Seven days of silence.
Seven days of Liam treating Isabella like a stranger. Cold emails. Clipped instructions. Eyes that never quite met hers. He left for work before she woke. Returned after she'd gone to bed. They existed in the same space but occupied different worlds.
Isabella felt like she was dying slowly.
Every morning, she woke up and relived it—his hands on her skin, his mouth on hers, the way he'd claimed her so completely. And then his voice, cold and dismissive: Stress relief. Don't read into it.
She wanted to hate him. Wanted to quit, walk away, dissolve the contract and never see his face again.
But she loved him. And love, she was learning, was the cruelest prison of all.
At the office, Isabella was a perfect professional. No one suspected. No one saw the cracks. She smiled, answered phones, organized schedules, and pretended her heart wasn't shattered into a thousand pieces.
Only once did their masks slip.
On Thursday, Marcus cornered her by the elevators.
