Chapter 1
Chloe's POV
The stage backdrop was still mid-collapse when I reached for Vincent's arm, already bracing to pull him clear — and then his hand wrenched free of mine. I hit the floor hard, my left arm igniting with a pain so sharp it stole the breath from my lungs.
Vincent was crouched over another woman, his body curved around hers in perfect, practiced protection.
Selina wept softly against his chest.
"Vincent," she murmured, "thank God you were here with me."
A snapped cable had torn through my forearm, peeling skin from flesh, and blood was welling steadily between my fingers by the time I pressed my palm to the wound and walked to where Vincent stood, already guiding Selina toward the exit.
"Vincent," I said. "I'm hurt."
He glanced at my arm with a small, impatient frown, the kind reserved for minor inconveniences.
"I'm taking Selina to the emergency room. Find a doctor and get yourself bandaged up."
The dismissal was so routine it almost made me laugh. Then his expression softened slightly, and he added, as though offering an explanation rather than an excuse, "Selina is going to be a principal dancer. She can't afford to have scars on her legs." He paused. "Be reasonable about this."
Six years together, and he had barely touched me in all that time — yet here he was, not sparing a glance for the blood soaking through my sleeve, rushing another woman to the hospital without a second thought.
"Oh—!" Selina gasped, a small, pained sound.
"Chloe, I only asked Vincent because the pain was unbearable. Please don't be upset with each other on my account."
Vincent swept her toward the door at a near-jog. His shoulder caught mine as he passed. He didn't notice.
I went to the hospital alone.
The driver had left with Vincent, so I hailed a cab. In the emergency room, a nurse asked for my emergency contact, and I stood there for a moment before answering, "I don't have any family."
The nurse's expression shifted — something careful and quiet moving behind her eyes — and from that point forward, her hands were very gentle. I knew what conclusion she'd drawn. I didn't correct her.
Before I left, she stopped me at the door. "Please be careful not to reinjure this. The wound is serious."
"Thank you," I said.
I had barely returned to the empty villa when my phone buzzed with a message from Vincent.
Bring the jacket on the living room sofa to the club. Now.
I stared at the word now for a long moment. Then I picked up his jacket and went.
The private club he frequented had a front desk that normally required advance notice, but tonight I was waved through without a word. I climbed to the second floor, my bandaged arm held close to my side, and stopped just outside the door to his usual private room. The door was pulled almost shut, but not quite.
"Why didn't you bring Selina along?"
"She was hurt today. I just dropped her off at home to rest."
My hand froze on the door handle. I looked down at the thick layers of gauze wrapped around my arm.
So he had sent me on this errand precisely because Selina needed to rest.
"Come on," one of the voices inside muttered. "Anyone who didn't know better would think she was your fiancée." A brief pause. "I saw Chloe before we left the venue. Her arm was bleeding the whole time. She's your fiancée, and you sent someone else to the hospital instead of her. Doesn't that bother you at all? Honestly, I'm embarrassed for you."
Vincent's reply came with the unhurried ease of a man who had long since stopped questioning his own reasoning.
"Selina is going to perform on a national stage. She cannot have a single scar on her legs."
What he didn't say — what I knew, because I had been standing right there — was that Selina had already been safe in his arms before the backdrop came down. She hadn't suffered so much as a scratch.
"And as for Chloe." A short, quiet laugh. "She grew up in an orphanage. She's had a hard life, which means her tolerance for hardship is considerably higher. Selina needs my protection more."
The conversation moved on. Vincent asked about a private laboratory he'd commissioned.
"It's finished. What made you decide to build something like that?"
"Selina's daughter is starting elementary school soon. Selina wants to encourage her interest in science early."
I bit down on the inside of my lip until the urge to push that door open passed.
The laboratory. The one I had assumed, without ever being told, was meant for me.
My phone vibrated. An unfamiliar number.
So sorry, Chloe — my kid grabbed Vincent's phone and sent that message without asking. You didn't actually go out of your way to bring the jacket, did you?
Inside the room, a long silence had settled before someone finally asked, "If you feel this way about Selina, why didn't you just marry her?"
When Vincent answered, his voice had gone quiet, almost gentle.
"My family would never accept her. And she's too soft for this world — the politics, the social obligations, all of it would crush her. This way, I can look out for her from the outside. She gets to live the life she wants without any of that weighing on her."
One of the men reached over and put a hand on his shoulder, saying nothing for a moment. Then: "So why did you get engaged to Chloe at all? You even turned down her Oxford acceptance letter without telling her. Aren't you afraid of what happens when she finds out?"
"The family needs a presentable woman at the head of the household. My parents needed someone to satisfy them." His tone was matter-of-fact, almost bored. "Going from an orphan to the fiancée of a billionaire — that was always going to cost her something. She won't care. What she lost was a university placement. What Selina lost was the chance to be my wife."
I walked away from the door.
At the curb, I dropped his jacket — custom-made, worth more than most people's annual salary — into a trash can without breaking stride.
The villa was dark when I got back. Every light off, the whole house silent in the particular way of a place that has been emptied of people. Selina had stayed here recently, claiming she needed uninterrupted practice time, and Vincent had dismissed the entire household staff on her behalf. You won't mind, will you, Chloe?
I had minded. I had said nothing.
I curled up on the sofa and let the evening replay itself, and somewhere in the middle of it I found myself dwelling on one exchange I hadn't been able to shake since I'd heard it.
If you don't love Chloe, why did you spend hundreds of millions on that engagement ceremony?
Vincent had taken a long time to answer. Long enough that, standing in the hallway with my bandaged arm pressed against my side, I had entertained the brief, foolish thought that maybe he had once loved me, even a little.
Selina said she wanted to see me happy.
And now?
Chloe can't leave me at this point. But Selina lost her husband. I'm all she has.
A prop, then. Something to display.
I had spent six years making excuses for his distance — told myself he was overworked, under pressure — and in that same time I had quietly contorted myself into shapes I'd never imagined, trying to be whatever I thought he needed, doing things that shamed me now to remember.
I went to the bedroom, shoved everything I'd bought to please him into a trash bag, and then turned to the framed engagement photo on the wall. I pulled it down with my good arm, intending to throw it, but my grip slipped and the frame cracked open against the floor. Several photographs spilled out from behind the backing, face-up on the tile.
Every one of them was Selina.
And on the back of our engagement photo, in Vincent's handwriting: To my one true love, Selina.
My hands were trembling badly enough that I could barely hold the photographs. The bandage on my arm had soaked through, white gauze gone red at the edges.
I had never understood, as clearly as I did in that moment, that everything I had given these six years had been a joke — not a cruel one, not even a deliberate one, just a joke, the kind where you're the only one who didn't know the punchline.
I wiped my face with the back of my wrist, raised my phone, and took a photograph of my bloodied arm. Then I opened my conversation with Vincent and typed:
Vincent — our engagement is over.
You can keep your place at the top. I don't want it anymore.
