Chapter 1

"Five hundred thousand dollars. Take it and disappear from Liam's life."

The woman sitting across from me, Chloe Miller, slid a check across the polished mahogany table. Her voice was soft, but her words were hard and sharp.

She placed a hand on her still-flat stomach, a gesture that was both protective and possessive.

"I'm pregnant. Liam's child. He loves me, Olivia. You're just a memory he can't even access."

My hands, resting in my lap, clenched into tight fists. Five years. I had waited five years for my husband, Liam Hayes, to come back to me. We were high school sweethearts, the golden couple whose families, both giants in the tech world, had celebrated our union. Then a car accident, a mysterious disappearance, and five years of silence.

He came back a month ago, but he wasn't my Liam. He had amnesia. He remembered his parents, his grandmother, even my brother, Ethan, who was his best friend.

But he didn't remember me. His wife.

Instead, he brought her. Chloe. The sweet, innocent woman he'd met during the years he was lost.

"A check?" I finally said, my voice barely a whisper. "You think you can buy my marriage?"

"It's not a marriage anymore," Chloe said, her smile never reaching her eyes. "It's a technicality. He doesn't love you. He doesn't even know you. Let him go. Let him be happy with me and our child."

The front door opened, and Liam walked in. He saw Chloe and his face softened into a smile I hadn't seen directed at me in years. Then he saw me, and his expression turned cold and impatient.

"Olivia, what are you doing here? I told you Chloe needs to rest."

"Liam," I started, my heart aching. "We need to talk."

"There's nothing to talk about," he said, walking over to Chloe and putting a protective arm around her shoulders. "Are you bothering her again?"

Bothering her? I was in my own home. The home I had shared with him.

"She's pregnant, Liam," Chloe said, leaning into him and looking up with wide, innocent eyes. "Olivia is upsetting me. It's not good for the baby."

Liam's face hardened as he looked at me. "I asked you to be considerate, Olivia. Chloe is carrying my child. You need to accept that. I've already filed for divorce. This is just dragging out the inevitable."

His words hit me harder than a physical blow. Divorce. He had said it so easily, so coldly. The man who once promised to love me forever was now looking at me like I was a stranger, an inconvenience.

My brother, Ethan, had begged me to give him time. "He's not himself, Liv. Something is wrong. Just hold on."

Grandma Eleanor, Liam's own grandmother, had been my staunchest ally. "I don't trust that girl, Olivia. Don't you dare give up on my grandson. The Liam I know would never forget you."

But standing here now, watching him shield the woman who had taken my place, I felt my hope draining away. The five years of waiting, of searching, of clinging to a ghost, suddenly felt like a fool's errand.

"I offered her money to leave, Liam," Chloe said softly, "so we could all move on peacefully. But she refused."

Liam sighed, a sound of pure exasperation. "Olivia, just sign the papers. What more do you want? There's nothing left for you here."

I looked from his cold, unfamiliar face to Chloe's triumphant smirk. My world, which had been on hold for five years, was finally, irrevocably shattering.

I stood up, my legs feeling unsteady.

"Fine," I said, my voice hollow. "I'll sign the papers."

I would not fight for a man who looked at me with a stranger' s eyes. I would not beg for a love that no longer existed.

I turned and walked out of the room, leaving behind the wreckage of my life. As I closed the door, I heard Chloe's sweet voice, "See, darling? I told you she'd understand."

The sound made my stomach turn. I knew then, with a chilling certainty, that this was not just a tragedy. It was an attack.