Ethan's POV
I wake up every morning to the same silence, the kind that presses against my chest before I even open my eyes. There is no alarm clock anymore, no assistant knocking on the door, no city noise clawing its way through glass windows high above the streets. Just the slow hum of an old ceiling fan and the distant sound of waves hitting rocks somewhere beyond this forgotten coastal town.
I chose this place because no one looks twice at a man who keeps his head down, because no one here knows the name Ethan Cole or what it once meant. Here, I am just another ghost renting a room with peeling paint and a bed that creaks under the weight of regret.
Some days I convince myself that disappearing was mercy. For her. For everyone. Other days I know it was cowardice dressed up as sacrifice.
I left because staying would have meant watching Liana build a world where I no longer belonged, and I was too weak to stand in that shadow. I left because every street in the city carried her footsteps, every boardroom echoed with her voice, and every mirror reflected the man who broke her.
I sit up slowly, running a hand through hair that has grown longer than I ever allowed it to be before. There was a time my appearance mattered, when suits were pressed to perfection and my image was curated like a brand. Now I barely recognize myself.
The man staring back from the cracked mirror has hollowed eyes and a mouth that no longer remembers how to smile without guilt tugging at its corners. I splash cold water on my face and for a moment the shock pulls me back into my body, but it never lasts. Nothing does.
I spend my days walking aimlessly, avoiding places with crowds, avoiding conversations that might lead to questions. At night, I sit on the edge of the bed and let the memories come because resisting them only makes them sharper. Liana laughing softly over coffee, her fingers curled around the mug as she talked about things that excited her.
Liana standing across from me in silence after the truth came out, her eyes no longer searching for explanations, only exits. That was the moment I lost her, not when Camille whispered lies into my ear, not when I signed contracts that chained us together instead of binding us with trust. I lost her when I chose control over honesty, when I assumed love would endure whatever damage I inflicted on it.
People think regret is loud, dramatic, something that knocks you to your knees in one violent moment. They're wrong. Regret is quiet. It's waking up every day knowing exactly where you went wrong and being unable to undo it. It's remembering the way her voice used to soften when she said my name and realizing I will never hear it sound that way again.
I replay the gala in my mind more than I should, the night I saw her standing beside Adrian Hale. She looked radiant, composed, untouched by the chaos that once surrounded her, and something in me snapped. Not because of Adrian, not even because of jealousy, but because she looked free. Free of me. That was when I understood that love, real love, doesn't survive ownership. It survives respect, and I had offered her everything except that.
Camille's name still tastes bitter when it crosses my thoughts. I let her manipulate me because part of me believed I was untouchable, that I could control every outcome if I just pulled the right strings. I told myself I was protecting my empire, my legacy, our future. What I was really protecting was my ego.
Camille didn't steal me away out of love, she cornered me with fear, with threats disguised as reassurance, and I walked willingly into the trap because I believed I was smarter than everyone else. Liana paid the price for that arrogance, and that is a debt I can never fully repay.
The envelope I sent her plays on repeat in my mind, the weight of the wedding ring resting in my palm before I sealed it away. That ring once symbolized permanence, promises made in private and broken in public. Sending it back wasn't a grand gesture, it was surrender.
It was me admitting that I had no right to claim her, not even in memory. Forgiveness is not something you demand. It's something you wait for, even if waiting lasts a lifetime.
There are moments, rare and dangerous, when hope sneaks in uninvited. When I imagine her opening that envelope, her fingers brushing against the cold metal, her expression unreadable. Does she feel anger? Sadness? Indifference? I don't know which would hurt more. Hope is cruel like that. It gives you just enough light to see how dark everything else has become.
I've lost almost everything I built. Companies collapse when the man behind them stops fighting, and I stopped fighting long before the headlines noticed. Partnerships dissolved, shares plummeted, allies vanished the moment my power did. It turns out loyalty is conditional when it's bought instead of earned. I should have learned that lesson earlier, but some truths only arrive once you've lost the ability to use them.
At night, the isolation grows heavier. I lie awake listening to the sea and wonder if Liana ever lies awake thinking of me, or if I've finally become nothing more than a chapter she's closed. Adrian Hale fills the spaces I once occupied now, and the thought cuts deeper than I expected.
Not because he's my rival, but because he seems to give her something I never did without strings attached. Safety without control. Support without expectation. Love without manipulation.
When the message came, it arrives not with drama but with a simple knock on the door. The landlord hands me an envelope, no return address, my name written in handwriting I don't recognize. My hands shake slightly as I close the door behind me, a familiar dread settling into my stomach. I tell myself it's nothing, another bill, another reminder of a life unraveling, but I know better. Some instincts don't disappear, even when everything else does.
I sit on the bed before opening it, bracing myself as if for impact. Inside is a folded newspaper clipping, creased from being handled too many times. The headline stares back at me like a final judgment: rumors, speculation, carefully chosen words dancing around a possibility that feels like a death sentence. Liana Rivera and Adrian Hale. Engagement whispers. Strategic alliance or something more. The article doesn't confirm it, but it doesn't deny it either, and that uncertainty is enough to knock the air from my lungs.
My chest tightens, not with anger, not even jealousy, but with a profound sense of finality. This is what moving on looks like. This is the future continuing without me. I press the paper to my chest and let the weight of it sink in, the realization that I may have waited too long, that forgiveness might never come because she no longer needs it to heal.
I close my eyes and for the first time since I left, I cry. Not the quiet, restrained tears I've allowed myself in the dark, but something raw and uncontrolled, grief spilling out of me in waves. I cry for the man I used to be, for the woman I loved and failed, for the life that could have been if I had chosen differently when it mattered most.
Yet beneath the pain, beneath the crushing regret, something else stirs. Acceptance, fragile but real. Love does not end because it isn't returned. It changes shape. It becomes wishing her happiness even if it comes at the cost of my own. If Adrian can give her the peace I never did, then maybe this suffering has meaning. Maybe this is the price of becoming honest at last.
I fold the newspaper carefully and place it back into the envelope, setting it beside the bed like a relic of a past life. Tomorrow, I don't know what I'll do. I don't know if I'll stay here or finally find the courage to face the world I ran from. All I know is that loving Liana means letting her go, completely, even if every part of me aches at the thought.
As the sun sets outside the small window, painting the room in fading light, I whisper her name into the silence one last time. Not as a plea. Not as a promise. But as a goodbye I should have said long ago.
And somewhere deep inside, the ashes of regret begin, slowly, painfully, to cool.