---- Chapter 20 No.20 The kiss was a violation, desperate and sloppy, tasting of whiskey and self-pity. Clare felt a wave of revulsion so profound it almost choked her. She shoved him, hard, with all the strength she possessed. "Get OFF of me!" He stumbled back, his eyes wide and confused, as if he couldn't understand why she wasn't melting into his arms. In that moment, a strange and terrible understanding dawned on Clare. She looked at this pathetic, feverish man, this broken shell of the titan she had once admired, and she saw herself. She saw the same desperate, clinging need she had once felt for him. She had been him. The realization didn't evoke pity. It evoked a deeper level of disgust. She was disgusted with him, and she was disgusted with the woman she used to be. "You are pathetic," she said, her voice dripping with contempt. "Look at you. You're not a titan of industry. You're just a spoiled little boy who can't handle being told no." She had had enough. The fear was gone, replaced by a bone- ---- deep weariness. This endless, toxic dance had to stop. "| am done," she said, her voice flat and final. "I am so, so done with you." Meanwhile, Chase's world was continuing to crumble without him. Back in New York, Karis was on the phone with her one and only friend, complaining. "| don't know what to do," she whined. "He's been gone for weeks. He barely answers my calls. | know he's there for her." "Honey," her friend said, her voice laced with pity, "what did you expect? You were a fun distraction. A way for him to feel like he was in control. He used you." The words were a bucket of ice water. Karis knew they were true, but she had refused to see it. "But he loves me," she insisted, the words sounding hollow even to her own ears. "Does he?" her friend asked gently. "Or do you just love the idea of him?" The question broke her. The carefully constructed fantasy she had lived in for years shattered into a million pieces. She hung up the phone and looked around the cold, opulent apartment that had never felt like home. She called Chase. He didn't answer. She called again. And again. Finally, he picked up, his voice thick and slurred. ---- "What do you want, Karis?" he snapped. "I'm done, Chase," she said, her voice surprisingly steady. "I'm moving out. I'm not going to be your backup plan anymore." There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Fine," he said, his voice flat. "Do what you want." He hung up. The finality of it, the utter lack of care, was liberating. She was free. Karis walked over to the desk where Chase kept his important papers. She found the file on Clare. The legal threats, the investigator's reports. Tucked inside was a copy of a therapist's notes from a session Chase had been forced to attend as part of a previous, unrelated legal settlement. Her eyes scanned the page. Mr. Strong displays classic narcissistic traits... engages in self-sabotaging behavior... pushes partners away when intimacy becomes a threat... he engineers situations where the partner is forced to leave, allowing him to maintain a sense of control and victimhood... he is terrified of abandonment, so he orchestrates it on his own terms... Karis stared at the words, a chill running down her spine. It wasn't about love. It wasn't even about obsession. It was a twisted, pathetic form of emotional suicide. And he had made her and Clare the instruments of his own destruction.