Chapter 3 - THE LETTER THAT BURNED OUR WORLD TO ASHES
The afternoon sun filtered through the sheer curtains of the hotel suite, casting long, golden shadows across the coffee table where the letter lay open in Ethan’s trembling hands.
His eyes raced across the handwritten lines, moving back and forth with increasing speed, his breathing turning shallow and ragged.
Sarah,
By the time you read this, I will be gone. Our relationship was nothing more than a convenient distraction during a turbulent quarter, and keeping up appearances has become exhausting. I have no intention of playing domestic house, and certainly no interest in entanglements that tie me down. Do not look for me, do not call, and consider this chapter closed permanently. Leave my apartment by morning.
— Ethan.
The silence in the room became heavy, suffocating, and terrifyingly dense.
Ethan dropped his hands, the letter fluttering back onto the glass table like a wounded bird. He looked up at me, his eyes wide with horror, disbelief, and a profound, bone-deep panic.
“I didn’t write this,” he whispered, his voice cracking violently on the last word.
“Oh, really?” I let out a dry, humorless laugh that held no amusement, only years of accumulated grief. “It’s your stationery. It’s your exact handwriting—every looping 'E', every sharp cross of the 't'. It was slipped under my bedroom door while you were supposedly away on a late-night flight to London. When I woke up, your clothes were gone, your security pass was deactivated, and your assistant told me you had already checked out of the penthouse permanently.”
“Sarah, look at me!” Ethan stepped forward, grabbing the edges of the table, his knuckles turning white. “I swear to God on my mother’s grave, on my own life, I never wrote these words! I never left for London that night! I was supposed to, yes, but my flight was canceled due to the storm. When I came back up to the penthouse early in the morning, you were already gone. Your phone number was disconnected, your apartment lease was broken, and when I asked my staff where you went, they told me you packed your bags and left me a text saying you wanted out!”
I stared at him, my breath catching in my throat. The ground beneath my feet felt as though it was tilting.
“What?” I breathed. “What are you talking about? I never sent you a text. I waited by my phone for three days until the battery died. I thought... I thought you discarded me the moment your board members started whispering about your upcoming corporate merger with the Hayes empire.”
Ethan’s eyes flared with a sudden, dark realization. The pieces were shifting in his mind, snapping together with the brutal efficiency of a master puzzle solver.
“The Hayes empire,” he repeated, his voice dropping to a dangerous, icy register. “Victoria.”
“What does Victoria have to do with this?” I asked, a cold shiver running down my spine.
“Think about it, Sarah,” Ethan said, running both hands frantically through his dark curls, messing them up completely. “Two years ago, my grandfather’s will stipulated that I had to be settled and married into an established corporate dynasty by my thirtieth birthday to retain full voting shares in Blackwood Holdings. Victoria’s father had been pushing her on me for years. I told all of them—my board, my family, Victoria herself—that I was in love with you, that I was going to propose to you.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. “You... you told them that?”
“Every single one of them knew,” Ethan said, his voice trembling with suppressed fury. “They thought you were a distraction, a commoner who didn't fit the brand. But I didn't care. I was ready to walk away from the board, from the shares, from everything, just to build a life with you. And then, overnight, you vanished, my staff became tight-lipped robots, and Victoria was suddenly by my side at every charity gala, acting as if we had been engaged for months.”
“Someone forged that letter,” I whispered, looking down at the cream paper on the table. “Someone forged your handwriting, cleared out your apartment, intercepted my calls, and fed us both completely opposite lies so we would never find each other again.”
“And that someone,” Ethan said, his green eyes flashing with a terrifying, predator-like intensity, “had complete access to my private office, my stationery stash, my security codes, and my inner circle.”
He looked back toward the crib where Leo was sleeping peacefully. He walked over slowly, standing beside the wooden rails, looking down at our son with an expression of such pure, aching devotion that my anger faltered for a fraction of a second.
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“He has my eyes,” Ethan whispered, his hand hovering just above Leo’s blanket, too afraid to touch him. “And someone tried to rob us of every single day of his life. Someone stole our family, Sarah.”
“We need to find out who did it,” I said, my resolve hardening like steel. “Because whoever went to those lengths to keep us apart didn't just ruin two years of our lives. They're still walking around free.”
