Jade didn't return to the penthouse right away.
She drifted.
Hotel lobbies. Rooftop benches. The backseat of a taxi with no destination.
She wandered through days like a ghost, numb, unraveling, not really anywhere, not really anyone.
There was no home waiting.
No arms outstretched.
Just silence. And the ache that filled it.
Sometimes she'd sit in the corner of a café long after the coffee turned cold, staring out the window like maybe something, someone would find her. Her phone stayed silent. Her heart, quieter still.
She clutched a small blanket in her purse like a relic, soft and pale blue, folded tight and untouched.
The only thing left of the life she'd dreamed about.
The only thing that hadn't left her.
When she finally stepped into the penthouse again, the air felt colder than she remembered.
More sterile.
Less alive.
Cole wasn't home.
She was almost grateful.
The silence greeted her like an old friend. Or maybe a shadow.
She walked through the halls slowly, each step echoing like a question she no longer had the strength to ask.
Everything looked the same.
Pristine. Polished. Unchanged.
As if nothing had happened.
As if the world hadn't cracked open beneath her feet.
She pushed open the door to the nursery.
It was still perfect.
Mockingly perfect.
The crib stood untouched.
The mobile still spun lazily from the ceiling, casting faint shadows across the soft white walls like ghosts.
Ghosts of lullabies never sung. Of a name never spoken.
Jade's breath caught. Her fingers brushed the crib rail, then clenched around it like it might hold her up.
But nothing did.
She didn't remember crying.
Only that it came in waves, silent, heaving sobs that stole her breath and folded her in half.
Grief wasn't loud. It didn't scream.
It swallowed.
There was no one to hear her break.
Until the front door clicked.
Jade froze, every part of her suddenly still.
She didn't move. Didn't wipe her face.
She just listened, to the slow, measured steps on marble.
Familiar. Heavy. Inevitable.
Cole appeared in the doorway a moment later, his expression unreadable. His eyes flicked briefly to the crib, then back to her.
There was no warmth in his gaze.
No shared sorrow.
Only discomfort, as though her presence in that room, his house, was somehow an intrusion.
"I thought you'd be staying with your family," he said finally, voice clipped.
"I was," she replied, her throat raw. "Didn't exactly feel welcome."
He gave a single nod, impassive.
He didn't ask what happened.
Didn't offer sympathy.
His eyes didn't soften.
Jade turned to face him fully, the ache in her chest tightening like a belt drawn too tight.
"I wasn't sure if you wanted me to come back," she said quietly.
"I didn't say you couldn't."
Her lips parted, but no sound came at first.
"That's not the same," she whispered.
Cole's jaw twitched. He said nothing. He stood in the doorway like a stranger, hands in his pockets, posture distant, presence colder than the air between them.
"I gave up everything for you," she murmured. "My career. My family. My dignity. And now…"
She looked down at the crib, her voice trembling like porcelain on edge.
"Now I don't even have this."
Still, he said nothing. Not even a breath of regret.
"I know you don't love me," she continued, voice frayed but resolute. "I know you never did. But I loved you. I still do."
That made him blink. But his face didn't change.
If her words stirred anything in him, it was buried somewhere deep, and sealed off.
"I want to try," Jade said, barely above a whisper now. "Because if I walk away now… if I leave with nothing… then what was all this pain for?"
Cole looked at her for a long moment.
A beat.
Then two.
And finally, coldly, he replied—
"Suit yourself."
He turned and walked away.
No door slammed.
No parting look.
Just the sound of his footsteps fading down the hall.
Jade stood alone in the nursery, the faint creak of the mobile the only thing that dared speak in the silence.
She didn't expect comfort. Not anymore.
But she hadn't expected to feel quite this hollow either.
And yet—
She stayed.
Not because there was hope.
But because she had nowhere else left to go.
She lowered herself slowly to the floor, curling around the tiny blue blanket like it could still warm something in her.
Like it could still matter.
And in that cold, perfect room, Jade finally let herself break, quietly, completely.