##### chapter 1
The rain began as a whisper, a fine mist that clung to the air like a warning, before turning into a steady downpour that soaked the city streets and blurred the glittering skyline of Crestfall City.
Aria Lawson stood beneath the awning of La Couronne, one of the most expensive restaurants in the financial district, her fingers clenched so tightly around her phone that her knuckles burned.
She had rehearsed this conversation all day.
Victor, I didn't get the promotion.
Victor, the company downsized.
Victor, I'll find something else—soon.
None of the rehearsed lines mattered anymore.
Through the glass walls of the restaurant, Aria could see him clearly. Victor Hale sat tall and composed in his tailored charcoal suit, the soft golden light of the chandeliers reflecting off the sharp planes of his face. He looked exactly as he always did—controlled, untouchable, born to command rooms like this one.
Across from him sat a woman Aria had never seen before, her manicured hand resting lightly on Victor's wrist, her smile effortless and practiced.
They looked… right together.
That realization cut deeper than the cold rain soaking through Aria's coat.
Just minutes earlier, she had been sitting at that same table.
Minutes earlier, she had still believed she belonged in Victor Hale's world.
It had started with a text.
Victor: Dinner. La Couronne. 7 p.m. We need to talk.
The words we need to talk had made her nervous, but she had convinced herself it was about business. Victor's business, anyway.
Hale Corporation had been expanding aggressively, swallowing smaller firms, making headlines weekly. He was under pressure. He always was.
Aria had dressed carefully—her best navy-blue dress, heels she could barely afford but had bought anyway because Victor once said he liked them. She had even borrowed lipstick from her roommate because she couldn't justify spending money on a new one anymore.
When she arrived, Victor hadn't stood up to greet her.
That should have been her first warning.
"Sit," he said, gesturing across the table without looking up from his phone.
She sat.
The waiter brought champagne she hadn't ordered. Victor waved him away before Aria could touch the glass.
"This won't take long," Victor said.
Aria smiled nervously. "Okay."
He finally looked at her then, his eyes cool and distant, as if he were assessing a stranger instead of the woman who had stood by him for four years.
"I'm ending this," he said.
The words had landed softly, almost politely, but their impact was devastating.
"What?" Aria laughed weakly, certain she had misheard.
"Ending… what?"
"Us," Victor replied. "This relationship."
Her smile froze. "Victor, if this is about money—"
"It is," he said flatly.
"And about the future."
Aria felt her chest tighten. "I told you I lost my job today. I just need some time to get back on my feet. I've always supported you—"
He raised a hand, silencing her.
"You supported me emotionally," he corrected. "That's not enough anymore."
The restaurant noise faded into a dull roar in Aria's ears.
"I don't understand," she whispered.
Victor leaned back in his chair, his posture relaxed, his tone clinical. "Hale Corporation is entering a new phase. I need a partner who can contribute—connections, capital, influence."
Aria stared at him. "I'm your partner."
"No," he said calmly. "You were convenient."
The word convenient echoed painfully in her mind.
"Four years," she said, her voice shaking. "I was with you before the company went public. Before the money. I helped you write your first pitch deck. I skipped meals so you could eat. I believed in you when no one else did."
Victor's expression hardened. "And I'm grateful for that. But gratitude doesn't build empires."
Her eyes burned. "So that's it? You're throwing me away because I'm broke?"
"I'm letting you go because you no longer fit my future," he replied.
"There's a difference."
She reached for his hand instinctively, but he pulled it back as if burned.
"I'm engaged," Victor added.
The word sliced through her.
Engaged.
"To who?" Aria asked, though some part of her already knew the answer.
He nodded toward the woman now sitting across from him—the same woman laughing lightly, her laughter carrying through the glass walls now as if mocking Aria's pain.
"Celeste Monroe," Victor said. "Her family controls Monroe Capital. The merger alone will double our valuation."
Aria felt dizzy. "You planned this."
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Long enough to know this is the right decision."
She stood up so suddenly that her chair scraped loudly against the floor. Heads turned. Heat flooded her face.
"So you invited me here," she said, her voice trembling, "to dump me where everyone could see?"
Victor's eyes flicked around the room, irritation flashing briefly. "Lower your voice."
She laughed then—a broken, hollow sound. "You don't even care how this feels."
"This is business," he said. "Don't be emotional."
Emotional !!.
After everything.
"I loved you," Aria whispered.
Victor stood as well, leaning in just enough for his words to sting.
"And that," he said quietly, "is why you lost."
Now, standing outside in the rain, Aria replayed every word over and over, as if her mind were trying to find a hidden meaning she had missed.
Some clue that he hadn't meant it. Some crack in his certainty.
But there was none.
Inside the restaurant, Victor lifted his champagne glass and clinked it gently against Celeste's. She smiled up at him, radiant and confident, a woman who had never worried about rent or groceries or whether love could be conditional.
Aria's phone vibrated.
Unknown Number: You should leave. Don't make this harder on yourself.
She didn't need to ask who it was.
Her fingers hovered over the screen before she typed back.
Aria: We built everything together.
The reply came instantly.
Victor: No. I built it. You watched.
Her breath hitched. The rain blurred her vision, or maybe it was tears—she couldn't tell anymore.
She looked down at her reflection in the darkened glass of the restaurant window.
Her hair was already damp, makeup smudging, eyes red. She looked exactly how Victor had just described her:
someone who no longer fit.
A burden.
A liability.
"Fine," she whispered.
She turned away from the warmth and light of La Couronne and stepped fully into the rain.
The walk home felt endless.
The city seemed cruelly indifferent to her heartbreak.
Cars splashed through puddles, neon signs flickered, couples laughed under shared umbrellas. Aria walked past them all, her heels clicking against wet pavement, each step heavier than the last.
Her phone buzzed again.
This time, it was her landlord.
Landlord: Reminder: rent is due tomorrow. Please don't be late again.
She stopped walking.
Tomorrow.
She had less than a hundred dollars in her account.
Her chest tightened as panic crept in, sharp and suffocating. She leaned against a lamppost, rain plastering her dress to her skin, and closed her eyes.
You'll figure it out, she told herself desperately. You always do.
But for the first time, she wasn't sure that was true.
She thought of the apartment she shared with two roommates, the thin walls, the unpaid bills stacked on the kitchen counter. She thought of the job interview she had scheduled for next week, the one she had pinned all her hopes on. She thought of Victor's words.
You no longer fit my future.
When she finally reached her building, her body felt numb. She climbed the stairs slowly, each step echoing in the dim stairwell. Her roommates were out—music thumped faintly from a neighboring apartment, but her own place was silent.
She locked the door behind her and slid down against it, sitting on the cold floor.
That was when she broke.
The sobs came hard and fast, wracking her body as she pressed her face into her hands.
Four years of memories flooded her mind—the late nights studying business plans with Victor, celebrating his first major deal, dreaming about a future they were supposed to share.
Had it all meant nothing?
Or had it only meant something to her?
Hours passed before she dragged herself to bed, still wearing her damp clothes. Sleep came fitfully, haunted by Victor's calm, indifferent eyes.
The next morning, the city woke up to a headline that shattered what little hope she had left.
HALE CORPORATION CEO ANNOUNCES ENGAGEMENT TO MONROE CAPITAL HEIRESS
The article was everywhere—on her phone, on the TV at the café downstairs, on the screens in the subway. There was Victor, smiling confidently beside Celeste Monroe, their hands clasped.
The caption read: A power union set to redefine the financial world.
Aria stared at the image until her vision blurred.
So it hadn't just been personal.
It had been strategic.
She shut her phone off and stuffed it into her bag, her heart pounding. She couldn't afford to fall apart—not now. Not when she had rent to pay and no job.
By noon, reality crashed down on her fully.
She received an email from the company she'd interviewed with weeks earlier.
We regret to inform you…
Her hands shook as she closed the message.
By evening, she was sitting on her bed, staring at the peeling paint on the wall, when another notification came in.
This one wasn't from Victor.
It was from an unfamiliar law firm.
Subject: Regarding the Estate of Eleanor Lawson
Her breath caught.
Eleanor Lawson had been her grandmother—the woman who had raised her after her parents died. The woman who had always told her, "The world is cruel to soft hearts, Aria. Learn when to harden yours."
Aria hadn't spoken to her in years. After Victor entered her life, everything else had faded into the background.
With trembling fingers, she opened the email.
Ms. Lawson,
We have been attempting to reach you regarding a matter of inheritance. Please contact our office as soon as possible.
Her heart pounded.
Inheritance?
She laughed bitterly. "Of course," she murmured. "Now?"
She had no idea then that this email—arriving on the same day Victor Hale walked out of her life—would change everything.
She didn't know that it was the first crack in Victor's empire.
Or that the woman crying alone in a tiny apartment would one day stand at the center of the financial world he ruled.
But as Aria Lawson closed her laptop and stared into the quiet room, something inside her shifted.
The pain was still there.
The betrayal still burned.
But beneath it, buried deep, was something new.
Resolve.
Victor Hale had let her go.
And one day—
She would make him regret it.