I should have known peace never lasts long in my life.
The morning everything collapsed began quietly. Too quietly. I was halfway through my coffee, staring at my laptop screen, when my phone started vibrating nonstop against the desk. Messages stacked one after another, emails flooding in so fast they blurred together. At first, I thought it was a glitch. Then I saw the subject lines.
PROJECT SUSPENDED
IMMEDIATE REVIEW REQUIRED
PRESS INQUIRY-URGENT
My heart sank before my mind could catch up.
By noon, it was everywhere.
The project I had poured myself into for months, the one Adrian had trusted me with, the one meant to prove I was more than Ethan Cole's ex-wife, was being dismantled piece by piece. Accusations of insider manipulation. Financial misconduct. Strategic interference in a competitor's collapse. And the worst part?
Adrian's company was being named as the architect behind it all.
I sat in the conference room, hands folded tightly in my lap, listening as executives spoke in clipped, careful tones. Words like "liability" and "containment" echoed around me, bouncing off glass walls that suddenly felt like they were closing in.
"This doesn't make sense," I said finally, my voice sharper than I intended. "Everything was clean. Every decision was approved."
Adrian sat across from me, unreadable, his jaw tense. "I know," he said. "But perception matters more than truth right now."
The meeting ended with no resolution, just an unspoken agreement that someone would have to pay for this, and it wouldn't be the nameless forces behind the scenes.
By evening, the media had picked it up.
Liana Rivera, once again, was trending for all the wrong reasons.
I locked myself in my office after everyone left, the city lights outside blurring through unshed tears. I wasn't crying because of the project. I'd survived worse than professional humiliation. I was crying because something felt wrong in my bones.
This wasn't random.
And it wasn't Ethan.
I knew desperation when I saw it. Ethan's chaos had always been loud, emotional, reckless. This was precise. Quiet. Calculated.
A name surfaced in my mind like a bruise being pressed.
Camille.
I didn't tell Adrian where I was going when I left the building that night. I didn't even text him. I drove through the city on autopilot, ending up outside a familiar high-rise I hadn't visited in years.
Camille's apartment hadn't changed.
Still pristine. Still cold. Still carefully curated to project perfection. She opened the door with a slow smile, like she'd been expecting me.
"Liana," she said sweetly. "You look exhausted."
"You did this," I said, skipping pleasantries. "The project. The sabotage."
Her smile widened just enough to confirm it. "You always were smarter than Ethan."
Rage flared, hot and sudden. "Why?" I demanded. "He's already ruined. What more do you want?"
She stepped aside, letting me in, moving with unhurried grace. "I want control," she said simply. "And you were inconvenient."
I clenched my fists. "So you destroyed something innocent just to prove a point?"
She turned, eyes sharp. "Nothing about this was innocent. Adrian's company needed a fall guy. Ethan needed to stay down. And you?" She tilted her head. "You needed reminding that men don't save women. They use them."
The words crawled under my skin.
"You're lying," I said, though doubt had already begun to bloom.
Camille laughed softly. "Ask him," she said. "Ask your perfect Adrian Hale what his interest in Ethan Cole really was."
I left before she could say anything else, my thoughts spiraling faster with every step. By the time I reached my car, my hands were shaking.
Adrian was waiting for me when I got back to my apartment.
He stood near the window, jacket still on, phone clenched tightly in his hand. When he turned, relief flickered across his face, and something else I hadn't noticed before.
Fear.
"Where did you go?" he asked.
I dropped my bag slowly. "To see Camille."
The color drained from his face.
That was all the confirmation I needed.
"Did you use me to destroy him?" I asked quietly.
The room felt impossibly small as the question hung between us.
Adrian exhaled slowly, like a man bracing for impact. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this."
My chest tightened. "That's not an answer."
He ran a hand through his hair, pacing once before stopping in front of me. "I didn't plan on falling for you," he said. "I didn't plan on you being… you."
My voice shook despite my effort to steady it. "Answer me."
"Yes," he said finally. "At first."
The word landed like a slap.
"I knew Ethan before I knew you," Adrian continued, his voice low. "Years ago. We competed for the same investors. The same territory. He crushed one of my ventures without a second thought."
I stared at him, numb. "So this was revenge."
"It started that way," he admitted. "But then I met you. And everything changed."
"Did it?" I whispered.
He stepped closer, eyes desperate. "I never intended to hurt you. Camille moved faster than I expected. She manipulated the fallout."
"But you opened the door," I said, tears finally spilling. "You let me walk into a war I didn't know I was fighting."
"I was trying to protect you," he said.
I laughed bitterly. "That's what Ethan used to say."
The comparison visibly wounded him.
"I'm not him," Adrian said firmly.
"No," I replied. "But you knew him."
Silence swallowed us.
I took a step back, my heart aching in a way that felt achingly familiar. "I trusted you," I said. "And now I don't know what any of this was."
Adrian's voice softened. "It was real to me."
I wiped my tears with the back of my hand. "Real doesn't mean clean."
He reached for me, stopping himself inches away. "Please don't shut me out."
I met his gaze, my chest tight with conflicting emotions, anger, disappointment, something dangerously close to grief.
"I need time," I said. "And space."
He nodded slowly, accepting it like a sentence rather than a request.
After he left, I sank onto the couch, the city humming outside like nothing had changed.
But everything had.
Because revenge had a price.
And somehow, I was the one paying it.