---- Chapter 29 | looked down at Liam, at the broken man kneeling at my feet, and | felt nothing. No pity, no anger, not even a flicker of the love | once had for him. He was a stranger, weeping over a ghost. "Forgive you?" | said, my voice as cold and hard as the marble surrounding us. "You want forgiveness for our son? The son you never knew, never cared about?" | pulled my dress from his grasp. "You made your choice five years ago, Liam. You chose her. You chose the lie. You stood by and watched as she tormented me, and you did nothing." | turned to leave, taking Vanessa's hand. "Ava, wait!" he cried, scrambling to his feet. "I love you! I've always loved you!" | paused at the door, but | didn't turn around. "You swore on your life you weren't seeing anyone," | said, my voice flat. "I remember your exact words. Were you lying then, or are you lying now?" | walked out into the sunshine, leaving him standing there in the tomb of his own making, the truth finally, irrevocably, laid bare. ---- That afternoon, | was on a plane, heading back to Paris. Back to my life. | had come back to the States for a design conference, never imagining | would run into him. Now, | was leaving for good. There were no more ghosts to face, no more loose ends. My phone rang. A new number, one | didn't recognize. | knew it was him. | answered. His voice was a wreck, choked with sobs. "Ava, don't hang up. Please. Just listen. | was a fool. | was a coward. But | love you. | need you. | can't live without you. Please, just give me one more chance. I'll do anything." | listened to his desperate, broken pleas, and | felt a profound sense of peace. The hold he had on me was finally, completely broken. | didn't say a word. | just ended the call. Then | blocked the number. | turned my phone off and settled back in my seat, watching the country that held all my pain grow smaller and smaller below me. My mind drifted back, one last time, to the very beginning. To the day we met. | was five years old, a lonely little girl on a playground. He was a confident seven-year-old boy who pushed another kid who was trying to take my swing. He had taken my hand and said, "Don't worry. I'll protect you." Five years later, my parents died in a fire. They had run back into the burning building to save his parents, who were their ---- best friends. My parents had died. His had survived. At their funeral, he had found me, a small, orphaned girl, and he had made a promise. "I'll take care of you, Ava. For the rest of my life. For what your parents did for mine." His love for me hadn't been born of romance. It had been born of debt. A debt of guilt he had carried his whole life.