Ethan couldn't sleep after the event.
He spent the night pacing his apartment, his manuscript untouched on the desk. The pages mocked him now, every word tainted by her. She was his muse, his salvation, and also his ruin. How could he write another sentence when the inspiration itself was a lie?
By dawn, he felt exhausted , but his chest still burned. That was when his phone buzzed.
Isabella: I need to see you. Now.
---
They met at the small apartment Ethan rented as a retreat when he needed space to work. She had never been here before. Her arrival was a storm — hair loose, eyes red-rimmed, shoulders trembling beneath her coat. She didn't knock. She just slipped inside and shut the door behind her, leaning against it as though the world outside was trying to crush her.
"Ethan," she whispered, voice cracking. "I can't— I can't do this anymore."
He stood there, frozen, torn between anger and the desperate urge to hold her. "Then don't," he said hoarsely. "Leave him. Leave Adrian. Stay with me."
She laughed then — a bitter, broken sound. "You think it's that simple?"
"Why isn't it?" His voice rose. "You tell me you love me, you give me these pieces of yourself, and then you go back to him. You play perfect wife while I sit here like a fool. Do you know what that's doing to me?"
Tears spilled down her cheeks. She crossed the room in two strides and grabbed his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. "I do love you, Ethan. More than I ever thought possible. But I can't leave Adrian."
The words hit him like a blow, but her eyes — wide, pleading — kept him from pulling away. "Why?" he demanded.
She shook her head, sobbing. "You don't understand. Adrian isn't just a husband. He's… a cage I can't break out of. He knows everything, controls everything. My family depends on him. If I left, he would destroy me — destroy everyone I love. He's not a man you escape from, Ethan."
Her words tumbled out, frantic and raw. For the first time, he saw not just the polished, confident woman who had captivated him, but the terrified one underneath — trapped, desperate, drowning.
"Please," she whispered, her forehead pressing against his. "Don't ask me to choose. I can't. I'll lose everything. But when I'm with you—" Her voice cracked again. "When I'm with you, I'm alive."
Ethan's hands trembled as he touched her, brushing her tears away. Every instinct screamed at him to push her back, to end it, to save what little of himself he still had left. But her desperation was intoxicating, a siren song he couldn't resist.
"You love me?" he asked, his voice breaking.
"With everything I have," she swore. "But I can't give you all of me. Not yet. Maybe not ever."
It was a knife twisted in his chest — yet somehow, it felt like a gift. He pulled her into him, kissing her with all the anger, pain, and longing that had built up since the reveal. She clung to him as if he were her last breath.
The hours that followed blurred into one another — whispered confessions, frantic kisses, silence heavy with everything unsaid. Ethan knew he should hate her, should throw her out, should cut her from his life before she bled him dry.
But he believed her. God help him, he believed her.
---
When she finally left,Ethan sat on the floor with his back against the door, staring at the darkness. His heart ached with contradictions: fury at her, hatred for Adrian, and an unshakable love that refused to die.
He told himself it was enough — her words, her love, even if it came in fragments. He told himself he could endure the secrecy, the danger, the torment, as long as she kept coming back.
What he didn't realize was that this choice — believing her, taking her half-love as truth — was the very thing Adrian was counting on.