Just before they prepped me for the procedure, my phone lit up. A new message. A video file sent from an unknown number, but I knew who it was from.
Isabelle.
I should have deleted it. I should have thrown the phone against the wall. But I didn’t.
With a hand that felt disconnected from my body, I opened it. The screen showed them—Julian and Isabelle, in his home office.
He was in his chair, and she was perched on the edge of his desk, laughing as he traced the spine of a leather-bound document. It was the prospectus for the Croft-Vance merger. Then he leaned in and kissed her.
Not a passionate, desperate kiss. It was worse. It was familiar, easy. The kind of kiss shared between partners who have already won.
But what shattered the last piece of my resolve wasn’t the kiss. It was what he did next. As he leaned back, he tapped his forefinger twice against his temple—a small, unconscious habit he had whenever he’d outsmarted an opponent and closed a deal. The old Julian. The real Julian.
I smiled, a bitter, empty curve of my lips. That was it. The final signature on a contract I never knew I’d signed. And still, one last, pathetic piece of me needed to hear it from him.
One last chance.
I did something weak. Something human.
I called him.
If he answered…
If he heard the tremor in my voice and chose me…
If he walked out of that office and came to me right now—I swore I would erase it all. The lies, the merger, the woman, the pain. I would tear up the blueprints of my revenge and build our future from the rubble, for our son. For the love that was now a liability.
The line rang.
Once. Twice.
Then it clicked.
His voice was clipped, impatient. The voice of a CEO, not an amnesiac.
“Evelyn… I’m in the middle of something. The driver will take you home. We’ll talk later.”
And then I heard her.
Her voice, crisp and clear in the background, unfiltered.
Isabelle.
She wasn’t trying to hide. She didn’t have to.
“Julian, darling,” she said, her tone sharp with amusement. “Tell your project you have to go. We need to review the press release for our engagement before it goes live.”
Click.
The line went dead. Just the silent hiss of disconnection.
I didn’t cry. Not anymore.
I looked at the nurse, my eyes hollow, my voice a flat line.
“It’s fine,” I whispered. “Let’s proceed with the abortion…”
And as they wheeled me into the quiet, sterile room, I made a vow.
The next time he hears my name… it will be the last thing he hears before his empire crumbles.
….
By the time I returned to the house, the sky was a bruised purple.
I walked into the grand foyer, and he was there.
Julian. Waiting.
Still wearing the mask of the man who’d lost his past.
“The driver said you went to the garden after your appointment,” he said, his smile practiced. “Then you went shopping. Didn’t find anything you liked?”
His tone was gentle. As if everything was okay. As he took a step closer to me he saw it.
The emptiness in my eyes.
“Evelyn… what’s wrong? Why do you look like that?”
“Did… being at the hospital make you think of the old me again?”
He moved closer, feigning a sympathy that made my stomach turn.
“It’s alright. That baby… that’s my legacy. That’s something real. Something to hold on to.”
I stared into his eyes. Still so brilliant.
I turned and walked away without a word, heading for the guest room.
I collapsed onto the bed and for the first time since the shipwreck, I slept through a deep, dreamless void.
But just before I woke, I saw him. Julian, age twenty-eight.
Standing on the steel skeleton of his skyscraper, wind tearing at his suit, shouting over the noise of the city.
“Tell me what you dream of building, Evelyn!”
“I’ll give you the whole damn skyline to do it!”
And back then, I believed him.
I said yes. And in that moment, he laid the foundation for my ruin.
….
Morning light cut through the blinds. I was still sitting on the edge of the bed, when the door swung open.
And there she was.
Isabelle.
The other woman. The victor.
She didn’t look like a woman under the stress of a multi-billion-dollar merger.
She was flawless. Dressed in a sharp, tailored blazer, her hair perfect. She was holding my favorite coffee mug. The one I’d designed myself, with the blueprint of the Croft Tower etched into the ceramic.
Worse?
I smelled it instantly… my perfume. The rare one I wore only for him.
Isabelle stopped in the middle of the room and crossed her arms, a slow smile spread across her face.
“You know why I sent you that video, don’t you?” she asked, her voice smooth as glass. She tilted her head. “You really thought a man like Julian Croft would throw away an empire for a feeling? You actually believed this was a tragedy?”
She took another step, her voice laced with venom.
“Darling… wake up. I’ve been his partner in every sense of the word.”
She laughed. A short, sharp, dismissive sound.
“Poor Evelyn,” she sighed, her pity more insulting than any anger. “You thought his memory was gone? No. He just needed to clear his assets. And you, my dear, were a liability he couldn’t afford.”
She turned, glancing around the room as if assessing it for a remodel.
“I’ve had Julian focused on this deal from the moment I walked back into his life. Did you really think a lousy architect like you could compete with the woman who could double his net worth?”
Her voice lowered. Cruel. Final.
“Oh… and before I forget—the merger is our marriage.”
“Signed and sealed. You were just the beautiful blueprint for a life he never intended to build.”
She laughed again, a low, triumphant sound that echoed in the silent room.
“Julian Croft was always a transaction, Evelyn. You loved him, sure. But I own him.”
