---- Chapter 17 No.17 Chase didn't leave. He followed them. He kept his distance, a shadow trailing them through the market, to the car, and all the way back to the gates of Isolde's fortress-like home. Clare could feel his eyes on her, a prickling sensation on the back of her neck. It wasn't the gaze of a lover. It was the gaze of a collector whose prize possession had been stolen. When they got back to the house, Clare turned to Ben. "Thank you," she said. "For... everything." "You don't have to thank me," he said, his expression serious. "But you need to be careful, Clare. He's not stable." "| know," she said. "But I'm not afraid of him anymore." That evening, as she sat sketching in her studio, a notification popped up on her laptop. An email. From Chase. He had found her new address. I'm not leaving until you talk to me. I'm staying at the hotel down the road. | will wait. | know you still love me. You're just angry. We can fix this. | can fix this. The arrogance, the complete inability to comprehend her reality, was staggering. He wasn't listening. He was ---- broadcasting. She deleted the email without replying. The next day, she made a decision. She couldn't live with this shadow hanging over her. She needed to end it, on her terms. She walked to the hotel he'd mentioned. It was a sleek, impersonal place. She found him in the lobby bar, staring into a glass of whiskey. He looked up as she approached, a flicker of triumphant hope in his eyes. She sat down opposite him. "You wanted to talk," she said, her voice flat. "So talk." He leaned forward, his voice low and intense. "I was wrong. | admit it. | should never have pushed you like that. But everything | did, | did because | was afraid of losing you." She just looked at him, her silence an unnerving counterpoint to his desperate words. "That life you have now," he gestured vaguely towards the window, "it's not you. The pottery, the quiet life... it's a phase. You belong in New York. On my arm. You were born to be admired." "The life | have now is mine," she said. "The life | had with you was yours. | was just a guest. A well-cared-for pet." His face tightened. "That's not true." ---- "Isn't it?" she challenged. "You chose my clothes, my friends, my restaurants. You even chose the woman who would destroy my career. All to keep me in a cage you built." "| gave you everything!" he insisted, his voice rising. "You gave me things," she corrected. "You never gave me a choice." She leaned forward, her voice dropping. "I used to call you Chase. My love. My fiancé. Do you know what | call you now, in my head?" He stared at her, silent. "Mr. Strong," she said, the name sounding foreign and formal. "That's all you are to me now. A business transaction that's been concluded." The color drained from his face. The change in honorific was more powerful than any insult. It erased years of intimacy in a single breath. "We are done," she said, her voice like a razor. "The debt has been paid. The accounts are settled. There is nothing left between us. We are, for all intents and purposes, strangers." She stood up. "| loved you once," she said, the admission tasting like old medicine. "Or | loved the idea of you. But I've cut that part of me out. It was a sickness, and now I'm cured." She turned and walked out of the bar, leaving him sitting there, ---- a ghost at a table for two. He didn't follow. For the first time, he seemed to understand that the cage door was open, and the bird had no intention of ever coming back.