The soft ding of the private elevator cut through the quiet hum of the penthouse air conditioning.
Faith stood motionless in the center of the living room. She turned her head, her eyes locking onto the entryway.
Heavy, confident footsteps thudded against the hardwood floor.
The front door swung open. Hartwell strode in, bringing the bitter chill of the November morning with him.
His driver, Arthur, trailed a few steps behind, silently placing Hartwell's leather briefcase on the console table before bowing his head and retreating back to the elevator.
Hartwell didn't even look at Faith.
He reached up, his long fingers impatiently yanking at the knot of his navy silk tie. He walked straight past her, heading for the wet bar to pour himself a glass of ice water.
He offered no explanation for his absence. He didn't think he owed her one.
Faith's legs felt like lead, but she forced them to move. She walked toward the bar, stopping on the opposite side of the marble counter.
Hartwell tipped his head back, downing the water. His Adam's apple bobbed against his throat.
Faith's eyes didn't look at his face. They dropped to the collar of his crisp, white custom Tom Ford shirt.
There was no visible mark, no careless smudge of makeup to betray him. But it wasn't what she saw that made her lungs seize. It was what she smelled. The air was sucked out of the room. Her stomach violently rolled over. Beneath the crisp scent of the winter air and his expensive cologne, there was a heavy, cloying note of synthetic rose perfume. Eveline's signature scent. It clung to his clothes, to his skin, weaving through the space between them like a toxic, invisible branding iron pressed directly against her senses.
Hartwell lowered the glass. He caught the direction of her dead stare.
He saw the subtle flare of her nostrils, the way her body instinctively recoiled from his proximity.
For a fraction of a second, a flicker of unnatural stiffness crossed his sharp features. But it vanished instantly, replaced by a mask of cold, arrogant irritation.
"Don't look at me with that pathetic victim expression, Faith," Hartwell snapped, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.
Faith's hands dropped to her sides. She curled her fingers inward, her nails biting so hard into her palms that the sharp pain was the only thing keeping her upright.
"Did you go to JFK last night?" Faith asked. Her voice was terrifyingly quiet. "Were you with Eveline?"
Hartwell's jaw clenched. His eyes darkened into a furious storm.
He slammed the heavy glass tumbler down onto the marble. Water sloshed over the rim, splashing onto the counter.
He leaned across the bar, his massive frame casting a shadow over her.
"Are you having me followed again?" he demanded, his voice dripping with venom.
The sheer audacity of the accusation hit Faith like a physical blow. The humiliation of six years ago—when he accused her of hiring the paparazzi to photograph them in bed—came rushing back, suffocating her.
She looked at the man she had worshipped for six years. He looked like a complete stranger.
Faith took a slow step backward. She needed to get away from the suffocating stench of that rose perfume.
"I don't need to follow you," Faith said, her tone devoid of any inflection. "The New York tabloids are much faster than my eyes."
Hartwell let out a harsh, cruel laugh.
"Well, you should know," he sneered. "Isn't that exactly how you forced me to marry you six years ago? Using the media?"
The words were a serrated knife, plunging directly into the last unbroken piece of her heart.
Normally, this was the point where Faith would break. Where her eyes would fill with frantic tears, where she would step forward and beg him to believe she didn't drug him, that she didn't call the press.
But today, her eyes remained bone-dry.
Faith looked at him for a long, heavy moment. Then, very slowly, she nodded her head.
Hartwell frowned. The total absence of her usual desperate pleading unsettled him. A strange, prickling irritation crawled up the back of his neck.
He yanked at his collar again, turning his back on her.
"I'm taking a shower," he muttered, walking away.
His broad back disappeared behind the master bedroom doors. A minute later, the sound of rushing water echoed through the walls. He was washing another woman's scent off his skin.
Faith stood alone by the bar.
Something deep inside her chest—the invisible tether that had kept her tied to this man for six agonizing years—snapped with a final, silent severing.
She turned and walked down the hall to the nursery. She needed to see the one person in this house who had never made her feel like a stranger.
She pushed the door open. Her six-year-old son, Leo, was still fast asleep, his dark hair—so much like his father's—mussed against the pillow.
Faith walked to the edge of the bed. She reached out, her trembling fingers gently tucking the duvet under his chin. A fierce, protective fire ignited in her deadened eyes.
He doesn't deserve you either, she thought. And I will never let him use you as a bargaining chip.
She had no idea what Hartwell planned to do about Leo. But she knew one thing for certain: that man had never once looked at their son with genuine warmth. Leo was an obligation to Hartwell. A reminder of the trap he believed Faith had sprung on him.
Faith turned away from the bed and walked over to Leo's small desk.
With sharp, efficient movements, she began packing his school backpack. Not just for school—but for whatever came next. The storm was coming, and she was going to be ready. And she was taking her son with her.
