Chapter 9: You Won't Leave Me
Alyia's POV
I left the hospital and drove back to the villa. My heart was exhausted. I sat on the couch and stayed there, not wanting to do anything at all, until the sky had gone completely dark.
The sound of the lock turning echoed through the silent living room. I paused mid-keystroke and looked up.
Daniel was home. In two years, he'd rarely returned here this late at night.
The faint smell of disinfectant clung to him, his collar slightly disheveled—clearly he'd just come from the hospital.
"Still up?"
"Mm."
I responded with a soft hum, and the air fell into brief silence.
In the past, no matter how late he returned, I would have prepared hangover soup for him, taken his coat, reminded him of tomorrow's schedule. But now I simply sat there, as if watching a stranger who had nothing to do with me.
"What are you working on?"
I pressed save and turned the laptop toward him.
Vice President Work Handover Checklist
Daniel's gaze lingered for two seconds, his brow furrowing almost imperceptibly.
"Handover?"
"Mm."
I closed the laptop, my tone calm. "Since we're getting divorced, I should handle the company matters properly."
He froze for a moment, then let out a low laugh. "You've even prepared the handover documents? Father already called me."
He raised his hand to loosen his tie, his tone carrying its usual composure.
"If letting him yell at me will make you feel better, I'll take it."
My fingers curled slightly. So even now, he still thought I was just throwing a tantrum.
"Daniel."
I called his name softly. "I'm not angry."
"Mm." He responded absently. "You're not."
That tone—as if he were merely humoring a petulant child.
"Father has already agreed to dissolve the engagement."
Daniel fell silent for two seconds, then suddenly reached over and closed my laptop.
"Alyia. Don't take angry words so seriously. Get some sleep."
With that, he turned and headed toward the study. I stood there, watching that familiar figure gradually disappear down the hallway.
The living room returned to silence. I looked down at the screen showing Vice President Work Handover Checklist, my fingertips resting lightly on the words "resignation application."
So it turned out—some people don't fail to love you. They simply never imagined that one day, you might not want them.
I shut down the computer and exhaled softly.
Daniel, I hope after tomorrow, you'll still be this certain.
The next morning, sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows into the living room. I had just come downstairs when the aroma of bacon and black coffee filled the air.
In the kitchen, Daniel stood at the stove. The sleeves of his gray shirt were casually rolled up to his elbows, his long fingers transferring a perfectly fried egg onto a plate.
Hearing footsteps, he glanced over at me.
"You're up?"
I froze in place.
Two years. This was the first time I'd seen him standing in this house's kitchen.
"Come eat."
He set the breakfast on the table and pulled out a chair for me.
I sat down silently. The food on the plate was exquisitely perfect, yet my thoughts involuntarily drifted back to three months ago.
Della had just returned to the country then, burning with fever. At three in the morning, Daniel called me, asking me to run across half the city to buy specific ingredients for her.
That day, I stood outside the hospital room, watching him wear an apron while making soup for another woman.
I had once thought humbly—if one day I could taste something he made with his own hands, how wonderful that would be.
But it turned out, a heart could truly die. Now it sat before me, and I felt not even a trace of anticipation.
"Why aren't you eating?"
Daniel looked up at me. "I remember you have a sensitive stomach. It hurts when it's empty."
I paused. So he'd always remembered—he just never cared. "Thank you."
I lowered my eyes. "But I don't have much appetite."
Daniel set down his coffee cup, his brow furrowing slightly. "Still angry?"
"I'm not angry."
"Then stop bringing up divorce."
His tone was calm, as if stating an established fact. I slowly raised my head. "Daniel, I'm serious."
"Mm." He responded casually.
"Every time you feel wronged, you say things like this."
He studied my face, his voice low.
"When the Lunar Covenant bound us together and we were forced into each other's lives, you were always quiet and distant—never once taking a step toward me on your own. In the two years since we married, I pulled away from you again and again, deliberately, waiting to see if anything would crack that composure of yours. But you never wavered. You quietly cleaned up every mess I made, as though nothing I did could touch you at all."
His gaze darkened slightly, a flicker of self-deprecating bewilderment crossing his features.
"I always assumed you were simply cold by nature—that you didn't care about this marriage, didn't care about me. But now you're standing here telling me you want a divorce. Alyia, which version of you am I supposed to believe?"
My fingers tightened slowly at my side, and the last fragile trace of warmth left somewhere deep in my chest went completely cold.
"Both are real."
Daniel visibly stiffened for a moment, the steady certainty in his eyes fracturing just slightly. But it lasted only a second. He laughed again—a quiet, thin sound, laced with something cruel and deeply ingrained.
"Alyia, I know you better than anyone."
He rose and stepped toward me, and just as he had done countless times before in moments when I had given ground, he reached out and ruffled my hair with that same unhurried, practiced ease.
"You came from nothing—an orphan with no one and nothing to your name—and fought your way to Vice President of the Sterling Group. Two years ago, you married me with the entire wolf clan's disapproval at your back. Everything you have, you bled for. You won't let go of it easily."
He leaned in, his gaze locked onto mine, his tone carrying the absolute certainty of someone who had never once been told no.
"You won't leave Sterling. And you won't leave me."
I stared at him.
In that moment, I finally saw it clearly—he had never understood me at all.
He had convinced himself that I craved power, that I clung to status, that every compromise I had ever made, every silence I had ever kept, came from the fact that I was too afraid to walk away, too dependent to survive without what he offered. He had always looked down from that height of his, mistaking my genuine feeling for submission, taking my patience as something he was simply owed. Even now, standing directly in front of him and telling him plainly that I was leaving, he still heard nothing but a tantrum he could wait out.
"Daniel."
I spoke quietly.
"What if one day I truly walked away from all of it—and didn't come back?"
His hand went still. For a beat, he looked at me as though I had said something so absurd it barely deserved a response, and then he let out a short, dismissive laugh.
"That day won't come."
He looked down at me, those green eyes holding a certainty that bordered on arrogance.
"You're not someone who gives up what she's earned. You won't throw it all away."
The cold moved through me all at once, settling into my bones.
So the cruelest part was never the distance he kept or the tests he ran. It was this—that from the very beginning, he had never once believed I was capable of letting go.
He was certain I would stay. That I would wait for him to turn around, wait for whatever small attention he eventually decided to offer, wait out every last one of his stubborn, calculated silences. He had never understood what my patience actually was. He had never understood two years of quiet exhaustion, never once considered that all my stillness, all my restraint, was never indifference—it was a love that had been spent completely, down to nothing, until there was simply nothing left to say.
I lowered my eyes slowly and looked at the breakfast on the table, long since gone cold, and let a faint, unburdened smile settle at the corner of my lips.
Ninety-ninth time.
Daniel.
This is the last time I'm confirming this with you.
From today on, I won't look back anymore.
