Liam’s POV:
For once, I woke up with the strangest sensation—one I hadn’t felt in years, maybe not since I was a teenager with too many dreams and not enough cynicism to crush them. I woke up content. Ridiculous, I know, but there it was. A rare, unfamiliar warmth curled through my chest before I even opened my eyes, before I remembered where I was. Who she was.
Ava.
The woman currently occupying too much of my mind, my days, my nights— my bed.
I reached for her automatically, expecting to find soft skin and sleepy warmth. Instead, my hand met cold linen and empty space. That single beat of quiet disorientation lingered just a moment too long before I sat up and looked around.
The sheets beside me were rumpled but empty. The bathroom door was open, her clothes gone. No sound. No footsteps. No note—wait. No, there was a note.
A single sheet of embossed paper, heavy stock with my penthouse crest, lay folded neatly on the kitchen island.
I already knew what it was before I even picked it up.
You’re just like the rest of them. This is my formal resignation. — A
The breath that left my chest felt too sharp to be called exhaling. I read the note again, slower this time, as if some hidden clause would suddenly appear in the margins, some explanation that would make sense of how I could go from holding her like she was the only thing that had ever felt real… to being left like this.
Ava was gone.
And not just gone— furious.
Disgusted, even. The words on the page were so final, so certain, that they didn’t feel like something written in the heat of emotion. They felt like the verdict of a trial I hadn’t even realized I was in.
I reached for my phone, already pulling up her number with shaking fingers, still shirtless, still reeling.
Blocked.
Of course.
The silence that followed stretched long and painful before it was broken by a new message from Jamie.
“Morning. You see this yet?”
There was a link. Just a headline.
I clicked.
And everything clicked into place.
A high-resolution photo. My face. Lindsey’s. The press outside the Valencia Hotel, perfectly lit, perfectly timed. My father smiling in the background like a man who had finally won a battle he’d never stopped waging.
Liam Duarte Reunites with Former Flame Lindsey Ashford: Wedding in the Works, Sources Confirm.
And I—I wanted to scream. Not because of the article. But because I knew exactly what Ava had seen. When she saw it. What she must have felt reading those words the morning after she’d finally let her guard down. Finally let me in.
You’re just like the rest of them.
God.
No wonder she left.
I dialed my father.
He answered on the first ring, like he’d been waiting for me.
“Well,” he said cheerfully, “judging by your call, I’m guessing the news landed exactly where it needed to.”
“What the fuck did you do?” I kept my voice low, but I could already hear the crack forming beneath the surface.
“I gave them what they wanted. Closure. Certainty. The market likes clarity, Liam. You should know that better than anyone.”
“You leaked it.”
“I managed it. Don’t be dramatic.”
“She left.”
“Good,” he snapped. “She was never going to last. A girl like that—what did you think she’d do? Build a legacy? She barely knows how to dress for the boardroom.”
“She knows more about strategy than half the men you’ve tried to hand this company to.”
He laughed. Actually laughed. “You always had a weakness for messy girls. For women who didn’t belong. I thought you'd outgrow that after Lindsey.”
“Don’t speak about her,” I said through my teeth.
“She chose to leave,” he reminded me. “Just like this one did. And for the record, Lindsey came back. Because she’s smart. And she understands what the real world looks like.”
“You’re confusing calculation with strength.”
He didn’t respond.
Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he added, “And you should know—Athena reached out to me last week.”
That pulled me up short.
“Athena?”
He sighed. “She made it clear that if Ava isn’t returned quietly, she’ll go public.”
“With what?”
Another pause. This one longer. He was choosing his words carefully now. I could feel it.
“There’s… footage,” he said eventually. “Of me. Years ago. A night in Berlin. A man.”
The words dropped like stones.
My breath stilled.
“She has it,” he said. “And she’s holding it over my head.”
“You’re being blackmailed.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“It doesn’t matter now. I’ve handled it.”
“You’ve manipulated it. That’s not the same.”
“I did what needed to be done,” he said, sharper now. “To protect this company. Our legacy. And you.”
“No,” I said. “You protected yourself.”
“Do you think Ava would’ve stayed if this came out? Do you think she would’ve protected you the way you think she would?”
I didn’t answer. Because I didn’t know. Because maybe he was right.
And I hated that I couldn’t say otherwise with certainty.
“She’s gone,” I said.
“She ran. There’s a difference.”
“She ran because of you.”
He exhaled, slow and calm, like someone who believed he’d already won. “Then be the man I raised you to be. And move on.”