Chapter 2

I didn't sleep. Not a single minute.

I sat in our living room all night, watching the sunrise paint our Malibu windows gold, the same windows Ethan had insisted on because "you deserve to wake up to beauty every day, Lily-pad." The irony tasted bitter in my mouth.

My hands still trembled from yesterday's discovery. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw them together—Ethan and Victoria, tangled and breathless, destroying twenty-two years with every touch.

The front door opened with that familiar creak Ethan had been meaning to fix for months.

He stepped inside wearing his navy suit—the one I'd bought him for our anniversary—his hair perfectly styled, his face a mask of professional composure.

He looked like he was here to conduct business.

"Lily." His voice was flat, emotionless. He didn't even glance at me as he walked to the coffee table and placed a manila envelope down with the precision of someone setting a timer.

"Let's end this cleanly. Don't make it uglier than it needs to be."

I stared at the envelope, my mind struggling to process what I was seeing. "What is that?"

"Divorce papers." He finally looked at me, but his eyes were cold, distant. "My lawyers have already reviewed everything. It's fair."

"Fair?" The word came out as a whisper. Then louder: "FAIR?"

"Lily, please—"

"Ugly?" I shot to my feet, my voice cracking. "YOU cheated on me, Ethan! I'M the one making it ugly?"

He sighed, the same sigh he used when his assistant brought him the wrong coffee. "We've been living in different worlds for years. You know that."

"Different worlds?" I felt like I was drowning. "Yesterday you told me you loved me! Yesterday you kissed me goodbye and said—"

"Yesterday was yesterday." His words cut through me like surgical instruments. "We both know this marriage has been over for a while."

I grabbed the envelope, my hands shaking so violently I could barely hold it.

The papers inside were thick, official, covered in legal language that might as well have been written in a foreign tongue. But I could read the header clearly enough: "Petition for Dissolution of Marriage."

That's when the memory hit me like a physical blow.

Last winter. I'd caught a simple cold, nothing serious, but Ethan had acted like I was dying. He'd taken three days off from recording, something he never did, to stay home and take care of me.

"Baby, your fever isn't breaking," he'd said, pressing his hand to my forehead for the tenth time that hour. "Maybe we should go to the ER."

I'd laughed, even though my throat was raw. "It's just a cold, Ethan. You're overreacting."

But his face had been so serious, so worried. "I can't lose you, Lily-pad. You're all I have."

He'd made me soup from scratch, checked on me every hour, even set alarms to wake up during the night to make sure I was still breathing. For a cold.

Now I had cancer—actual, stage-four, going-to-kill-me cancer—and he was serving me divorce papers.

"You used to panic when I had a headache," I said, my voice hollow.

"Stop being dramatic." He straightened his tie. "The lawyers are ready for PR damage control."

That's when the coughing started. It came from somewhere deep in my chest, violent and uncontrollable. I bent over, gasping, and felt the familiar metallic taste in my mouth.

When I pulled the tissue away from my lips, it was spotted with bright red blood.

"Dramatic?" I held up the bloodstained tissue. "I'm coughing up BLOOD, Ethan!"

He looked at the tissue, then at me, and his expression didn't change. Not even a flicker of concern.

"That's exactly the kind of scene I'm talking about."

The world tilted. This wasn't the man who'd held my hair back when I had food poisoning. This wasn't the man who'd driven me to the emergency room when I'd cut my finger chopping vegetables. This was a stranger wearing my husband's face.

"Who are you?" I whispered.

"I'm the same person I've always been, Lily. You just never wanted to see it."

Something inside me snapped. The crystal vase on the side table—a wedding gift from Mama Margaret—was in my hands before I knew what I was doing.

"GET OUT!"

I hurled it at him. It smashed against the wall inches from his head, sending glass shards flying. One piece caught his cheekbone, drawing a thin line of blood.

Ethan touched his face, looked at the blood on his fingertips, and his expression shifted into something I'd never seen before. Something cold and calculating.

"If you dare say anything online," he said quietly, "I'll cut off Grace Haven's funding."

The words hit me harder than any physical blow. "What?"

"You heard me. One tweet, one Instagram post, one word to any reporter about our private business, and Mama Margaret's little orphanage loses every penny I've been sending them."

I felt like I was falling through space. "You'd threaten Mama Margaret? Those children who have nothing?"

"I told you I'd climb to the top, Lily. You knew how hard this was for me." He pulled out his phone and dabbed at the cut with his handkerchief. "The music industry doesn't forgive scandal. I won't let you destroy everything I've built."

"You'd threaten the woman who raised us?" My voice was barely audible. "Don't you have any heart left?"

For just a moment, something flickered in his eyes. Something that might have been the old Ethan, the boy who'd protected me from bullies and promised me forever under a snowy sky.

But it was gone as quickly as it came.

"Think about what's best for everyone," he said, avoiding my gaze as he headed for the door.

"Ethan, wait—"

But he was already gone, leaving me alone with the divorce papers and the echo of his threat. I sank onto the couch, surrounded by shattered glass and broken promises.

I was dying, and my husband of twenty-two years had just threatened to destroy the only family I had left if I didn't quietly disappear from his life.

I looked at our wedding photo on the mantelpiece—two fools who thought love could conquer anything. We looked so young, so hopeful, so impossibly naive.

The man in that photo had promised to protect me forever.

The man who just left would let me die alone to protect his precious career.

I picked up the divorce papers with steady hands now. At the bottom of the last page, there was a place for my signature. Next to it, in small print, it listed the division of assets.

The house, the cars, the investments—he was giving me half of everything, just like he'd said. Fair and clean.

But he was keeping the one thing that mattered most: the ability to destroy the orphanage that had been our first home.

I laughed, a bitter sound that echoed in our empty mansion. He'd learned to play the game better than I'd ever imagined. This wasn't just abandonment—it was strategic annihilation.

And the worst part? I was going to have to let him win.

Because even dying, I couldn't bear the thought of those children suffering for my mistakes.

The morning sun was fully up now, streaming through those beautiful windows, illuminating everything Ethan and I had built together. Soon, it would all belong to someone else.

Just like he already did.