---- Chapter 5 Eliza POV: A sudden, inexplicable panic woke me from a restless sleep. The space beside me in the bed was cold. Cash was gone. My eyes flew to the corner of the room where he always left his cane propped against the wall. It was still there. The doctor' s warnings echoed in my head. No pressure on the leg for long periods. Never walk without support. He had a follow-up surgery scheduled in a few months, a final procedure to remove the pins in his tibia. Fear, an old and familiar reflex, shot through me. | threw back the covers and ran out of the bedroom, my bare feet silent on the hardwood floors | had chosen for him. As | reached the top of the short flight of stairs leading down to the main living area, | heard voices. Cash, and his best friend, Dane Wells. And then | heard a sound that made my blood run cold. Footsteps. Normal, even footsteps. Not the familiar, uneven gait of Cash leaning on his cane. "You're going to give her a heart attack, man," Dane said, his voice laced with amusement. "Walking around like that. What ---- if she sees you?" | froze, my hand gripping the railing, my knuckles white. "She's a heavy sleeper," Cash replied, his voice casual. "Besides, | have to get used to it. The surgery's in two months. Can't exactly fake a limp after they take the pins out, can |?" Dane sighed. "I still don't get why you've kept this up for so long. Five years, Cash. It was one thing in the beginning, to get your family off your back, but now? It's sick." "It's not sick," Cash snapped, his voice low and sharp. "It's necessary. Do you have any idea how brilliant Eliza is? How ambitious? If she thought | was fine, she would have left for that law firm in San Francisco years ago. The limp... it keeps her here. It keeps her needing me." The world tilted on its axis. The air rushed out of my lungs. It keeps her here. The limp. The "permanent" injury. The story that had defined our entire relationship. It was a lie. A tool. A cage he had built around me, bar by gilded bar. "So what's the plan?" Dane asked, his voice dripping with skepticism. "You marry Catherine, the perfect society bride, and you keep Eliza on the side? The pure, untouched love of your life? You can't have both." ---- "Why not?" Cash' s voice was pure, undiluted arrogance. "Catherine is a habit. She's... comfortable. She's what my family wants. She'll be my wife. But Eliza... Eliza has my heart. |' Il give her everything she's ever wanted, anything to make her happy. She just can't be Mrs. Robinson. It's a small price to pay." A small price. My entire future. My dignity. My name. A wave of nausea so violent it buckled my knees washed over me. | pressed my hand to my mouth, choking back the bile that rose in my throat. He wasn' t just a liar. He was a monster. A selfish, entitled monster who saw my love as something to be owned, to be managed, to be trapped. Every sacrifice | had made, every compromise, every time I'd put his needs before my own because of his "injury"-it was all based on a grotesque manipulation. He wanted it all. The socially advantageous wife and the devoted secret lover. The family-approved dynasty and the pure, untainted adoration. | was the adoration. The secret. The fool A low, guttural laugh escaped my lips, quickly turning into a strangled sob. | was a joke. My entire life for the past five years was a pathetic, tragic joke. Then, a pain, sharp and terrifying, ripped through my abdomen. ---- It was a vicious, twisting cramp that stole my breath and sent me crumpling to the floor. | curled into a ball on the cold hardwood, my body convulsing. | couldn't call for help. | couldn't make a sound. The pain was a punishment. For my stupidity. For being so blind. For loving a man who was nothing but a beautiful, empty lie. The voices downstairs faded as | heard the front door close. He was gone. The pain intensified, a relentless, searing fire in my belly. | was alone, drowning in the ruins of my life. As my vision blurred and the darkness began to creep in at the edges, a single, lucid thought pierced through the agony. | dreamed of the first time | met him. He was a guest lecturer in my contract law class at Columbia, charming and brilliant. He' d singled me out, challenging my arguments, a playful glint in his eye. After class, he' d waited for me, leaning against the old oak tree in the center of campus. In my dream, | saw him standing there, waiting. And | turned around and walked the other way.