. It talked about their whirlwind romance, their idyllic honeymoon, their joy at starting a family. It painted a picture of a perfect life, the life that should have been mine. The article mentioned that Harley had taken an active role in Copeland Industries, that her business acumen was unparalleled, that she had single-handedly orchestrated several major acquisitions. It called her a "titan of industry." | finally understood. | hadn't made her. She had made me. And | had been too arrogant, too blind, too stupid to see it. | lost everything because | underestimated the woman who had given me everything. | had mistaken her love for weakness, her support for dependency. The regret was a constant, gnawing ache in my chest. | would see a woman with blue eyes or hear a laugh that sounded like hers, and the pain would be fresh all over again. | deserved it. | knew that. | had been given a gift, a love that was pure and unconditional, and | had thrown it away. Harley was happy now. She had the life she deserved, with a man who deserved her. And me? | was just Connor Tate, a bartender with a broken ---- heart and a lifetime of regret. | was back where | started, a struggling artist with nothing but a guitar and a dream. But this time, | had no one to believe in me. The end.