Sophie spent the whole night outside the villa and still wasn’t allowed in.
By morning she was feverish again.
When Ethan finally came out the next afternoon, she staggered toward him and grabbed his sleeve with tear-filled eyes.
“Look at my face,” she said. “Lily hit me. She even said if I told you, she’d hit me again.”
Ethan looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time.
“Then you deserved it,” he said flatly.
She froze.
“From now on, stay away from her. Do you hear me?”
Her lips trembled. “Why are you saying that? You said you’d pamper me forever.”
His expression turned almost disgusted.
“Pamper you? I was playing around. Don’t tell me you thought I loved you.”
That shattered her.
She started screaming that he was lying. That if he truly loved me, why had he let her hit me? Why had he abandoned me again and again to stay with Sophie instead?
With every question, Ethan’s face got worse.
Because there were no answers.
Only memories.
The bridge. The auction. The slap. My birthday. The empty villa. The divorce papers.
Regret finally hit him hard enough to crush.
When Sophie kept going, saying that agreeing to divorce proved his heart had already moved on, he broke completely.
He grabbed her throat.
Not long. Not enough to kill.
But enough to terrify.
Enough to show just how unstable remorse can become when mixed with pride and loss.
When he let go, he handed her to his secretary like discarded trash.
“I don’t want to see her again.”
Meanwhile, Noah and I landed in Switzerland.
Everything had already been arranged. Car service. A five-star hotel. A personal concierge. It was all a little too seamless for a supposedly ordinary college boy, but I was too focused on the watch to dig into it.
A specialist examined it and said restoration was still possible.
The relief I felt was ridiculous and immediate.
After that, we traveled.
Noah knew the country disturbingly well. Historical sites. Hidden restaurants. Scenic routes. Private vineyards. He moved through it all with practiced ease. A few times we “accidentally” ran into friends of his who invited us to estates that did not look remotely like places a normal student would casually visit.
The more I saw, the more questions gathered in my mind.
He could ride horses. Play tennis. Talk about old European wine like he had been born in a castle. The image of the needy younger guy I had first kept at my side started cracking around the edges.
Then, on the day we went to pick up the restored watch, Noah got delayed outside speaking to someone.
I left the boutique alone.
A small crowd had formed on the steps nearby.
At first I only heard raised voices.
Then one of them made me stop cold.
Ethan.
I pushed through the edge of the crowd and finally saw the scene.
He was gripping Noah’s collar with red-rimmed eyes, looking gaunt, exhausted, half wild.
“I’m here for my wife,” he was saying. “What does this have to do with you? Get out of my way.”
Compared to him, Noah looked infuriatingly calm.
“She’s your ex-wife,” he corrected. “And my fiancée. What exactly are you trying to prove to me, ex-husband?”
That was the first time I had seen Noah like that.
Not sweet. Not obedient.
Sharp. Arrogant. Almost dangerous.
It startled me more than Ethan’s appearance did.
Then Ethan saw me, dropped his hand from Noah’s collar, and came toward me immediately.
“Lily,” he said, voice rough with desperation. “Why did you leave the country without saying anything? Do you know how worried I’ve been?”
I looked at him quietly.
“I’m not alone,” I said. “I’m here with my fiancé.”