---- Chapter 13 Liam woke up on the floor, the empty scotch bottle still clutched in his hand. His head was pounding, and a raw, ragged sound was coming from his own throat. He was crying my name. "Ava... Ava..." In the haze of his hangover, he remembered me. Not the partner he had betrayed, but the woman who used to take care of him. He remembered the time he'd had the flu so bad he couldn't move, and | had stayed by his side for three days, bringing him soup, checking his fever, reading to him until he fell asleep. | was his constant, his caretaker. And he had treated me like | was disposable. His phone started ringing, shrill and demanding. He fumbled for it, his vision blurry. The screen read: 'Clara.' He ignored it. It rang again. And again. Finally, with a groan of frustration, he answered "Liam! Where have you been? I've been calling you for days!" Clara's voice was sharp, annoyed. "The press is having a field day with this. You need to make a statement. You need to tell them about us." "I'm busy," he slurred. ---- "Busy doing what? Drowning in a bottle?" she snapped. "Get it together, Liam. You promised me. You promised you'd leave her and we'd be a family. The baby is coming. We need to get married." The word 'baby' sent a jolt of something ugly through him. All of this, all this destruction, was for her. For a promise he never really intended to keep in the first place. "Vl handle it," he mumbled, and hung up on her. A new thought began to form in his muddled brain. Clara. She had been so smug, so triumphant. And the anonymous texts | had received... the timing was too perfect. Had she pushed me away on purpose? Had she orchestrated this whole thing to get me out of the picture? The thought, once planted, began to grow, twisting into a dark suspicion. He picked up his phone and made another call, this one to his head of security. "| want a full investigation on Clara Bell," he said, his voice cold and sober for the first time in weeks. "Everything. Her phone records, her emails, her friends. | want to know who she's been talking to for the past six months. | want to know everything she's done." Meanwhile, in Paris, my life was quiet and full of simple joys. | had rented a small, sunny apartment overlooking a courtyard filled with flowers. | spent my days exploring the city, sketching in museums, and helping my new friend with her daughter, Vanessa. ---- | was learning to breathe again. The constant knot of anxiety in my stomach had finally loosened. | was starting to feel... peaceful. One afternoon, my friend, Isabelle, looked at me over a cup of coffee. "You know, my cousin is single," she said with a sly smile. "He's a doctor. Very handsome." | shook my head, a small, sad smile on my face. "Thank you, Isabelle, but I'm not ready." "It's been months, Ava," she said gently, using the new name | had adopted. "| know," | said, looking out the window at the bustling Parisian street. "But some things... some things take longer to heal." | hadn't just lost a fiancé. | had lost twenty years of my life. | had lost my identity, my home, my family. You don't just move on from that. You learn to build around the empty space it leaves behind. And that's what | was doing. One quiet, peaceful day at a time.