His Billions Can't Buy Her Forgiveness Now

The scissors made a sickening crunch as I severed the long hair Marcus worshipped.

For three years, I had been his "silk anchor," the hidden woman who grounded him while he conquered New York.

But as the dark strands hit the porcelain sink, my phone lit up with a news alert that shattered my world.

*Thorne Enterprises CEO Marcus Thorne and Isabella Vance announce engagement.*

While I was waiting for his call, he was sliding a massive diamond onto another woman's finger.

At the gala that night, I was forced to watch them.

Izzy leaned across the table, her voice sweet enough to rot teeth.

"You look exhausted, Olivia. Especially now that you're... alone."

Marcus didn't defend me.

He didn't even look at me.

He just swirled his scotch and told me to focus on the merger data, dismissing me like an inconvenient employee rather than the woman he swore to protect.

He thought I was a pragmatist.

He thought I would stay in the shadows, accepting the scraps of his affection while he married for power.

He was wrong.

I went home and packed my life into a single suitcase.

I took the river rock he had carved for me—the one he called his anchor—and left it on the empty easel with a note in black marker.

*You were my rock. Now you’re just a stone.*

By the time he realized his mistake and came pounding on my door, I was already gone, flying toward a new life in Montana where he couldn't reach me.

Chapter 1

Olivia POV

The scissors made a sickening, wet crunch as they bit through the thick lock of hair.

I watched the strands fall into the porcelain sink, dark ribbons contrasting violently against the white ceramic. They looked like dead things. In the harsh bathroom light, they looked like pieces of a corpse.

For three years, Marcus had worshipped my long hair. He used to run his fingers through it while reading documents, a mindless habit that made me feel essential, grounding him to the earth. He called it his silk anchor.

Now, looking at the jagged, uneven ends grazing my shoulders in the mirror, I didn't feel lighter. I just felt severed.

My phone buzzed on the marble counter.

I shouldn't have picked it up. I knew I shouldn't have. But the pathetic, hopeful part of my heart—the part I hadn't managed to cut out with the scissors yet—reached for it like an addict.

I dialed Marcus.

It rang twice before someone picked up. But it wasn't the deep, baritone voice that used to whisper promises to me in the dark.

"Hello?"

Izzy.

Her voice was breathless, light, the sound of a woman who doesn't just think she is winning—she knows the game is already over.

"Is Marcus there?" I asked. My voice sounded foreign, scratchy, like I had swallowed glass.

"Oh, Olivia," she said. She didn't sound surprised. She sounded tolerant. "He's a bit tied up right now. We're just dealing