The champagne glass slipped from Liana's fingers and shattered against the marble floor, but she didn't even flinch.
Her eyes were locked on the flat-screen TV mounted above the fireplace, on the man in a custom Armani suit, kneeling before another woman with a dazzling ring and a charming smile that used to belong to Liana.
"Marry me, Celeste."
The studio audience gasped. Reporters cheered. Cameras flashed.
And just like that, her husband proposed to another woman on national television, as if Liana had never existed.
Her heart cracked with every second that passed. Not because he loved someone else.
But because he'd made the world believe she was never his wife to begin with.
Tears threatened to blur her vision, but she blinked them away. She couldn't afford to cry. Not now. Not when the people outside that door thought she was just a maid. Just another servant in the Thorne estate.
Not the woman Sebastian Thorne had secretly married... and just as secretly discarded.
A soft knock came at the door.
"Miss Liana?" the housekeeper's voice was gentle. "The young master is asking for you."
Liana's gaze flickered to the hallway, where her three-year-old son waited, the child Sebastian didn't even know existed.
She swallowed hard and turned off the television.
Let the world celebrate.
Let them believe the lie.
Sebastian might have thrown her away once... but now, he'd forgotten she ever existed.
And that was her biggest advantage.
Because now she would walk back into his world, not as his wife, not even as his ex, but as a stranger with a secret that could shatter him.
And this time?
She wouldn't be the one begging to be loved.