---- Chapter 11 Liam stared at the wedding planner, a roaring sound filling his ears. Canceled. The word didn't make sense. He pulled out his phone, his hands fumbling, and dialed my number. He listened to the robotic voice on the other end. "The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check the number and try again." He tried again. And again. The same message. A cold, heavy dread began to pool in his stomach. He ran out of the empty church, jumped in his car, and sped to my apartment. He pounded on the door, shouting my name. There was no answer. He used the emergency key I'd given him and burst inside. The apartment was hollow and bare. The closets were empty. The personal photos were gone. The only thing left was a small pile of cold ash in the fireplace. She was gone. She had vanished. Thousands of miles away, the sun was warm on my face. | was sitting on a bench in the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. A little girl with big brown eyes and a bright red ribbon in her hair toddled over to me, chasing a pigeon. She stumbled and fell, her lower lip beginning to tremble. | scooped her up, settling her on my lap. "Whoa there, little one. ---- You're okay," | said softly in French. Her name was Vanessa, and she was the daughter of my new friend, a woman I'd met at a local cafe. Vanessa stopped crying and looked up at me, her big eyes full of curiosity. She reached out and patted my cheek with her small, chubby hand. In that simple, innocent touch, | felt a flicker of warmth, a genuine connection that | hadn't felt ina very long time. | was building a new life, a quiet one, on my own terms. My new phone, the one with the French number, buzzed in my pocket. It was a message from Sarah. She had been my only point of contact, my lifeline to my old life, just in case of emergencies. The message contained a link to a news article from a gossip site back home. The headline read: "Billionaire Architect Liam Kane Jilted at the Altar? Fiancée Ava Ross Disappears!" The article was full of speculation. It described Liam's frantic search, how he had been calling all our mutual friends, showing up at my old office, looking disheveled and lost. Sarah sent another message. This one was an audio file. "He left this on my voicemail," she wrote. "Thought you should hear it." | hesitated, then pressed play. Liam's voice filled the quiet Parisian air, raw and desperate. "Sarah, please. If you know where she is, you have to tell me. | need to talk to her. | need to fix this. Ava... Ava, baby, if you get this... please come home. ---- | love you." Hearing his voice still sent a jolt through me, but it wasn't love or pain. It was a distant, clinical observation. He sounded broken. Good. | held Vanessa a little closer, breathing in the scent of sunshine in her hair. | typed a reply to Sarah. "Block his number. And please, don't send me anything else about him. He's not my problem anymore." | deleted Sarah' s message and the audio file. Then, | deleted her contact information. It was the last thread. Now, it was truly severed. | was no one from his world. | was just a woman on a bench in Paris, holding a child, with a future that was entirely my own. Back in the States, Liam stood in my empty apartment, the silence screaming at him. He called my name again and again, but the only answer was the echo of his own desolate voice. He had lost me. And for the first time, he was starting to understand that he had no idea how to get me back.