At some point, the rain began to fall. The villa perched on a secluded mountaintop outside the city, and getting a cab here was always difficult.

The others had long since driven off. Caroline had arrived by taxi earlier, and now she was the last one left, standing under the eaves, watching the rain streak down in fine, silvery threads.

Through the haze of rain, a black Rolls-Royce materialized and came to a halt in front of her. The window lowered, revealing the face of Julian’s assistant.

Hank Cameron.

“Ma’am, please get in.”

Caroline didn’t move. She stood there, her gaze slipping past Hank to the shadowed space beyond the lowered window. She seemed to know who was sitting in the back.

She said nothing. Then Julian’s voice, cool and sharp, cut through the hum of the rain.

“Drive. Let her stay right here to let the water in her head evaporate.”

Hank hesitated, awkwardly avoiding Caroline’s eyes before doing as he was told. The car rolled forward and disappeared into the misty curtain of rain.

Caroline blinked, her eyelashes catching the drizzle that drifted under the eaves. Threads of icy moisture clung to her face, seeping into her skin, burrowing all the way to her bones.

Julian, at eighteen, had dreamed of sharing his twenty-eighth birthday with her. But now, at twenty-eight, he loathed her with every fiber of his being.

Three years. In those three years, he hadn’t touched her—not once. He’d barely even returned home.

In their social circles, everyone whispered that she was the most pitiable of all the women who had married into wealth. All she had was a beautiful gilded cage—nothing more, nothing less.

To them, she was a villain. The woman who had turned Jane Watson into a vegetable, stolen Willow’s fiancé, and been rightly condemned as unforgivable. No one seemed to remember that Caroline had been by Julian’s side from the time she was twelve until she was nineteen, watching his ascent from ruin to prominence.

The narrative, carefully sculpted by others, painted her as an ungrateful interloper—a hanger-on who had used seven years of companionship as leverage to bind Julian to her for life. Seven years of devotion, summarily dismissed as selfish manipulation.

Fourteen years, she calculated. In total, she’d been at Julian’s side for fourteen long years.

Her lashes lowered as she stared at her phone, refreshing the screen. No drivers were accepting requests.

By the time she finally returned to Cloudrest Bay, it was two in the morning. Her dress was soaked, clinging to her ankles, and the chill of the late-autumn night left her lips trembling faintly.

The villa’s lights were still on. As she stepped into the entryway to change her shoes, she caught sight of Julian on the couch, absorbed in his work.

His bone structure was exquisite, almost otherworldly. That face—no matter how often you saw it—never failed to captivate. He sat there, untouchable, like the unyielding peak of a snow-capped mountain.

Caroline had no illusions. She didn’t for a second believe that he was waiting for her. The two of them had shredded every remaining pretense of civility three years ago. She had gone from being radiant and full of light to a stranger in the mirror—a woman who screamed and raged, desperate for any scrap of attention from the man she once believed would love her forever.

Quietly, she swapped her shoes, tossed her damp scarf into the trash by the door, and ascended the stairs.

In the master bedroom, the traces of her presence were everywhere—warm and neat, the sort of comfortable space she’d tried to create for them. But Julian’s visits home in the past three years could be counted on one hand. Everyone laughed behind her back, calling her a widow in all but name.

From the closet, she tugged out a small suitcase, placing within it the handful of clothes she favored for their practicality. The other items—rows of luxury handbags and gleaming jewelry displayed proudly on the walls—remained untouched. She had never used them and never planned to.

Julian had made it clear: she wasn’t worthy.

To him, she was just another gold digger, driven solely by greed. Leaving those luxury trinkets within arm’s reach but just beyond her grasp—he’d considered that the perfect punishment.

Caroline carried the suitcase downstairs, placing a signed divorce agreement on the coffee table before him.

“Julian, I’ve signed it.”

In the past three years, all they’d done when they crossed paths was fight. Or rather—she’d fight. She’d hurl accusations at him, her voice frayed with outrage, while he stood impassive, coldly observing her unravel. The distance in his eyes was maddening, like he was watching a storm rage from the other side of a glass wall.

Julian’s gaze drifted from his laptop to her suitcase. A flicker of something—something hot and corrosive—rose in his throat. For a moment, it burned like acid, as if scorching him from the inside out.

He scoffed, his voice cutting through the silence like a blade. Each word deliberate. Precise. Meant to wound.

“Packing light, I see. Is this so you can come back every so often to retrieve the rest? Caroline, have you forgotten how you got your claws into me in the first place? I was engaged to Willow, and you? You drugged me at our engagement party, got us caught in bed together, and forced me to marry you.”

Her grip tightened on the suitcase handle. Her face went pale, her wet hem weighing her down, her entire form swaying as if the smallest gust might topple her.

Her fingers dug into the suitcase as silence stretched between them. Then she spoke, her voice hoarse, each word dragging itself out with painful effort.

“Julian, I just want to know one thing… why? Why did you stop loving me?”

For three years, that question had haunted her. In those years, she’d replayed their history, back to the nights when they held each other close in a cramped rental, back when he’d whispered that he’d love her forever. When the Paige family found him and pulled him into their orbit, people had warned her—it was a hopeless battle. She should leave early and take a payout while she could, because they would never accept a girl like her.

She didn’t listen. She held onto his promise, waited for the day he’d come back for her. She waited for love to win. Instead, she received news of his engagement to Willow, accompanied by a single, devastating statement: he didn’t love her anymore.

Why? How could love vanish so suddenly?

“Because you’re not worthy.”

Five words. They landed like hammer blows, each one splintering whatever fragile strength she had left.

She had no way to describe the pain. Her chest felt as if it had been punctured, her heart bleeding out, steady and unstoppable.

When he loved her, he’d told her she was the best person in the world. And when he didn’t, he’d cast her aside, saying she was beneath him.

In their world—his world—she was nothing but a fool, a desperate clown standing before the scornful gaze of the elite. They mocked her for daring to dream of love, for thinking she could be his equal. But she always saw herself as his knight, fighting for what they had.

Not anymore. It was time to wake up.

She lifted her suitcase and walked to the door. “Sign it,” she said. “I’ll wait for you at the civil office by noon tomorrow.”

Pausing to slip on her shoes, she tucked a strand of damp hair behind her ear and smiled faintly. “Julian, I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you over the years.”

Julian’s hand trembled around the stack of documents he held, his grip tightening until the papers threatened to tear. Then he let go, the tension collapsing all at once.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Finally free.”

Caroline heard the words. To say they didn’t hurt would be a lie. She wanted to laugh but realized she couldn’t. And so, without a word, she turned and walked out.

Hank was waiting by the door, looking uneasy when he saw the suitcase in her hand.

“Ma’am,” he stammered, “the President… tonight wasn’t intentional. He…”

She brushed past him, stepping into the rain like she couldn’t bear to stay in that house a moment longer.

But after a few steps, she stopped, turning to look at Hank, her voice almost too soft to hear over the rain. “Brookpine Villa. The person he keeps there—who is it? Can you tell me?”

Hank froze, his entire body rigid. His eyes lowered quickly, as if startled that she even knew of such a place.

Her breath hitched at his reaction. “So it’s been three years since he brought them there.”

“Ma’am… I don’t—”

“You don’t know?” She gave a small, bitter smile. “You’re his closest confidante.”

And with that, she turned, rain streaking down her face, her hair plastered to her skin. “It’s fine. If you don’t want to say, then forget it.”

“Ma’am…”

But she was already walking away, her silhouette dissolving into the rain.

At eighteen, she had offered Julian everything—her first love, her first night. Back then, she had dreamed of forever.

Now, at twenty-six, all she had left was this: a fractured goodbye, and the agonizing relief of letting go.

This time, she wasn’t looking back.

She didn’t want him anymore.