---- Chapter 9 Cash POV: My wedding day was a disaster. A farce. It became the joke of the year among New York' s elite. The groom, who disappeared minutes before the ceremony was set to begin, only to be found an hour later by a frantic search party, pacing the shoreline miles from the venue. When they dragged me back, my tuxedo was damp with sea spray and my face was a mask of thunder. | went through the motions, my vows tasting like ash in my mouth. Catherine' s family was furious. My father was apoplectic. He cornered me in his study after the reception, the air thick with the smell of whiskey and his rage. "You have embarrassed this family for the last time," he seethed, his hand gripping the head of his cane so tightly his knuckles were white. He raised it, and for a moment, | thought he was going to strike me. He' d done it before. But this time, | didn' t flinch. "Where is she?" | demanded, my voice low and dangerous. "She is gone," he spat. "As she should have been years ago. Your concern now is your wife, your new business alliances, ---- and the heir Catherine is carrying." My wife. The word felt foreign, wrong. All | could think about was the empty room in the safe house. The neatly made bed. The uneaten breakfast tray. Eliza was gone. Dane had done it. It had to be him. He was the only other person who knew where she was. My best friend. My brother. He had betrayed me. | spent the next few months in a fog, searching for her. | hired private investigators, called in favors, tracked every possible lead. It was as if she had vanished from the face of the earth. The empire my father had spent his life building meant nothing to me. The lucrative merger with the Yang' s tech company was a distraction. All that mattered was the hollow, aching void Eliza had left behind. It was only in her absence that | finally understood the depth of my own depravity. | had told myself the lies were necessary. That controlling her was a form of protection. | thought | could have it all: the Robinson-approved wife and the woman who held my soul in her hands. Now | had neither. | would find myself driving to the apartment we shared, sitting in the dark, surrounded by her ghost. I' d trace the lines of the bookshelves she designed, my fingers brushing against the ---- spines of books she' d recommended. The scent of her- lavender and old paper-still clung to the air, a constant, torturous reminder of what | had lost. | had destroyed the only pure thing in my life. And | didn't know why. Then, a breakthrough. A PI called with a credible sighting. Eliza. In a small, coastal town in Maine. | booked a flight without a second thought. | didn' t tell Catherine. | didn' t tell my father. | just left. But when | landed, my jet was surrounded on the tarmac by black cars. Catherine' s father, flanked by security, was waiting for me. Catherine was in the backseat of one of the cars, her face pale, her eyes red-rimmed. "Going somewhere, son?" Mr. Yang asked, his voice deceptively pleasant. "Where did you hear about Maine?" Catherine asked, her voice small. | didn' t look at her. "It seems you have a choice to make," her father continued. "You can get back on that plane, fly home, and be the husband my daughter deserves. Or, you can continue on this foolish quest, and our business partnership, along with your family' s reputation, will be permanently dissolved." He was threatening me. |, Cash Robinson, was being threatened by this new-money upstart. ---- Catherine reached for my hand. 'Please, Cash," she whispered. "Don' t leave me. Not again." | pulled my hand away as if her touch had burned me. | turned my back on both of them and walked toward the airport exit, my phone already to my ear, calling a car. Behind me, | heard Catherine' s voice, no longer small and pleading, but sharp and venomous. "Daddy," she said. "Make her disappear. For good." The search in Maine was another dead end. The woman they ' d spotted was a stranger. Dejected, | flew back to New York. Days turned into weeks. | haunted our old apartment, a ghost in my own life. Catherine found me there one evening, standing in the middle of the living room, staring at an empty space on the wall where a painting Eliza loved used to hang. "We have a reservation at Per Se," she said, her voice tight. "I'm not hungry," | replied, my back to her. "Are you ever going to stop?" she shrieked, her composure finally cracking. "She' s gone, Cash! She' s never coming back! Why can' t you just accept that and be with me?" "Don' t you ever," | said, turning to face her, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, "tell me what to do when it comes to her." ---- Her face crumpled. Her hand went to her stomach, a sudden, sharp cry of pain escaping her lips. She stumbled, her legs giving way. For a split second, | hesitated. But the instinct to protect my child-the only piece of my future | had left-took over. | swept her into my arms and rushed her to the hospital. The diagnosis was grim. Placental abruption. She needed to be on complete bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy if she wanted any chance of saving the baby. She lay in the hospital bed, a fragile, broken doll. She clutched my hand, her eyes filled with a desperate, feral fear. "I' Il do anything," she whispered. "| won't lose this baby." | looked at her, at this woman who was my wife, the mother of my child, and | felt nothing but a profound and weary emptiness. "| have to go to Maine again," | told her a week later, a new, flimsy lead having surfaced. "I' Il be back in a few days." The look in her eyes was no longer pleading. It was cold, hard, and filled with a hatred so pure it was almost beautiful.