Chapter 3

Ever since I stepped into this arrangement with Damian, I had pictured our breakup a thousand times. I imagined crying my eyes out, screaming at the top of my lungs, or pretending nothing was wrong. But none of that happened. There was only a hollow, numb acceptance.

My body and my mind were completely drained.

We went through our usual evening routine: ate dinner, showered, and climbed into bed together.

The dim, warm glow of the bedside lamp illuminated the sharp angles of his face.

My heart was in knots. One part of me wanted to end it all quickly, to run away and heal. Another part wished foolishly that we could stay like this forever, even daring to dream of what it would be like to have his child.

Damian wrapped his arms tightly around my waist, his low voice rumbling against my skin with a faint chuckle. "Not eating well lately? You feel thinner."

I didn't answer right away. He buried his face into the crook of my neck, inhaling my scent.

As the room fell dead silent, he let out a heavy sigh, sounding like a man who had finally made up his mind about something difficult.

"Stay with me a little longer, Elena. Just for a while."

He didn't say how long "a while" meant, but we both understood.

Suddenly, none of it mattered anymore. I realized I had never had any boundaries when it came to Damian.

Three months. It was just enough time for me to slowly let him go.

I turned in his arms, cupped his jaw, and kissed him deeply. He kissed me back naturally, his lips demanding and warm.

We never needed to spell things out. We knew each other too well.

He knew I would accept whatever he offered, that I was head-over-heels in love with him, and that I would swallow every ounce of heartache just to stay in his arms.

Over the next three months, no matter how packed his schedule was, Damian came home to me every single night.

One night, I woke up thirsty and walked into the dark living room for a glass of water, only to find him sitting out on the balcony lounge chair, smoking a cigarette.

The silver moonlight traced the sharp lines of his jaw. Smoke curled lazily between his long fingers, and even from behind, the heavy exhaustion clung to his broad shoulders.

Men like Damian, who kept their emotions buried deep beneath an unreadable facade, rarely let you see what they were feeling.

Yet whenever he was in a foul mood, I could sense it before anyone else did.

A sharp ringtone shattered the silence. Damian glanced inside cautiously, and I quickly tapped on my phone screen, pretending to browse Twitter.

He kept his voice low, but the sharp, shrill tone from the other end still made it through the glass door. It was Natalie.

"How much longer are you keeping that girl around? Why don't you just let her wear my wedding gown down the aisle while you're at it?!"

Damian cut her off with a warning: "If you harass her again, don't blame me for tearing up our agreement."

He ended the call without hesitation. Inside, my heart hammered like a drum.

Years ago, I jokingly asked him when he was going to marry me. His stone-cold silence cut like a blade, followed by him disappearing for three solid months.

That was his answer back then: don't dare dream of things that don't belong to you.

I took two deep breaths and told myself to stop reading into things.

Damian had this dangerous charm—a single sentence from him could make any foolish girl imagine a future that didn't exist.

Just as I turned to head back to bed, I heard a sharp hiss of pain, followed by a quiet curse: "Fuck."

He had burned his finger on the cigarette butt.

It was almost funny, but a sudden sting hit my nose, and my eyes welled with tears.

Even when he cursed, even when he took off his tailored Tom Ford suits and looked like an ordinary man, the gap between us remained unbridgeable. No master's degree, no luxury habits, and no amount of elegant grooming could ever make me his equal.

The divide between us wasn't about looks or money. It was the mountain peak versus the ocean floor.

As the wedding grew closer, his days became hectic. His phone rang constantly. It was his mother, thrilled with the daughter-in-law she had hand-picked and obsessing over every detail of the ceremony.

Damian’s answers were always detached: "Yes. Whatever you like. I don't care."

Then, three days before the wedding, he dragged me out on a sudden shopping trip.

Seriously, what kept woman would have the guts to go shopping with her billionaire owner right before his wedding?

His childhood friend Logan always called me "Elena" with that teasing grin whenever he saw us, and Damian never told him to stop, offering only a faint smirk as if he didn't care.

I held onto those tiny crumbs of attention, secretly smiling to myself.

Today, though, felt like an ambush.

The second Damian and I stepped into Harry Winston, a modest, radiant-cut pink diamond ring caught my eye.

This time, I took one quick look and forced my eyes away, keeping my mouth shut.

In the past, a cute pout would have put that ring on my finger by the end of the day.

Not today. Never again.

The reality that he was about to belong to another woman screamed in my head. In three days, a different ring would be placed on his finger by his lawful bride.

Damian noticed where my eyes went. He stepped up to the counter and signaled the sales associate to bring the ring out.

Before I could protest, Logan bounded through the double doors, shouting, "Damian? Elena?"

"Logan, who are you calling Elena? Getting friendly so fast?"

The voice didn't come from me. It came from Natalie, who stepped out from behind the displays with an effortless glide.