---- Chapter 24 In his fever-induced haze, Liam's world narrowed to a single, desperate desire: me. He was trapped in a loop of memories and fantasies. He dreamt we were married, living in our beautiful house, with two children playing in the yard. He would wake up calling my name, his hands reaching for an empty space in the bed. He refused to eat. He refused the doctors his grandfather tried to send in. He was punishing himself, starving himself of everything but his grief. He wanted to waste away, to disappear into the pain. "| can't live without her, Grandpa," he whispered when the old man came to his bedside. "There's no point." George, seeing his grandson fading before his eyes, knew he had to do something drastic. He sat on the edge of the bed and took Liam's hand. "You want to see Ava again?" he asked, his voice firm. Liam's eyes, dull with fever, flickered with a spark of life. "Yes," he breathed. "Then you will live," George commanded. "You will get up, you will eat, you will get well. You will take back control of your company and your life. A broken, pathetic man is of no use to ---- anyone, least of all her. If there is any hope, any chance in a million that you will ever find her and earn her forgiveness, you need to be the man she thought you were. Not this... this ghost." The words were a lifeline. A tiny, improbable sliver of hope. It was all he needed. The next day, Liam got out of bed. He started eating. He allowed the doctors to treat him. The hope of seeing me again, however faint, was a more powerful medicine than any drug. Within a week, he was back at the office. He threw himself into his work with a ferocious, obsessive energy. He salvaged the Pinnacle Tower project, he reassured his clients, he restored order to the company he had nearly destroyed. He was a machine, fueled by regret and a single-minded purpose. But at night, alone in the big, empty house, the hope would recede, and the crushing reality of his loss would return. He would stand in the room that was supposed to be our nursery, his hand resting on the empty crib, and the silence would mock him. He had fixed his company. He had punished his mistress. He had confessed his sins to the world. But none of it mattered. None of it brought me back. He had orchestrated the most elaborate architectural recovery of his career, but the one structure he couldn't rebuild was the life he had shared with me. Because he had not only destroyed the foundation, he had lost the blueprints. | had ---- taken them with me. | had taken everything.