Chapter 2

I sat in the park near the police station for a long time.

Long enough for my eyes to swell shut and the tears to run dry before I finally got up and headed home.

But when I reached the apartment, I found the door had been changed.

The old key lock was gone, replaced by an unfamiliar digital keypad.

I froze for two seconds. I was just about to knock when the landlord stepped out of the elevator.

She saw me and looked confused. "Emma, didn't you and your boyfriend cancel the lease yesterday? What are you still doing here?"

That was how I found out.

While I was at the police station sitting through a warning, Adrian had moved out and terminated the lease on the apartment we'd shared for two years.

And as his fiancée, I knew nothing about it.

Just like every time he'd taken off to Vegas to handle casino business without telling me.

I wouldn't know he'd left New York until I waited up for him, couldn't reach him, and finally tracked him down at Black Holdings headquarters.

The landlord looked at my swollen eyes, seemed to put it together, and softened her voice.

"He didn't take everything. There are two boxes in the stairwell. Go see if you still want any of it."

I went to the stairwell and found the two boxes she'd mentioned.

One was filled with every gift I'd ever given Adrian over the years.

The other held my clothes and personal things.

They'd been tossed carelessly into a corner, like two boxes of garbage nobody wanted.

Just then, Chloe sent me a message.

"Miss Hayes, Boss bought a new place and moved in yesterday. I wasn't sure what to do with your things, so I packed them into boxes for now."

Then she sent a location pin.

Adrian's new home.

She followed up: "The front entrance at the new place uses facial recognition. Boss has something tonight and won't be back. If you want to go over, let me know ahead of time and I can come let you in."

When Adrian and I first set the wedding date, Victoria had said it wasn't proper for us to keep living in a rental after we were married. She told Adrian to buy a place as a marital home so I wouldn't be shortchanged.

At the time, Adrian had only said, "It's the same wherever we live."

He said moving was a hassle and told me, "When you get a chance, ask the landlord if she'd sell. If she will, we'll just buy this place."

I thought he really meant to turn the apartment we'd shared for two years into a real home.

After finding out the landlord was open to selling, I was over the moon. I swapped out furniture again and again, pouring my heart into decorating our little home every single day.

But now, he'd moved without a second thought.

And before I even knew a new home existed, another woman already knew everything.

She even had access to get in.

I didn't reply to Chloe. I put my phone away and turned to the landlord, who was still waiting by the door.

"I don't want any of this. Do whatever you want with it."

With that, I left the building.

The moment I got into a taxi, Chloe messaged again.

"Miss Hayes, are you not replying because you're angry?"

"It's all my fault. If I hadn't mentioned that living in that neighborhood alone made me a little scared, Boss wouldn't have bought the house next to mine, and he wouldn't have moved so fast. If you're going to be mad, be mad at me. Don't blame Boss."

Reading that message, something clicked into place.

The first year we were together, I'd rented a place just one street over from Adrian's apartment so I could be closer to him.

One night during a thunderstorm, I was so scared I called him, crying, begging him to come be with me.

All he said was one sentence.

"Emma Hayes, don't you have parents?"

Back then I didn't understand why he was always so cold to me.

Now I did.

The person he loved wasn't me.

No matter what I did, he would never care.