Chapter 1 The Breakup

(Lila)

I laid on top of Ethan in his king-sized bed, still catching my breath, enjoying the warmth of his body beneath mine. My heart was still racing from our passionate encounter, but my mind had already wandered to something else—something that had been consuming my thoughts all day.

“Where’s my anniversary present?” I asked playfully, tracing lazy patterns on his chest with my finger. The silk sheets rustled beneath us as I shifted to look at his face, expecting to see that familiar warm smile.

“What anniversary?”

Two words. Just two simple words, but they made my entire body freeze. We had been seeing each other for exactly one year now. Three hundred and sixty-five days of stolen moments, passionate nights, and what I thought was growing love. 

My jewelry designer friend had told me just last week that Ethan had bought a ring. I’d been floating on cloud nine ever since, imagining the perfect moment he would propose.

Surely he was teasing me. 

He had to be. 

I forced a chuckle and leaned in to kiss him, trying to hide the sudden trembling of my hands. Before my lips could reach his, he grabbed my arm and pulled me back down against him.

“Maybe you should earn your anniversary present,” he whispered in a husky voice that usually made me melt. His hands slid down my bare back, and I tried to focus on the sensation rather than the knot forming in my stomach.

I had been nervous all day, ever since hearing that Grace was back in town. Grace—his first love, the woman who had left him to study abroad ten years ago. The woman whose return had been the talk of our social circle for weeks. 

Now, feeling Ethan’s desire for me still evident against my thigh, I felt foolish for worrying. He wanted me. He was here with me.

Blushing at his suggestive tone, I reached over to the nightstand drawer and pulled out a condom, pressing it into his palm. 

He lifted the new condom I’d just handed him, and chuckled, “I have no idea your love of strawberry extends to this level.” 

I blush and try to grab the pink package from his hand. But he raised his hand so I couldn't reach, and kept his eye on the package, “Let’s see…”

But then, his playful expression shifted as he sat up, still holding me in his lap. 

He was examining it closely with narrowed eyes.

Ethan reached over and yanked open the drawer, pulling out every remaining condom. One by one, he inspected them, his jaw clenching tighter with each passing second. 

His mood changed so quickly it made my head spin. “I never thought you would sink so low,” he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper but filled with contempt. “Trying to trap me with a baby?”

“What? No!” I scrambled off his lap, wrapping the sheet around myself. “Ethan, I would never…”

My mind raced, trying to make sense of what was happening. 

I picked up the condoms Ethan threw on the bed, they had all been tampered with—tiny holes poked through each one. But I hadn’t done it. I would never do something so underhanded, so desperate.

“Ethan, please,” I begged, reaching for him, but he jerked away from my touch as if it burned him. “You have to believe me. I don’t know how this happened, but it wasn’t me.”

“No one else has access to this room,” he said, pacing now, his naked form drawing my gaze despite his anger. “No one else has a key to my penthouse. No one else knows the code to my private elevator.” His voice rose with each statement, accusing me.

I watched him, my eyes welling with unshed tears. Everything was falling apart so fast I could barely breathe. Just minutes ago, I’d been in his arms, feeling loved, feeling safe. Now he was looking at me like I was something dirty, something beneath him.

“I trusted you,” he continued, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “I let you into my life, my home, my bed. And this is how you repay that trust?”

“Ethan—” I started, but then his phone rang.

A woman’s voice came through the speaker, clear and melodic. 

Grace’s voice. 

I would know it anywhere, having replayed her interviews and speeches countless times, trying to understand what made her so special, what hold she still had over Ethan after all these years.

“I’m on my way,” he said into the phone, his tone completely different from the anger he’d just directed at me. He ended the call and began gathering his clothes, not even glancing in my direction.

My heart squeezed painfully in my chest. Of course he would run to her. Grace Williams, the brilliant architect who’d just returned from a decade abroad, trailing success and accolades in her wake. 

Grace, who’d been his first love, his greatest loss. The woman he probably measured every other against. 

Ethan finished dressing and headed for the door. “I want you gone when I get back,” he said coldly, still not looking at me. “Don’t try to contact me again.” 

I sat there in his bed, clutching the sheet around me like a shield, trying to process how everything had gone so terribly wrong. 

Three hours ago, I'd been planning our future. 

Now he thought I was just another desperate woman trying to trap him into marriage. If only he knew who I really was—that I was the last person who needed to trap anyone into marriage. That I had more wealth and power at my disposal than he could imagine.