THE PRICE OF LETTING GO
I signed the divorce papers on a Tuesday.
No tears.
No phone calls.
No begging.
I just picked up the pen, signed my name, and let Dominic Hartley go.
For four years, I tried to be everything a good wife should be.
I put my career on hold.
I pushed my dreams aside.
I made myself smaller so he could feel bigger.
And somehow, it still wasn’t enough.
He looked through me like I wasn’t really there.
I loved him quietly while he built his empire, not realizing he was slowly tearing mine down.
When he filed for divorce, I think he expected me to fall apart.
I didn’t.
I started over.
A new apartment.
A new job.
A version of myself I hadn’t seen in a long time.
And for the first time in years, I felt like me again.
While he stayed in his perfect penthouse, surrounded by everything money could buy and nothing that felt real, I was finally learning how to be happy.
That’s when he noticed me.
Of course.
Too late.
Now Dominic Hartley, the man who never had to chase anything, is chasing me.
Calling.
Showing up.
Saying all the things I used to beg to hear.
But I’m not that woman anymore.
And I’ve learned what he hasn’t. Love isn’t enough to go back to something that broke you.
He wants another chance.
I just don’t know if he’s really changed… or if I’m the one thing he can’t get back.
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Chapter: Chapter 120:: The NameCamille’s phone kept buzzing.She looked down at it, frowning, then looked up at me.“Selene,” she said. “You need to see this.”I couldn’t move. The paper was still in my hand, one name staring back at me in plain black letters. My fingers had gone tight around the edges of it, creasing the paper without meaning to.Petra.“That can’t be right,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like my own. “Petra found the vendor file for me. She’s the one who dug up the old emails. She’s been helping this whole time.”“Or she’s been controlling what you found the whole time,” Adrienne said quietly. “Think about it. Who told you Reyes requested the liaison role personally? Who found the corrupted photo attached to the old file? Who always seemed to be one step ahead of you on this?”My stomach turned over. I set the paper down on the table because my hand had started shaking too hard to hold it steady.“No,” I said. “No, she brought me the vendor lead. Why would she do that if she was working with him?
Last Updated: 2026-07-14
Chapter: Chapter 119: The Meeting Point“I’m not letting you go alone,” Dominic said again. “That’s final.”“It’s not your decision to make.”He stood up off the couch so fast it startled me. He paced to the window and back, hands dragging through his hair, jaw working the way it did when he was holding something behind his teeth.“A man broke into Wren’s house six hours ago,” he said. “With a camera. And you want to walk into a room alone with a total stranger who just admitted they’re connected to all of this.”“They’re not the one who broke in. They’re the one who’s been warning me.”“You don’t know that for certain.”“I don’t know anything for certain,” I said. “That’s exactly why I need to go.”He stopped pacing. Looked at me like I’d said something in a different language.Camille sat quiet on the other end of the couch, watching us both, arms wrapped around a mug of coffee she hadn’t touched in ten minutes. She glanced between us like she was watching a tennis match neither player was going to win.“Selene.” Dominic’
Last Updated: 2026-07-14
Chapter: Chapter 118: Proof“Wren!”Nothing. Just the phone, warm against my ear, silent on the other end.Dominic grabbed my shoulders. “What’s happening. Selene, talk to me.”“I don’t know.” My voice came out thin. “The dog stopped barking. She’s not answering.”He stood up fast, phone still pressed to his own ear. “Where are you,” he said into it, sharp. “How far.”I couldn’t hear the answer. I could only hear my own heart, loud and wrong in my ears.“Wren, please,” I whispered into the phone. “Please pick up. Please say something.”Ten seconds. Fifteen. My hand had gone numb from gripping the phone so tight. I pressed it so hard against my ear it started to hurt, like the pain might somehow bring her voice back faster.Then a sound. Not Wren’s voice. A crash. A door, maybe, slamming hard against a wall. Then shouting, muffled, far away.“Wren?” I said again, my own voice cracking apart.“Selene?” Her voice again, shaking, but there, alive, real. “The police are here. They’re here, Selene, they just came thro
Last Updated: 2026-07-13
Chapter: Chapter 117: Wren CallsCamille was asleep on my couch by midnight, wine glass empty on the floor beside her, when my phone rang.Wren.I answered fast, stepping into the kitchen so I wouldn’t wake Camille. My hand was already tight around the phone before she said a single word.“Hey,” I said. “Everything okay?”“No.” Wren’s voice shook. “Selene, there’s a man outside my house.”My whole body went cold. The phone nearly slipped from my hand.“What kind of man.”“I don’t know. He’s just sitting in a car across the street. He’s been there for an hour. Biscuit won’t stop barking at the window.”Dominic came into the kitchen, still in the shirt he’d worn all day, and stopped moving the second he saw my face.“What,” he mouthed.I held up one finger. Wait.He didn’t wait well. He never had, not since the resignation, not since he’d started actually caring about things fast and hard instead of slow and careful. He came around the counter and stood close, close enough that I could feel the heat off his arm, watchi
Last Updated: 2026-07-13
Chapter: Chapter 116: SecurityFletcher’s security team arrived in under twenty minutes.Two men in plain dark jackets, no logos, nothing that said who they worked for. They moved through my apartment like they’d already memorized the floor plan before walking in.“Clear,” one of them said, stepping out of the bedroom.“Clear,” said the other, from the kitchen.Dominic stood by the door the whole time, arms crossed, watching every corner they checked like he didn’t trust the word clear until he’d seen it himself.“There’s nothing here now,” the first man said. “No cameras, no devices. Whoever took that photo did it from outside, across the street, probably with a long lens.”“Probably,” Dominic said. “Can you prove it.”“Not yet. But if he came back once, he’ll come back again. People like this get comfortable.” The man handed Dominic a card. “We’ll have someone outside around the clock starting tonight.”“Twenty four hours,” Dominic said. “Not just evenings.”“Twenty four hours,” the man confirmed. “Your father wa
Last Updated: 2026-07-12
Chapter: Chapter 115: Old EmailsI opened my laptop on the hotel bed. Dominic sat beside me, one shoe still off, watching the screen like it might bite him.“Search Hargrove,” he said. “Right after the account closed.”My fingers moved fast over the keys. Too fast. I typed the wrong letters twice and had to fix them.“Slow down,” Dominic said. His hand landed on my knee. Warm. Steady. “We have time.”“You said we didn’t.”“We have enough.”“That’s not the same thing.”“I know,” he said. “Slow down anyway.”I took a breath. Made myself type one letter at a time.I found the folder. Old client emails, archived and forgotten, the kind you never look at again once a project ends. I scrolled through dozens of them. Congrats messages. Invoice confirmations. Small talk from people I barely remembered.Then I saw it.A name I had blocked and forgotten. Not a company name. Just a person.R. Calder.“There,” I said, pointing.Dominic leaned in close. His shoulder pressed against mine.“Open it,” he said.I clicked. The email c
Last Updated: 2026-07-12
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