After His Fiancée Lied, He Destroyed Me Completely

The scent of rosemary and roasted garlic hung heavy in the air, a cloying reminder of a memory that only one of us kept. I adjusted the silverware for the third time, my fingers trembling against the cold metal. Three years. It had been three years since the Swiss Alps swallowed Cassius Payne and spat out a stranger who wore his skin but spoke with a voice devoid of our history.

Tonight was the anniversary of our first date. The real one. Not the fabricated timeline Liana Hart had fed him.

The lock clicked. My breath hitched, a painful knot forming behind my ribs.

Cassius walked in. He didn't look at the candlelit table or the framed photo of us at graduation I’d placed conspicuously near his plate. He looked at me, his gaze sharp and sterile, like a surgeon assessing a tumor.

"Cassius," I breathed, stepping forward. I reached for his hand—a reflex I couldn't kill.

He sidestepped me, a fluid motion of repulsion. He didn't speak. He simply reached into his tailored suit jacket and slapped a thick manila envelope onto the table, right on top of the rosemary chicken.

"Draft measures," he said. His voice was a deep baritone, familiar yet utterly alien. "My legal team advised me to file it immediately. I wanted to give you the courtesy of a warning first. Stay away from Liana."

"I haven't touched her," I whispered, the words scraping my throat. "Cassius, look at the photo. Look at *us*."

He glanced at the picture—us, laughing, his arm draped possessively over my shoulders. His jaw tightened, a muscle feathering beneath the skin. "Photoshop is cheap, Maya. Your obsession is expensive."

"It's not obsession. It's memory. You loved me."

"I love my fiancée," he countered, the word *fiancée* landing like a physical blow. "Sign the acknowledgment. If you come within five hundred feet of the penthouse again, I will have you arrested."

He turned on his heel. I couldn't let him leave. Not like this. I grabbed my coat and followed him out into the biting New York wind, trailing his town car all the way to the penthouse. I had to make him see.

I managed to slip into the building behind a delivery courier, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The elevator ride was an eternity of nausea. When the doors opened to his foyer, Liana was there. Waiting.

She didn't look surprised. She looked delighted.

"Maya," she cooed, her voice syrup-thick. She was wearing a silk robe that I knew Cassius had bought—he liked the texture. "You really don't know when to quit."

"Let me speak to him," I demanded, though my voice shook. "Without you whispering poison in his ear."

Liana’s smile didn't reach her eyes. She reached for a Ming vase on the console table—an antique Cassius’s mother had loved. With a chilling calmness, she smashed it against the marble floor.

Shards exploded outward. Before I could react, she picked up a jagged