Walking Away From His Shadow

At her engagement party, Clara watches her fiancé, Ethan, disappear—only to be found asleep in the arms of Chloe, a front-desk receptionist whose uniform is soaked and whose face bears an unsettling resemblance to the woman Ethan has long obsessed over. When Ethan wakes, he coldly tells Clara not to make a scene, and Chloe offers a tearful explanation that sounds less like an apology than a love confession.

Clara has waited five years for this day, enduring Ethan's contempt and the household's quiet disdain since her father died and Ethan's father took her in. Now she ends the engagement, smashes the party she designed herself, and walks away from the estate on blistered feet, refusing the butler's plea to apologize and stay.

Ethan has always measured her against Isabella and favored Chloe for resembling her, even abandoning Clara at a highway rest stop to comfort Chloe. Clara vows never to return, but the hold Ethan and Chloe have on her life is far from settled.