---- Chapter 21 No.21 The therapist's words were a key, unlocking the last door of Chase's psyche. He wasn't trying to win her back. He was trying to lose her completely. He was engineering his own heartbreak, creating a tragedy so absolute that he would have no choice but to give up. He was a coward, afraid to walk away, so he was burning the whole world down so he'd have to. The realization hit him with the force of a physical blow. He stumbled back from Clare, the phone still in his hand, Karis's final words echoing in his ears. He looked at Clare, at her face etched with disgust and exhaustion. He had done this. He had pushed her to this point. He had meticulously crafted this perfect, ugly moment of his own rejection. And now that he had it, he found he didn't want it. The self-deception, the intricate web of lies he had told himself for years, it all fell away. And in the silent, empty space it left behind, a single, terrifying truth remained. He needed her. Not as an accessory. Not as a mirror. He needed her. Her ---- laughter. Her warmth. The quiet way she hummed when she was reading. He needed the life they had, the one he had so casually and cruelly destroyed. "| was wrong," he whispered, the words raw, stripped of all artifice. "Clare. | was so wrong." The thought of her with someone else-with Ben-sent a jolt of pure, physical pain through him. It was a visceral, gut- wrenching agony. He couldn't bear it. He finally understood. "| love you," he said, and for the first time in his life, the words were true. They were a confession. A surrender. "I'm sorry. | was wrong. | love you." The admission changed everything. The fog of his narcissism lifted, and the path forward was suddenly, painfully clear. "| have to fix this," he said, more to himself than to her. "I have to make it right." He would grovel. He would beg. He would spend the rest of his life earning her forgiveness. A flicker of his old arrogance returned, a desperate fantasy. He would win her back. He would show up with grand gestures. She would resist, but eventually, she would see his transformation. She would take him back. He clung to this fantasy as he stumbled out of her studio, leaving her standing there, stunned and silent. ---- He went back to his hotel and waited. He would give her time. A day. Two days. He would wait for her to call. The call never came. The silence stretched from hours into days. The fantasy began to fray at the edges. Panic set in. What if she didn't call? What if he was too late? He started watching her again, not with angry obsession, but with the desperate anxiety of a man on death row waiting for a pardon. He saw her going to her studio, meeting Ben for lunch, walking on the beach. She was living her life. A life that did not include him. He saw her laughing with Ben, a real, uninhibited laugh. The sight was a knife in his gut. He couldn't wait any longer. He had to know. He went to her studio and waited outside, his heart hammering against his ribs. When she came out, he fell into step beside her. "Clare," he said, his voice hoarse. She looked at him, and her face was a blank wall. The disgust was gone. The anger was gone. There was nothing. "We need to talk," he said. "No, we don't," she said, and kept walking. ---- He followed her, a desperate shadow. "Please. Just five minutes." She sighed, a sound of infinite weariness, and stopped. "Fine. Five minutes." This was it. His one last chance.