---- Chapter 9 Connor Tate POV: Katerina found me lurking at the back of the garden, a ghost at the feast. She must have followed me from the house. "Connor!" she whispered, grabbing my arm. Her face was a mixture of relief and anxiety. "| was so worried. What are we doing here?" Then she saw the wedding, her eyes widening. "Is that... Harley?" A vicious, triumphant smile spread across her face. "So she really did it. She married that old man." Then, her expression soured. "She's probably just trying to make you jealous, Connor. A woman who gets remarried the day after her divorce? It's a sham. She'll come crawling back to you." She tried to comfort me, to rub my arm, but | flinched away from her touch. | couldn't stand the sight of her. Her presence was a suffocating reminder of every mistake | had made. Her cheap perfume, her whining voice, her plain, forgettable face. When | compared her to Harley, radiant in her wedding dress, a wave of self-loathing washed over me. What had | done? | had thrown away a diamond for a piece of glass. "| can fix this, Connor," Katerina pleaded, sensing my revulsion. "I'll go talk to her. I'll tell her I'll disappear. I'll get rid of the ---- baby. I'll do whatever it takes to get her back for you." Her words just made me feel sicker. | didn't want her help. | didn't want her. | wanted Harley. "Just be quiet," | hissed, my eyes fixed on the couple at the altar. The ceremony began. | watched Killian slip a ring onto Harley's finger. | watched as he leaned in to kiss her. But this kiss was different from the one in the ballroom. It was slow, tender, and deeply loving. And Harley... she kissed him back. She melted into him, her hand coming up to cup his cheek. It was real. The sight shattered the last of my denial. This wasn't a game. She was gone. "| now pronounce you husband and wife," the officiant declared. The crowd erupted in applause. A guttural roar of despair tore from my throat. | surged forward, shoving people out of my way, my vision tunneled on the woman who was supposed to be mine. "HARLEY!" Killian's bodyguards were on me in an instant, grabbing my arms and hauling me back. "No!" | screamed, struggling against their iron grip. "Harley, you can't! Webelong together! Don't you remember? You promised!" ---- She turned, her face tight with annoyance. The love, the pain, the pity-it was all gone. All that was left was irritation. As if | were a fly buzzing at her wedding. She walked towards me, her expression hardening with every step. | thought, for a wild, hopeful moment, that she was coming back to me. Then she slapped me. The crack echoed through the stunned silence of the garden. My head snapped to the side, my cheek stinging. "That," she said, her voice ringing with cold fury, "was for abandoning me to Henderson." She slapped me again, harder this time. "That was for telling me | was a substitute." Another slap. "That was for Katerina." And again. "And that was for destroying five years of my life." She raised her hand for a fifth time, but Katerina, shrieking, broke free from the crowd and threw herself in front of me. "Stop it! Leave him alone, you bitch!" ---- Harley didn't even hesitate. Her hand followed through, the slap landing on Katerina's cheek with a sickening thud. "And that," Harley said, her voice dripping with contempt, "was just because | felt like it." Katerina screamed, clutching her swollen face. "My baby! You hit a pregnant woman!" "Then you should have stayed out of my way," Harley said, flexing her stinging fingers. She looked at me, her eyes burning with a hatred | had never seen before. "Now get out of my life. Both of you." She turned her back on us and walked back to her new husband, who was waiting with a proud, possessive smile. Killian' s men dragged me and a sobbing Katerina out of the garden and threw us onto the pavement outside the hotel The grand doors closed, shutting me out for good. | lay on the cold concrete, my cheek on fire, my heart in ashes, and listened to the sound of the joyful music starting up inside. My life was over.