Crown from the Ashes

"If you insist on marrying her, then my death will be the gift for your wedding of the century." On the exact day of my engagement to Sinclair, his childhood best friend threw herself off a cliff, leaving that exact suicide note online for the whole world to see.

The internet exploded. Everyone was dead set on the narrative that Sinclair and she had been carrying on a dirty, secret affair.

The paparazzi's flashbulbs swept through our lavish engagement venue like machinegun fire.

Reporters rammed past the security details, jamming their heavy lenses and microphones right into Sinclair's flawless face.

His fingers tightened around mine, locking our hands together. A gentle, perfectly polished smile rested on his lips. "I have absolutely nothing to do with her.

I will always love my future wife." He looked right into the cameras.

In that exact moment, I was stupid enough to believe the love I had chased for ten long years had finally given me my happy ending. Until three days later.

That was when Sinclair—the always disciplined, perfectly restrained professor—slit his wrists just to join her.

Chapter 1 On the day I got engaged to Sinclair, the famous dancer Skylar jumped from a tenthousandfoot cliff.

She left a suicide note for Sinclair. [ "If you insist on marrying her, then my death will be the gift for your wedding of the century." ] The note was anonymously posted online, triggering a global frenzy.

Within hours, internet sleuths had dug up every single detail of Skylar's past.

They discovered that throughout her brief, brilliant life, there had always been a man who loved her to his very core.

In the end, the two had supposedly been torn apart by the chasm between their social classes. That man was almost certainly my fiancé—Sinclair.

Sinclair was just about to slide the engagement ring onto my finger when the news broke. The paparazzi swarmed, crashing through the doors of the venue and storming the stage.

Their questions were sharp and ruthless. "Professor Sinclair, have you seen Skylar's final message? Do you know Skylar?

What exactly was your relationship?" Flashbulbs popped in a relentless rhythm, lenses tracking Sinclair's every move.

They were all hunting for a crack in the armor—a flicker of guilt or grief on the face of the worldrenowned physics professor.

Sinclair remained unnervingly calm. "I've seen it," he said. "I have absolutely nothing to do with her." The reporters wouldn't let up. "But people on Twitter are saying you and Skylar were secret lovers—that your romance is a reallife Cinderella story with an oldmoney heir.

How do you explain that?" My hands tightened into whiteknuckled fists. This was my tenth year by Sinclair's side.

I had finally waited long enough for his confession, for this moment. How could such a ridiculous rumor surface now? It was absurd.

I stepped in front of the cameras, forcing a smile. "We don't know any Skylar," I declared. "Sinclair and I have been together for ten years. Today is our engagement.

Please stop with these baseless speculations." I looked up, waiting for Sinclair to back me up, my heart thumping against my ribs in expectation.

Sinclair kept his gaze low, his eyes dark and deep like a still lake. "That's right. I'm getting married." He gripped my ring finger, slowly and steadily pushing the diamond home.

In front of the sea of media, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

The coldness in his eyes seemed to melt into a sudden, piercing tenderness. "Sutton, after tonight, your wish will finally come true." At that moment, I truly believed my decade of unrequited longing had finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel.

But three days later, the everdisciplined, evercomposed Professor Sinclair committed suicide for love. I found him lying in a pool of blood in his study.

His eyes were closed, his expression serene. He looked as if he were merely sleeping. There was a gash on his wrist so deep it bared the bone.

Blood had snaked across the floor, staining the white rug a horrific, vivid crimson. I clamped my hands over the wound, screaming for an ambulance through my tears.

The doctors said he had one breath left in him. He was rushed into emergency surgery.

The paramedics found a custom couple's ring engraved with Skylar's initials in the pocket of Sinclair's bloodstained couture shirt, right against his heart.

When the nurse placed that ring in my palm, I felt a hollow, numbing confusion. It didn't belong to me.

Worse yet, photos of Sinclair being rushed into the hospital—along with a clear shot of that ring—were leaked online that very night.

Users immediately pointed out that the engraving matched the ring Skylar had worn on her own wedding finger. The theories from a few days ago surged back with a vengeance.

The internet was on fire. That night, no one cared about my shock or my grief. Covered in Sinclair's blood, I was cornered at the hospital entrance by a wall of reporters.

The questions hit me like physical blows. "Why did Professor Sinclair slit his wrists? Was it for Skylar?

Is that ring their secret token of love?" Chapter 2 A brutal tremor ripped through my spine, rattling my bones.

I forced the words past a throat so tight it burned. "Tonight was just an accident." My fingernails dug into my palms as I faced the blinding flashes. "I am his fiancée.

I ask that… you keep irrelevant people out of this." But the frenzy couldn't be contained.

The hashtag OldMoneyHeirAndDancerTragicRomance blew up across every social media trending chart. Under the internet's relentless digging, the hidden breadcrumbs began to surface.

Sinclair's silhouette was spotted in the VIP shadows at every single one of Skylar's performances. In public, they never crossed the line.

But Skylar's earrings and Sinclair's watch belonged to the same exclusive hisandhers collection.

Then, Sinclair's personal belongings started popping up in the background of Skylar's photos. Sometimes at dawn. Sometimes in the dead of night.

It gave the internet all the proof they needed: the two of them had been carrying on a secret, passionate underground romance. Overnight, the fanfiction went viral.

Countless influencers and drama channels milked the hype, painting them as a modernday Romeo and Juliet crushed by corporate greed and oldmoney families.

And I, framed as the "evil third party" who ruined their epic love story, was mercilessly ripped apart online. [ "Sinclair loved Skylar his whole life.

Why the hell is he marrying Sutton?" ] [ "Just collateral damage of a corporate merger.

Even an heir to a toptier oldmoney family like Sinclair can't choose who he marries." ] [ "You're telling me a worldfamous dancer isn't good enough for the Sinclair family?

Ridiculous." ] [ "Hey Sutton, are you watching? Hope you're happy with the blood on your hands." ] The internet's hatred and abuse buried me alive.

I sat frozen beside Sinclair's hospital bed, a hollow shell of myself. The few weak defenses I typed out were instantly swallowed by a tsunami of death threats.

Now, I could only pray for Sinclair to wake up. I had too many questions that demanded answers. But I didn't get Sinclair's explanation. Instead, I got hit by another bombshell.

Skylar, the supposedly single dancer, had a fiveyearold daughter. A daughter? Listening to the breaking news anchor on the TV, a violent shiver ripped through my spine.

I lifted my heavy eyes to the screen. The moment I saw the photo, it felt like a sledgehammer slammed directly into my skull.

The little girl's eyes were an exact replica of Sinclair's. For a few agonizing minutes, all the noise in the room faded into a deafening ring.

I listened to the steady beep, beep of his heart monitor. I slowly buried my face in my hands, letting the suffocating dark drag me under. Was she Sinclair's kid?

If she was, then what the hell was going to happen to ours? Sinclair finally woke up after a weeklong coma. His expression was a smooth, impenetrable mask.

He brushed the whole suicide attempt off as a mere accident. After days of psychological torture, my body felt like lead. "Sinclair, I need an explanation.

A real one." He locked those beautiful, dark eyes on me and spoke in an even tone. "I'm sorry for scaring you." He shut down any other questions.

As for the viral rumors and the internet witch hunt, every single trace of it was wiped clean from the web the day after he woke up.

His justification? "I will give my wife the respect she deserves." That was the answer I had waited over a week to hear. In that exact second, a bonedeep exhaustion crushed me.

My fingers dug into the hem of my shirt. The hospital report I had planned to show him stayed shoved deep in my pocket, crumpled into a useless ball. I was pregnant.

I hadn't even gotten the chance to tell him. But staring at his detached face right now, I suddenly realized something. Telling him didn't matter anymore.

Chapter 3 Sinclair slipped right back into his role as the calm, attentive gentleman. He prioritized me in everything, wrapping me in a flawless illusion of respectability.

My friends wouldn't stop teasing me. "Saw your picture on Professor Sinclair's desk again today.

The whole campus knows you two are the ultimate power couple." But I knew the truth. "He's too… polite," I murmured into the phone. "Like he's handling a stranger.

Except for that one time he got drunk…" "That's called respect, babe. Stop overthinking it.

Once the ring is on, it'll be different." They all wrote it off as prewedding jitters, blowing up my phone with reassurances.

Right before we hung up, my friend's tone shifted. "Wait, Sutton, are you sick?

I heard your professor canceled his evening seminar and rushed to the hospital." I froze. "No." Just minutes ago, Sinclair's text had lit up my screen: [ Working late tonight. ] Why would he lie about that?

She sounded confused. "He left in a massive hurry. I totally thought it was for you." Sinclair was obsessed with his research.

Rain or shine, he had never ditched his lab for anyone. A cold knot formed in my stomach.

I dug through my purse for the address my private investigator had sent me and flagged down a cab. It was the pediatric hospital where Skylar's daughter was admitted.

Kidney disease. The poor kid was surviving on dialysis. Sinclair must have found out about her. I flashed back to a few days after he woke up.

His mother had rushed into his private suite, whispering something furiously into his ear. Suddenly, a faint curve had formed on his lips.

It was the first time a flicker of life had broken through his cold, detached mask. From that day on, he stopped acting like a man waiting to die.

After she left, he had grabbed my wrist. "Sutton, we're going to have a good life together," he had promised. "I won't let any more accidents happen.

Trust me." The hospital corridors at night were dead quiet. My heels clicked frantically against the linoleum.

Cold sweat soaked through the back of my shirt as I blurred past closed doors. I brushed past a couple of nurses.

Their hushed voices drifted into my ears. "Scared the hell out of me. Goldie almost didn't make it through resuscitation." "Her mom is so pitiful.

Thank God her husband showed up." A highpitched ringing pierced my eardrums. My vision blurred. Goldie's mom… Skylar is alive? My feet moved on autopilot toward Goldie's ward.

I rounded the corner. Two tangled silhouettes slammed into my line of sight. The scene ripped the air straight out of my lungs.

My chest caved in, a sharp, physical agony tearing through my ribs. Sinclair had a petite woman pinned against the sterile wall.

His large hand clamped around the back of her neck, locking her in place as his mouth devoured hers in a brutal, hungry kiss. I had never seen him lose control like this.

He gave her zero room to escape, tracking her lips, swallowing every gasp she made.

Trapped with nowhere to run, the woman collapsed against his chest, her shoulders heaving with ragged sobs. "Sinclair, I can't fight the Sinclair family.

As long as Goldie stays alive, I'll give you up." Skylar's hands clutched the fabric of his shirt in a death grip.

She tilted up her pitiful, tearstained face, heavy drops of tears smashing against the back of his hand. A faint flush spread across her pale cheeks.

The dim emergency lights cut across her profile. It was Skylar. She really wasn't dead. Chapter 4 Sinclair's gaze locked onto her, heavy and starved.

His large hands cupped Skylar's face, his voice dropping to a rough, gravelly whisper. "Why did you lie to me?

Skylar, did you want to watch me die?" Skylar's lips trembled, her eyes wide like a cornered deer. "Your… your mother forced me." Sinclair carefully tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, his touch agonizingly gentle. "It's over now.

I will never let either of you be put in danger again." Panic flared in Skylar's tearfilled eyes.

She gripped his wrists. "Sinclair, what are you going to do?" His voice cracked, heavy with a devastating mix of grief and devotion. "I've already agreed to marry that stranger.

I'll do exactly what the Sinclair family wants.

I'll become someone else's husband, just so I can watch over you from afar and make sure you're safe for the rest of your life." Later that night, a blinding cramp ripped through my abdomen.

Someone called an ambulance, and I was rushed into the ER.

Through the dizzying haze of pain, those two words—that stranger—twisted like a serrated blade in my gut, carving me hollow.

I curled into a tight ball on the narrow hospital bed, my fingernails biting into my palms as I crushed that pathetic ultrasound report.

The ER doctor stood over me, his brow furrowed deeply as he flipped through my chart. "Your condition is deteriorating.

Signs of a threatened miscarriage caused by extreme stress and trauma. Your body is already on the verge of total collapse. You almost lost the baby." "Where is the father?

You need to call him.

You two have some very hard decisions to make about whether or not to continue this pregnancy." "There's no need," I said, my voice eerily calm. "This baby doesn't have a father." The truth was, this pregnancy was nothing but a mistake.

One late night, Sinclair—a man who despised alcohol—had come home completely wasted. The second the door clicked shut, he had pinned me against the entryway wall and kissed me.

Being facetoface with the man I had worshipped for a decade… I didn't push him away. And that one, single slipup had resulted in this baby.

Staring blankly at the ceiling of my hospital room, some masochistic urge made me open Skylar's Instagram. I scrolled endlessly until I found the exact date of that night.

The timeline matched perfectly. That was the exact same night Skylar's final dance performance, titled The Farewell, had broken the internet.

Over the years, that piece had become legendary among her fans, hailed as a heartbreaking masterpiece about starcrossed lovers.

In the caption, Skylar had written: [ "You are my cure, and my only way home." ] [ "Even if oceans separate us tomorrow, my soul grows old with yours." ] That must have been the night Sinclair finally made his choice to let her go.

Separated by distance, they had used a tiny glowing screen to say their final, agonizing goodbyes.

And I had been stupid enough to think that, on that night, he was actually making love to me. I forced my aching body upright, my feet hitting the cold linoleum.

I scrubbed the wetness from my face, my skin cold and dead to the touch. "Doctor," I said, my voice dead flat. "I'm not keeping it.

Book me in for the procedure." Given my physical state, the doctor scheduled the abortion for two weeks out.

He strictly ordered me to focus on stabilizing my health and to avoid any emotional triggers. I put all my current projects on an indefinite hold.

The sudden emptiness in my schedule gave me plenty of time to meticulously plan exactly what my next move was going to be. I was going to call off the engagement with Sinclair.

Just not right now. My major research grant was missing one final piece. I still needed his lab's data to close it out.

The day I locked in my decision, I dragged my exhausted body over to the Sinclair family estate to gauge the situation. Right outside his study door, I froze.

The heavy oak door was slightly ajar, and his mother's sharp voice drifted into the hallway. "Sinclair, have you forgotten what you promised Sutton's grandfather?" Chapter 5 Sinclair stood in the biting wind, his tone flat. "Remember, only by keeping Sutton docile and making sure this wedding happens can the Sinclair family swallow her family's massive trust fund to plug up your financial black hole." His mother frowned deeply. "This isn't just about the Sinclair family.

It's for your own sake. Goldie is in the ICU." "Her medical bills alone are burning through hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, and this is just the beginning.

The family's cash flow is broken. How the hell are you going to keep Goldie alive without it?" A mocking smirk twisted Sinclair's lips. "Do I have a choice?

You held Skylar's life hostage." "What else do you want from me? Last time you forced her to jump.

What sick card are you going to play next?" "Mother, let's get one thing perfectly clear. If Skylar dies, I go with her." "You—" His mother choked on her fury.

Sinclair didn't flinch. "Don't test me. You know exactly how far I'm willing to go." I didn't push the heavy oak door open. I turned on my heel and walked silently back to my car.

The harsh, clinical glare of the streetlights slashed through the windshield.

I stared at the bustling street, my expression dead and hollow, while my fingernails dug so deep into the leather steering wheel that the seams threatened to pop.

The Suttons and the Sinclairs had been allies for generations. My grandfather passed away when I was too young to understand death.

For as long as my memory stretched, Sinclair had been a fixture by my side. I adored him.

Whenever the other prep school kids ganged up on him, I was the one who secretly made them pay.

On the freezing nights his father forced him to kneel in the courtyard as punishment, I'd sneak into the kitchens to steal hot food for him.

I once burned my hands so badly doing it that I spent half a month in the hospital. For years, I bled for him in a hundred different ways.

Honestly, if he had never loved me back, I could have swallowed it. I couldn't police his heart. But Sinclair chose to confess his love to me.

I had been stupid enough to think he finally saw my worth. I never realized my devotion came with a price tag attached to my family's empire.

When I finally snapped out of the trance, the collar of my shirt was already soaked with cold, biting tears.

For the first time in ten years, I dialed my grandfather's estate lawyer. "Mr.

Chen," I said, my voice eerily steady. "Why does my grandfather's inheritance transfer to the Sinclair family the moment I get married?" A heavy pause hung on the line. "Your grandfather set up a very specific trust before he passed.

If Sinclair marries you, the Sinclair estate gains full access to those funds." "And if the wedding doesn't happen?" "The assets default directly to your name.

However, as it stands, the majority of the Sutton board members have already defected to the Sinclair faction.

Ripping the control back from them will be… difficult." Translation: This engagement had to survive. At least for the short term.

Until I gathered enough ammunition to slaughter the traitors in my own house. I forced myself to eat.

Even when my ruined stomach violently rejected the food, even when I dryheaved over the toilet until I tasted acid, I mechanically shoved calories down my throat.

I was never a tough girl, and the physical agony was tearing me apart.

In the dead of night, I would curl into a tight ball under the heavy duvet, grinding my teeth until my jaw ached, dragging my shattered mind toward the pitchblack road ahead.

I had to recover. I had to survive long enough to rip them to shreds. Sinclair came home that evening. He brought flowers.

A generic, prearranged bouquet from the corner shop down the street.

His brows knitted together the moment he saw the instant ramen sitting on the kitchen island. "I leave for one night, and this is what you eat?

Did the housekeeper not show up?" "She took a personal day." Sinclair fell silent for a beat. He reached for the apron hanging by the fridge. "Go wait in the living room.

I'll make you something real." As he brushed past me, a faint, sickeningly sweet scent of jasmine perfume hit my senses. I never wore jasmine.

The stench was clinging directly to the fabric of his shirt.

Chapter 6 I pulled out a chair, sat at the dining table, and called out to the man in the kitchen. "I haven't been feeling well lately.

Let's push the wedding date back." Sinclair's eyelashes gave a faint tremor. "There is no precedent for postponing a wedding in the Sinclair family," he replied evenly. "If you aren't feeling well, I can take you to the hospital." I stared at the man busying himself in my kitchen, a bitter smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.

So, loving someone could be faked. For the sake of Skylar's life, Sinclair could play the perfect, devoted fiancé for the rest of his existence.

When he came home, he brought my favorite takeout. After dinner, he sat through my favorite movies.

When he was slightly buzzed, he leaned in close, nuzzling against my neck to steal a kiss. He played the role of a flawless, textbook husband to absolute perfection.

But staring at his handsome face, an acidic hatred gnawed at my insides.

Dozens of times, my fingers twitched with the overwhelming urge to slap that hypocritical mask right off his face and tell him to go to hell. The wedding date was closing in.

Breaking off the engagement was now a ticking time bomb. My actual day job was as a lecturer at the exact same university as Sinclair.

We worked in the same lab—a rare, perfectly insync team in the academic world. But when it came to corporate affairs, I was drowning in uncharted waters.

Clawing back control of my family's empire was next to impossible. The sheer volume of financial data drained every ounce of my brainpower.

My grandfather's loyalists would constantly shake their heads in defeat. "Miss Sutton, you truly have zero talent for business." Pathetic, right?

I was the textbook definition of a mediocre, useless side character in a romance novel. I couldn't magically build my own corporate empire overnight. I had to face reality.

To take back the company that the Sinclairs had been slowly cannibalizing for years, I had to use the dumbest, most mutually assured destruction tactic available.

To set the trap, I deliberately accompanied Sinclair back to his family estate several times.

Over dinner, I intentionally dropped heavy hints about how much I was looking forward to the wedding.

This fed the Sinclair family's ego and gave them the absolute confidence that my grandfather's massive trust fund would soon fall perfectly into their laps.

By the end of the month, the Sinclairs launched a massive financial gamble, aggressively expanding their business territory to seize the market.

Meanwhile, my impending marriage to Sinclair blew up into the most hyped society topic of the year. Just when I thought my plan was running smoothly, Skylar showed up at my door.

Completely tossing aside Sinclair's desperate attempts to hide her, she materialized right in front of me, extending a hand with a sickeningly sweet smile. "Nice to finally meet you, Sutton.

I am Sinclair's wife." At this exact moment, I had just finished my abortion procedure. Cold sweat was pouring down my back, my entire body weak and trembling.

Yet Skylar had the death wish to corner me in the biting wind and officially declare war.

I pulled my heavy wool coat tighter around myself. "Sorry," I replied, my voice dripping with ice. "I didn't realize where you're from, they call the dirty side piece a 'wife'." Skylar's fake smile cracked. "Sutton, why lie to yourself?

I already gave birth to his child." "Sinclair probably sickens at the thought of even touching you." She tilted her chin up in arrogant defiance. "I'm allowing you to exist.

I'm allowing Sinclair to occasionally go home and visit you. You should be thanking me—" My last shred of patience snapped.

I lunged forward, grabbing a fistful of her perfectly styled hair, and slammed her face against the bulletproof glass of my luxury car.

I sneered, "Did you forget to look in the mirror before you walked out, or did your brain get flushed down the toilet?

Open your damn eyes and look closely." "You are a dirty underground mistress surviving on handouts.

What the hell gives you the right to stand on my territory and negotiate with me?" The blood drained from Skylar's face as she froze. "You dare touch me?!" I swung my hand back and delivered a vicious slap across her face.

The sharp, crisp crack echoed loudly in the freezing wind, and a swollen, red handprint instantly flared to life across her pathetic, hypocritical face.

My knuckles turned bonewhite as I gripped her. "Are you just begging for a faster death?" Chapter 7 Skylar stiffened, freezing against the hood of the car.

I leaned in close to her ear, dropping my voice to a lethal whisper. "You aren't allowing Sinclair to stay by my side.

You're forced to endure it." "If I wanted to, I could make sure Sinclair never sees your face again.

Do you understand me?" All the color drained from Skylar's face. "Sutton, how dare you…" I delivered a vicious kick to her leg, pulled open the car door, and slid into the driver's seat.

My hands and feet were trembling against the steering wheel from the adrenaline crash.

In my twentyodd years of playing by the rules, this was the first time I had ever let the leash snap and fought back. And honestly? It felt incredibly good.

I wasn't worried about Skylar running to Sinclair to snitch. She had spent years perfecting her role as his fragile, innocent little victim.

She was too obsessed with keeping Sinclair's flawless image of her intact to ever admit she came to my turf to pick a fight.

Besides, I was in the critical window for my associate professor tenure review. My only plan was to let my body heal from the surgery and get straight back to the lab.

I had zero intention of wasting my energy dragging myself through the mud with her. A few days later, my phone rang. It was the lab.

One of Sinclair's grad students was sobbing through the receiver. "Professor Sutton, when are you coming back?

Someone destroyed all our data." I slammed my foot on the gas, rushing straight to the university campus.

The harsh fluorescent lights in the science building hallway flickered in the freezing winter draft. Hushed, panicked voices spilled out from our lab doors.

The second I pushed the door open, I saw a group of students huddled around the mainframes, their eyes completely red. "Professor Sutton, someone tampered with your workstation too." A sicklysweet scent of jasmine perfume hung heavily in the sterile air.

A scent that absolutely did not belong in a closed laboratory. Sinclair stepped through the crowd of students, his brow furrowed. "What happened?" he asked.

The central workstation was a disaster. Sticky, halfdried boba tea pooled across the keyboards and soaked into the hard drives. It was total wreckage.

One of the students looked at Sinclair, their voice shaking. "Someone came looking for you earlier. They spilled their drink all over the servers." "It's not just the data backups.

They completely ruined the biological samples too." Food and drinks were strictly banned in the lab. The only person brazen enough to pull this was an outsider.

Right on cue, a soft, fragile female voice drifted in from the doorway, accompanied by a heavy, manufactured panting. "I'm so sorry, Sutton.

I accidentally knocked over my drink earlier. I ran downstairs to grab some paper towels for you. Here, wipe it up." A flash of pure panic shattered Sinclair's composed expression.

He clearly never expected Skylar to crash his workplace and confront me headon like this. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

Skylar's cheeks flushed with an innocent pink. "We've known each other for so many years.

Is it a crime for me to come catch up with you?" Staring at the barely concealed thrill radiating from Skylar's flushed face, I closed the distance between us.

Skylar put on a devastatingly pitiful pout. "It's such a shame I accidentally ruined your things, Sutton. I swear I didn't mean to, I just—" Smack!

I swung my arm and delivered a brutal, ringing slap directly across Skylar's face.

The sheer force of the impact snapped her head to the side, leaving her ears ringing in dead silence. "Did you actually think you could destroy highly sensitive experimental data and wash your hands of it with a pathetic little apology?

This is a multimilliondollar Ivy League research project, and you just trashed it on a whim.

Do you have any idea that your cheap, dirty little stunt just ruined years of these students' academic careers?" Not to mention, it held years of my own blood, sweat, and tears.

The sudden burst of violence plunged the entire lab into a dead, suffocating silence.

Skylar cupped her stinging cheek, tears instantly pooling in her eyes. "Sutton, no matter what happened, hitting people is wrong." I raised my hand to strike her again. "I'll kill you—" Sinclair's large hand clamped around my wrist like a vice, stopping me midair. "Sutton, stop harassing her," he said coldly.

I slowly turned my head, locking eyes with his dead, indifferent stare. In that exact second, the illusion shattered. The fake peace was completely, irreversibly dead.

Chapter 8 "Sinclair, are you actually admitting it? You're really choosing her over everything we've built?" His jaw set in a hard, stubborn line. "I'll pay for the damages.

This one is on me." That was his final word. Under Sinclair's obsessive protection, Skylar didn't face a single consequence.

Sinclair used every ounce of his massive influence to bury the incident, acting like a oneman shield.

To clean up the mess Skylar made, he cut a check for two million dollars out of his own pocket to cover the lab's losses.

The students were vibrating with unspoken fury, huddled in small groups every day with grim, defeated faces. As for Sinclair and me, we fell into a total, freezing cold war.

One afternoon, while I was buried in helping a student finalize their thesis topic, someone burst into the office. "Professor Sutton, you need to see this.

That woman… she put you on blast." I pulled out my phone and opened TikTok. Right there on the For You Page, the words EvilSutton and JusticeForSkylar were trending.

The video was shot from a predatory, distorted angle. It captured the exact moment I slapped Skylar in the lab.

The internet had already descended into a fullscale riot. [ "Oh my god, Skylar is alive!" ] [ "Is she being held hostage? Who the hell is this Sutton woman?

She just attacks people like that?" ] [ "She stole Skylar's man and now she's out here acting like a psycho." ] [ "If that were me, I would've swung back." ] [ "Poor Skylar.

Professor Sinclair, please save her. I can't stand to see her suffer like this." ] The comments were exploding, thousands of people joining the digital lynch mob every second.

I was officially the villain of the story. No one cared that three years of my academic research had been incinerated in a single moment.

No one cared that my students were now facing delayed graduations or ruined careers because of her "accident." The world didn't want the truth.

They just wanted the starcrossed lovers to have their fairytale ending, exactly like a cheap romance novel. The scandal eventually reached the Sinclair estate.

The next day, Sinclair's mother summoned us for dinner.

In a blatant show of support for me, she snapped at Sinclair right in front of the table. "I've had the help clear out all that woman's trash.

I'm throwing it all in the dumpster." Sinclair's hand faltered for a fraction of a second.

He kept his eyes glued to his plate. "Understood." Throughout the meal, his mother was the definition of patience.

She even agreed immediately when I mentioned postponing the wedding. But I couldn't breathe in that suffocating house. I stood up and walked out into the night.

The moon was a sliver of ice in the sky. As I walked toward my car, a maid carrying a heavy box tripped, spilling the contents all over the gravel.

A few small trinkets rolled to my feet. The girl scrambled to pick them up, her face pale with fright. "I'm so sorry, Miss Sutton.

These are the things the mistress ordered me to throw away." I looked down.

My heel was resting on a single, iridescent green feather. "Are these Sinclair's?" "They're… things Skylar gave to Mr. Sinclair." A gust of freezing wind bit at my face.

I slowly leaned down, my fingers trembling as I picked up the small items. A soft, familiar feather I had once cherished. A few pieces of pearflavored hard candy.

A tiny, cheap keychain.

And a wrinkled, unsigned confession of love written in shaky, youthful handwriting. "You're saying… Skylar gave him these?" "Yyes, ma'am…" I stared at the trash in my hand and a sudden, jagged laugh ripped out of my throat.

I laughed until my chest burned, until tears blurred my vision and spilled over. Skylar's?

Because of my own cowardice years ago, because I had been too afraid to sign my name when I left these gifts for Sinclair, he had credited every single one of them to her.

Every single memory. Every single piece of my heart. He thought it was her. But it was always, always me. Chapter 9 Sinclair stepped out of the shadows. "Don't throw it away.

Put it in my car." The maid scurried off with the heavy box.

I stared out into the pitchblack night. "Sinclair," I said, my voice dead flat. "Spend my birthday with me." The biting wind whipped at his heavy wool coat.

The flickering patio light cut across his sharp, sculptured jawline, leaving his expression in the dark. "Is this really necessary, Sutton?" He wasn't even bothering to act anymore.

His gaze swept over me like I was a piece of rotting trash. I let out a soft laugh. "Yeah, it is. I've worshipped the ground you walked on for ten years, Sinclair.

After everything I've done for you, don't you owe me a damn birthday?" His brow furrowed deeply. "Fine." On the night of my birthday, Sinclair drove us out to the observatory in the hills to look at the stars.

The old urban legend said that couples who made a wish under this sky would be bound together forever. I used to pray for this exact moment every single night.

But standing next to him now, staring up at the endless canvas of stars, it all just looked… dull. And freezing.

But seeing the rigid, suffocating tension rolling off Sinclair made it all worth it. I had swallowed glass for this man for a decade.

Making him suffer through one miserable date was nothing. I snapped a picture of the sky and posted it to my Instagram Story. At exactly 10 PM, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Skylar.

She had sent a photo. She was curled up against Sinclair's chest, wearing a thin, silk camisole, her cheeks flushed a heavy, satisfied pink.

Judging by the expensive dress shirt he was wearing in the frame, the photo was taken two nights ago—when he claimed he was at an overnight academic conference. [ Sutton, he's been mine for a very long time.

Even if you marry him, you're just keeping his bed warm for me. ] [ Goldie won't be our last child. ] [ Wanna bet? ] I glanced over at Sinclair, who was currently adjusting the heavy telescope lens just to humor me.

I typed back: [ Are you sure about that? Sinclair is right next to me. Want to guess what he's doing to me right now? ] Skylar's typing bubble vanished for a few long minutes.

Then she came back, demanding answers. [ Why isn't Sinclair answering his phone? ] Because he left it in the car, obviously.

She was panicking now, the texts flying in rapid succession. [ Goldie is crying for her dad. Tell him to come back. ] I swiped the notification away.

Skylar fired off another round almost instantly. [ Sutton, stop being such a vicious bitch. ] [ If you hide this from him, you're going to pay for it. ] [ Goldie is his whole world.

He will never forgive you. ] I locked my screen, turned around, and tugged on Sinclair's expensive sleeve. "Sinclair, I'm bored of this constellation." "Find me the next one.

And the one after that. Show me every single one." It was almost 1 AM by the time we got back to the car. Sinclair unlocked his phone.

The second the screen lit up with the flood of missed calls, the color completely drained from his face. He didn't even bother stepping outside.

He dialed her back right in front of me, his voice rough with an unfiltered, desperate panic. "Skylar, what's wrong?" Skylar's hysterical sobbing bled through the receiver.

She completely changed her tune. "Sinclair, I didn't know what to do… I'm so sorry… Goldie is sick." "I texted Sutton two hours ago to tell you, but she wouldn't let you see it.

It's really bad. Can you please come right now?" That was the absolute first time I had ever seen Professor Sinclair's perfectly crafted mask crack and shatter into pure rage.

His dark, suffocating gaze locked onto me, his eyes lethal. "Sutton. Get out of the car." I let out a dry laugh. "It's 1:30 in the morning.

You're dumping me on a deserted canyon road?" "Get out. Don't make me repeat myself." He leaned over and popped the passenger door. I stepped onto the freezing asphalt.

The heavy door slammed shut, and his tires tore out into the black night. Chapter 10 I stood in the biting wind, watching the car's taillights disappear at the end of the dark road.

Skylar's text arrived right on cue. Dripping with smugness. [ Got kicked out of the car, didn't you? Let this be a lesson.

Stop thinking so highly of yourself. ] I made a single phone call. Thirty seconds later, a sleek black town car pulled up to the curb. Mr.

Chen rolled down the tinted window. "Get in, Miss Sutton