Chapter 3Seven Years of a Lie

"Elara, are you even listening to me?"

Jessica's angry voice pulled me from the memory. "My brother is a huge success, and he's still obsessed with you. All you have to do is say you're sorry, and you can have it all back."

I looked at her, this woman so lost in her own self-serving fantasy, and felt nothing but pity.

"No, thank you," I said, my voice clear and steady. "I'm very happy now. And I don't need your brother's forgiveness."

With that, I turned and walked toward the taxi stand.

"You'll regret this, Elara!" she screamed after me. "Without my brother, you're nothing! You'll be stuck with that poor, pathetic husband of yours for the rest of your life!"

I didn't look back. Everyone once thought I couldn't live without Julian Vance. But the world keeps spinning, with or without any single person in it.

Soon, I arrived at the preschool. Across the street, I saw my daughter, Lily, laughing as she and her friends played with a jump rope. Her smile was pure sunshine. A warmth spread through my chest, and I started to cross toward her.

Suddenly, I was slammed against a brick wall.

"Elara, I can't believe you'd stoop to such a childish game just to get back at me."

I looked up. The man pinning me to the wall was impossibly handsome, dressed in a tailored suit that looked like it had just come from a boardroom.

It was my ex-fiancé, Julian.

Seeing him after seven years was disorienting. We’d grown up together, our houses separated only by a quiet suburban street. We were inseparable. He’d transformed himself from a slacker to a top student just to get into the same university as me, even turning down a scholarship to study abroad. Everyone said he was crazy about me. And I, in turn, had given up a lucrative career to support his.

When his work became all-consuming, I was the one who brought him home-cooked meals, who listened to his frustrations, who made sure he never had to worry about a thing. Slowly, in the eyes of others, I went from his girlfriend to his devoted follower. We used to laugh it off.

Then Melissa Monroe appeared. His new assistant. Capable, gentle, beautiful. At first, I paid her no mind. Julian had always been surrounded by impressive women, but his eyes had only ever been for me.

Until they weren't. Their private messages became more frequent. One afternoon, I left my phone at his office by mistake. When I went back to get it, I heard Melissa's voice from inside his office.

"Julian," she was saying, holding my phone, "Elara's phone is here. I accidentally saw a new message… from someone saved as 'My Darling'."

She looked up and saw me, then had the audacity to feign embarrassment. "Oh, Elara, I am so sorry! I wasn't trying to snoop, I was just curious."

Julian's face went dark.

"She's a female friend," I explained. "She uses a male profile for her work." I even played a voice note from our chat to prove it. But as the clear, feminine voice filled the room, Julian just stared at me, his face an unreadable mask.

After that, a wall of ice grew between us. My attempts to talk were always brushed aside with the excuse of "work." Meanwhile, Melissa was always there, offering him comfort and support. The day before our engagement party, she sent me a photo: Julian, asleep beside her, dark circles of exhaustion under his eyes. Melissa’s expression in the photo was one of smug triumph. A voice message followed. "Julian's been under so much stress with work lately," she cooed. "Try not to upset him."

My mind reeled, but I told myself he was just exhausted from work, that he’d had too much to drink. I spent right up until the ceremony trying to bridge the gap between us, unwilling to let a misunderstanding destroy a twenty-year history.

I never imagined he would use a stranger's lies to publicly humiliate me, to abandon me on what should have been the happiest day of my life.

And now, here he was, his eyes bloodshot with a terrifying intensity.

"You run off with my daughter for seven years, Elara, and you have nothing to say for yourself?"

"Mr. Vance," I said, my voice cold, "the child you're referring to is gone."

"Enough, Elara!" he snarled, his composure cracking. "Not only did you cheat on me with some lowlife, you took my mother's money and left me, and now you're trying to make my daughter call another man 'daddy'!"

Before I could react, he lunged past me and snatched Lily.

"What are you doing?!" I screamed, my blood running cold.

He ignored me, turning to my terrified, sobbing daughter. "Shh, don't cry," he crooned. "Daddy's taking you home."

Lily's cries intensified into heart-wrenching wails. "You're not my daddy! I want my mommy!" She struggled in his arms, her face turning red as she gasped for air.

A spear of panic pierced my heart. "Julian, give her back to me!" I lunged for her, but he shoved me hard, sending me stumbling to the pavement.

He looked down at me, his face twisted with rage. "You ran away with my child. Why should I give her back to you now?"

Ignoring the scrape on my knee, I scrambled up and charged toward him again. This time, an arm shot out and grabbed me. It was Jessica.

She sneered, her eyes filled with contempt. "I've seen your type before, Elara. Using a child to claw your way back into wealth. You're just playing hard to get." She tightened her grip. "I'm telling you, you are not taking a Vance child anywhere today!"

As she spoke, Julian moved toward his car, still holding my screaming daughter. Just as he reached for the door handle, he glanced back at me.

"If you want your daughter back, divorce that nobody. No daughter of mine will call another man father."

In that same instant, a black Rolls-Royce appeared out of nowhere, speeding directly toward Julian’s car. My heart leaped into my throat.

Julian froze, his legs visibly buckling. His grip on Lily slackened for just a second, and it was all she needed. She wriggled free, stumbling toward me, crying "Mommy!" as I rushed to scoop her into my arms and shield her with my body.

The Rolls-Royce screeched to a halt, its bumper less than an inch from Julian's car. The driver had incredible skill.

Julian, recovering from the shock, immediately tried to approach us again. He plastered a sickeningly sweet smile on his face. "Come here, sweetheart," he coaxed. "Daddy will take you to Disneyland. We'll go to the aquarium restaurant and see the dolphins."

It was a pathetic attempt. What he didn't know was that these things were not extravagant treats for my daughter; they were part of her normal life. More importantly, my husband and I had drilled stranger safety into her from the moment she could talk. Even if she'd never been to Disneyland, she would never go with him.

His plan was doomed. Seeing that his false kindness wasn't working, the mask fell away. He lunged for us.

I shut my eyes, clutching Lily tightly as she let out a terrified shriek. But the impact never came.

I opened my eyes. A man stood between us and Julian, his hand clamped firmly on Julian’s arm, stopping him cold. The man was tall and impeccably dressed, with a face so handsome it seemed carved from marble.

It was my husband, Adrian Hale.