The freezing wind hit my face the moment I stepped through the revolving doors of the bank.

Down at the curb, Chase’s black Cadillac Escalade was still idling. The passenger door stood slightly ajar, and Madison was leaning against the tinted window, wearing a pastel pink miniskirt that barely covered her thighs. She hummed a pop melody while carefully reapplying gloss to her lips.

Chase caught sight of me in the side mirror. When he turned and saw my tear-streaked face, there wasn't a trace of guilt in his expression.

He rolled down his window and chuckled. "Look at that. You finished way faster than I expected."

My voice cracked against the cold. "You stole my passport, Chase."

"Oh, come on. Since you already missed the check-in, there's no point in crying over spilt milk," he said smoothly, unlocking the doors with a click. "Hop in. Let's head to the theme park. It'll help you unwind."

I gripped the strap of my empty leather folder, my knuckles turning bone-white. "Do you have any idea what I gave up for this? Eight months. Five hours of sleep a night. I gave up everything to prepare for this morning, and you destroyed it for a joke."

Chase let out a dismissive sigh. "Real talent doesn't crumble over a single hiccup, Evelyn. If you were truly cut out for high finance, one missed interview wouldn't ruin your life. The Street eats people alive. I was just giving you a taste of how brutal the world actually is."

Before I could speak, Madison leaned across the center console and poked her head out the window. She waved a thick manila envelope and my navy blue passport in the air with a playful wink.

"Relax, Evie. We kept everything safe for you," she said, her voice dripping with mock sweetness. "Honestly, you should thank us for teaching you something money can't buy."

I stepped forward and snatched the documents out of her manicured hand. My fingertips trembled so hard I nearly dropped them onto the dirty pavement.

Every instinct urged me to turn around and walk away forever. But my wallet was sitting on the kitchen counter in Chase’s penthouse across the river, my transit card was inside it, and my phone screen flashed red with a three percent battery warning. I didn't even have five dollars left for subway fare after paying for the cab.

Swallowing the bile rising in my throat, I pulled open the rear door and climbed inside. I just needed to get close to his apartment, grab my things, and leave.

The blast of cold air hit me immediately. The vehicle’s climate control was dialed down to sixty degrees.

Madison shivered theatrically, wrapping her bare arms around her torso. "Chase, babe, it's freezing. You know how easily I catch a chill."

Without missing a beat, Chase reached into the back seat and retrieved a soft ivory cashmere blanket. He shook it out and gently draped it over Madison's bare legs, tucking the edges beneath her knees with practiced tenderness.

My throat tightened.

Just last month, I had ridden in this exact car with a hundred-and-two-degree fever, shivering uncontrollably. When I begged him to turn up the heat, Chase had rolled his eyes, telling me I was being overly sensitive and needed to adapt to real-world conditions instead of expecting everyone to cater to my weaknesses.

Madison glanced back at me, holding the corner of the cashmere fabric between two fingers. "Do you want some, Evie?"

Before I could answer, Chase placed his hand over hers, his voice soft and protective. "Keep it, Maddie. She's wearing a blazer."

Madison smiled, popping open a foil bag of cheddar chips. She picked one up and held it to Chase's lips. "Say ah."

Chase leaned sideways from the steering wheel and ate it straight from her fingers. When a few orange crumbs scattered onto his leather steering wheel, he didn't flinch. He just laughed, reached over, and gently wiped the corner of her mouth with his thumb.

A sickening weight settled in my chest.

Two years ago, during finals week, I had eaten a single saltine cracker in his passenger seat to keep from fainting from low blood sugar. Chase had slammed on the brakes, ordered me out onto the shoulder of the highway, and made me use a lint roller on the floor mats before he would let me back inside.

Four years of devotion, and I had been blind to every single red flag.

By the time we arrived at the theme park, the midday sun beat down relentlessly against the concrete plaza. The line for the signature roller coaster stretched around the block, packed with hundreds of noisy tourists.

We hadn't been standing there for ten minutes before Madison let out a soft groan, leaning heavily against Chase’s chest.

"My heels are killing me," she whined, lifting one pink pump. "Chase, I can't stand on this pavement anymore. It's torture."

Chase immediately wrapped an arm around her waist. Then he looked over his shoulder at me. "Evelyn, hold our spot in line. We’ll wait under the trees."

"What?" I stared at him in disbelief. "Chase, my lumbar spine has been flaring up all morning. The doctor told me not to stand stationary for extended periods. I can barely keep my balance."

His brow furrowed with sharp irritation. "You sat in a wooden chair at the university library for ten hours a day without complaining. Now you can't stand for twenty minutes to help a friend? Stop being so dramatic."

He didn't wait for my response. He guided Madison to a shady bench beneath an oak tree forty feet away. Kneeling directly on the dusty stones, he lifted her bare ankle into his lap and began massaging her heel with gentle, rhythmic strokes.

The crowd shuffled forward by inches. The midday heat bore down on my neck, making the navy wool of my suit feel like a suffocating trap. Black spots swam in my vision, and a sharp, throbbing ache radiated up my lower back.

My mouth tasted like dry dust. With my phone at one percent, I managed to send a quick text to Chase:

*Can you bring me a bottle of water? I feel faint.*

Two minutes later, the screen lit up with his response:

*No. Madison can't have cold drinks today, and I'm not leaving her side. Don't tempt her by drinking in front of her.*

The phone buzzed once more, then the screen went completely black. Dead.

A dizzy spell washed over me. My knees buckled, and I had to grab the metal railing beside the queue to keep from crashing to the ground.

"Excuse me? Miss?"

A gentle voice broke through the haze. A woman standing in front of me, holding the hand of a small girl with pigtails, was looking at me with deep concern.

"You're completely pale," she said, quickly digging into her tote bag. She pulled out an unopened bottle of chilled mineral water and pressed it into my shaking palms. "Here, drink this. Do you need me to call the park medics?"

The cool plastic felt like a lifeline against my burning skin.

I unscrewed the cap with trembling fingers, took two greedy swallows, and felt hot tears blur my sight.

A total stranger could see that I was suffering and offered immediate kindness. Yet the man who had promised to stand by me through everything didn't care if I collapsed on the concrete, as long as Madison was comfortable.

It took another hour and fifteen minutes to shuffle to the front of the queue.

When I finally reached the turnstile, I borrowed a park attendant's landline phone and dialed Chase’s private number.

It rang three times before he answered. Loud, upbeat lounge music played in the background, mixed with the murmur of upscale shoppers.

"Chase? Where are you?" I asked, leaning my aching body against the counter. "I'm at the front of the line. You can come over now."

Chase let out an impatient scoff over the line. "We left twenty minutes ago. Madison decided she didn't want to ride anymore. We're at the designer mall down the street looking at bags."

My breath caught in my chest. "You left? Without telling me?"

"You're an adult, Evelyn. Figure out how to get home."

The line went dead.

I stood there, listening to the monotonous hum of the dial tone.

The park attendant looked at me with pity. "Ma'am? Do you want to board the ride?"

"No," I whispered, setting the receiver down on the cradle. "Thank you."

I turned away from the entrance and limped toward the guest services lounge. My back throbbed with every step, but the tears had stopped completely. The blinding haze that had clouded my judgment for four years had finally burned away.

Inside the lounge, I found a charging station and plugged my dead phone into an available cord.

After two minutes, the screen blinked to life.

I ignored Chase’s contact icon and opened my personal email app.

Three days ago, a message had landed in my inbox from a world-renowned investment fund based in Mayfair, London. They had offered me an entry-level analyst position in their global equities division, bypassing the standard interview pool based on my performance in the university stock pitch competition.

The offer had a strict deadline: reply by midnight tonight.

I had planned to decline it. Chase had insisted that his national tour required me to stay on the East Coast to manage his schedule and keep him company on the road.

I stared at the screen for three seconds.

Then, with a steady finger, I tapped the blue link and hit *ACCEPT OFFER*.

The screen instantly refreshed to a bright confirmation page:

*Welcome to the team, Evelyn. Your relocation package and flight itinerary to London Heathrow have been generated. Travel date: November 24th.*

Ten days from today.

A banner notification dropped from the top of the screen.

It was an Instagram alert from Chase’s verified account.

A newly posted photo filled the display. It was a selfie of him and Madison in a VIP lounge, their cheeks pressed together as she held up three shopping bags from Chanel. Chase was grinning at the camera, his arm draped possessively over her bare shoulder.

The caption read:

*Best day with my favorite girl.*

The fever hit me on the subway ride back to Brooklyn. By the time I stumbled through the door of our apartment, my skin was burning and my teeth wouldn't stop chattering. I collapsed onto the couch without taking off my coat, pulling a faded throw blanket up to my chin.

I slipped in and out of a restless, heavy sleep until something cold touched my forehead.

I opened my eyes. Dawn light filtered through the blinds, casting gray shadows across the living room. Chase was sitting on the edge of the cushion beside me, holding a damp washcloth against my brow. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, and his hair was messy. At his feet, Sunny, our three-year-old golden retriever, gave a low whine and gently licked my cold fingers.

"You're awake," Chase murmured, setting the cloth aside. He reached for a glass on the coffee table. "Here. Take these."

He pressed two ibuprofen into my palm and held the glass of warm water to my lips. His touch was gentle, careful, and attentive—just like it had been for four years.

"I called your phone thirty times last night," he said quietly, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. "When it kept going straight to voicemail, I thought you'd gotten mixed up with another scammer."

A dull ache pulsed behind my temples as I swallowed the pills.

His words dragged me right back to our freshman year. Back then, I had responded to a fake job listing and ended up trapped in an empty office building in Queens by two men demanding ransom money. Chase had stayed on the phone with dispatchers all night, dragging the police from precinct to precinct until he kicked the door open himself. When he pulled me into his arms while I shook uncontrollably on the floor, he whispered into my hair: *Trust me. I'll never let anyone hurt you.*

That night, he became my entire world. My shelter.

Looking at him now, I finally understood the bitter truth. The person who pulls you out of the fire can easily be the one who sets you ablaze later.

"I shouldn't have left you at the park yesterday," Chase said, breaking the silence. His voice carried a faint trace of guilt, but when he spoke next, his tone leveled out. "We should have waited. But you have to stop being so sensitive about the bank interview, Evie. Wall Street is full of sharks. I already called my manager this morning. He's going to find you a better internship through our label's financial partners."

He still couldn't admit he had done anything wrong. In his mind, ruining my eight months of grueling work was just a minor inconvenience he could fix with a favor.

I looked away, staring down at Sunny's warm fur. "Is that so?"

"Yeah," Chase said, brightening up as if he had just solved everything. "To make it up to you, I made a reservation tonight. Riverview Prime."

I turned my head back toward him.

Riverview Prime was a glass-walled dining room on the fiftieth floor overlooking the East River. For our anniversary last year, I had begged him to go. He had laughed in my face, calling it an overpriced, tacky tourist trap that only pretentious amateurs cared about.

"You want to go there?" I asked, my voice dry.

"Table for two at seven," he said with a faint smile. "Put on something nice. We'll start fresh."

I stared at him for a few seconds. "Okay. I'll be there."

I didn't say yes because I believed him. I said yes because I wanted to see, one final time, just how deep his cruelty ran.

***

At seven o'clock sharp, I walked into Riverview Prime.

I wore the simple white dress Chase had bought me for our very first date in college. My hair was pulled back, and the fever had finally broken, leaving my skin pale under the restaurant's soft chandeliers. Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass, the Manhattan skyline glittered like a field of fallen stars against the dark river.

The hostess led me to a private booth right against the window. "Will your guest be joining you shortly, ma'am?"

"Yes," I told her, folding my napkin into my lap. "He's on his way."

Thirty minutes slipped by.

The waiter stopped by twice to refill my water glass. "Would you like to start with an appetizer while you wait?"

"Just a little longer, please," I said with an apologetic smile.

An hour passed. Then two.

The dining room began to empty out. Couples paid their checks, gathered their coats, and left. The waiter hovered near the service station, casting sympathetic, awkward glances in my direction.

At nine-forty, the waiter approached again, his voice hesitant. "Ma'am, our kitchen closes in twenty minutes. Would you like to place an order, or should I bring the bill for the sparkling water?"

Before I could answer, my phone buzzed against the white tablecloth.

A message from Chase:

*I'm not coming.*

A second message landed right behind it:

*You waited for nearly three hours just because someone promised you dinner? Lesson Three, Evelyn. Never trust a promise without proof.*

My hands lay flat on the linen. My breath didn't catch. My heart didn't race. The crushing weight that had sat on my chest for the last two days simply vanished, replaced by an eerie, hollow calm.

A notification from Instagram popped up on my screen.

Madison had posted a new Story.

I tapped it. The video showed the Brooklyn Bridge illuminated under the night sky. Standing against the railing was Madison, swaddled in Chase’s oversized wool coat, laughing as Chase leaned in beside her, his arm wrapped tightly around her waist.

Playing over the clip was Chase's breakout single, "Only You." The love song he had written in our tiny dorm room, dedicated to me when he had nothing to his name.

Madison’s caption read:

*Some songs are written for one girl, but sung for another.*

I stared at the screen for a long time. There were no tears left to cry. Four years of devotion, patience, and loyalty withered away into dust.

I exited Instagram, opened Chase’s text thread, and typed seven words:

*We're over. Don't contact me again.*

I hit send, then reached behind my neck to unclip the silver pendant he had given me for our fourth anniversary. I set the delicate chain on the table, right next to the empty bread plate.

I looked up at the waiter, who was watching me with obvious pity.

"I'd like to order dinner," I said calmly. "Just for one."

"Of course," he said, quickly pulling out his notepad. "What can I get for you?"

"The filet, medium rare. And whatever chocolate dessert you have."

"Right away, ma'am."

Twenty minutes later, he set down a rich molten chocolate cake topped with powdered sugar alongside my steak. "Compliments of the kitchen," he offered quietly. "Have a wonderful night, miss."

"Thank you," I said, smiling at him.

For the first time in years, I ate without rushing, without checking my watch to see when Chase needed his laundry picked up, and without worrying about his rehearsal schedule. I looked out at the glowing expanse of New York City and realized how vast the world actually was.

While waiting for the check, I opened my email and drafted a message to the recruitment director at the Mayfair fund in London.

*Dear Mr. Aldridge,*

*I have officially accepted the analyst offer. Please proceed with my visa sponsorship documents and housing stipend. I look forward to joining the team on November 24th.*

I sent it. The reply was almost immediate:

*Wonderful news, Evelyn. Our relocation coordinator will send your flight itinerary shortly.*

***

It was past midnight when I unlocked the front door of the Brooklyn apartment.

The living room lights were blazing. Chase was pacing the hardwood floor, his coat thrown haphazardly over a chair. Madison was sitting on our sofa, clutching a mug of tea, wearing one of his tour hoodies.

The moment the lock clicked, Chase spun around, his jaw tight with anger.

"Where the hell have you been?" he snapped, marching toward me. "What kind of childish stunt was that text? Breaking up with me over a joke? Are you trying to threaten me, Evelyn?"

Madison set her mug down and stood up, offering a soft, pleading look. "Evie, please don't be unreasonable. Chase set up that test to teach you resilience. Don't throw away four years of history over a petty misunderstanding."

Chase grabbed a heavy stack of textbooks from the side table and slammed them down on the counter between us. Financial modeling guides, CFA preparation manuals, and portfolio analysis packets.

"I bought these for you today," Chase said, crossing his arms over his chest. "I already paid the enrollment fee for an elite interview prep program next spring. My manager is setting up meetings with senior partners at three different private equity firms. If you just stop acting like a spoiled brat and listen to me, you'll have a better job on Wall Street than that entry-level garbage you missed."

I looked at the thick textbooks on the counter.

Then I looked at Chase, whose face was full of smug self-righteousness, convinced that his money and connections could buy my obedience.

A faint, quiet smile touched my lips.

"You're right," I said softly, meeting his gaze. "I'll try again next year."

Chase’s posture instantly relaxed. The anger melted from his features, replaced by a triumphant grin.

"See? I knew you'd come to your senses," he said, stepping forward. He reached out and affectionately tousled my hair, pulling me into a loose hug against his chest. "That's my good girl."

I stood still in his arms, neither leaning in nor pulling away.

Over his shoulder, my phone screen on the entryway table lit up with a new alert from British Airways.

*Booking Confirmed: One-way ticket to London Heathrow. Departure: November 24th.*

Ten days left.

Chase held me tightly, completely unaware that the girl he thought he had tamed was already gone—and when she walked out the door, she wouldn't even leave behind a goodbye.