Ethan's POV
I find Zara sitting on the curb outside Dante's building, her head in her hands.
She doesn't look up when I approach. Doesn't move. Just sits there like the world has ended.
Maybe it has.
"Zara—"
"Don't." Her voice is muffled. "Don't say I told you so. Don't say this is what happens when people believe in fairy tales. Just... don't."
I sit beside her. The concrete is cold, and my suit is probably ruined, but I don't care.
"I wasn't going to say that."
"Weren't you?" She finally looks up, and her face is wrecked. Mascara streaked. Eyes red and swollen. "This is exactly what you predicted. The perfect wedding collapsing. Love proving to be a lie. You must feel so validated."
"I feel sick," I say honestly. "Watching Sienna's heart break? Knowing Marcus orchestrated all of this? That doesn't validate anything. It just makes me angry."
"At me?"
"At him. At Dante. At every bastard who lies to the people who trust them." I run a hand through my hair. "But mostly at Marcus. What he's doing to you—it's not just revenge. It's sadistic."
She laughs bitterly. "You researched him. You know what he's capable of."
"I know what the reports say. But I don't understand why. Why does he hate you this much? What did you do that warrants three years of calculated destruction?"
"I survived." Her voice breaks. "I survived him and Vanessa. I rebuilt my business. I proved I didn't need them. That's his real crime—I won by walking away."
"That's not a crime—"
"It is to him. Marcus can't stand losing. He can't stand being irrelevant." She wipes her eyes roughly. "When we were together, I was his biggest cheerleader. I believed in him. Promoted him. Gave him half my clients. And the whole time, he was stealing from me. Sleeping with my best friend. Planning to push me out of my own company."
"Zara—"
"The night I found them together? That was supposed to be our wedding day. I had the dress on. Hair done. Makeup perfect. I went looking for Marcus to give him his gift before the ceremony." Her hands shake. "Found him in the bridal suite. With Vanessa. In my wedding dress. The one I'd taken off to shower."
Jesus Christ.
"She was wearing your dress?"
"Said she wanted to see how it looked. Marcus said they were just playing around. That it didn't mean anything." She laughs, hollow and bitter. "Even caught in the act, he lied to my face. And I almost believed him. Because I was that stupid."
"You weren't stupid. You were trusting someone you loved."
"Same thing, apparently." She stares at her hands. "I left. Called off the wedding. Went home and cried for three days straight. When I finally came back to work, they'd already made their move. Told our clients I had a breakdown. That I was unstable. Unreliable. They took everything—my client list, my vendor relationships, my reputation."
"And you rebuilt anyway."
"What choice did I have? I could either give up or fight. So I fought. Worked eighteen-hour days. Took clients nobody else wanted. Slowly proved I was still good at this." She looks at me. "But every wedding I plan, I'm terrified. Terrified it'll fall apart. Terrified I'll fail. Terrified Marcus was right about me being nothing without him."
The vulnerability in her words hits me hard. Because I understand it. The fear that comes from being destroyed by someone you trusted.
"He's wrong," I say firmly. "Everything he's ever said about you is wrong."
"Is it? Look at tonight. Look at this disaster. Maybe I am cursed. Maybe—"
"Stop." I turn to face her fully. "You didn't cause this. Marcus did. Dante did. Isabella did. You were set up, Zara. They targeted you specifically because you're good at what you do. Because you're a threat."
"Some threat. My career is over."
"Not yet it isn't."
She blinks. "What?"
"I said I needed to show you something. Something about Marcus's plan." I pull out my phone, opening the files James sent me twenty minutes ago. "While you were with Sienna, I had my team dig deeper into Marcus's posts. The timeline. The sources."
"And?"
"And he made mistakes. Small ones, but they're there." I show her the screen. "This email he claims you sent three years ago? It's dated two weeks before your company email system even existed. This text message screenshot? The phone number format is wrong—it's not a New York area code. And this photo of you allegedly meeting with a groom inappropriately? It's photoshopped. Badly. Look at the shadow angles."
Her eyes widen as she scrolls through the evidence. "He screwed up."
"Multiple times. He was so focused on volume—flooding social media with accusations—that he got sloppy with the details." I lean closer. "We can fight this, Zara. We can prove it's fake. But we need to move fast, before the narrative solidifies."
"How fast?"
"We have until tomorrow morning when he releases that contract." I watch her face carefully. "The one you're so afraid of. What's on it, Zara? What are you hiding?"
She goes still. "I don't want to talk about it."
"I can't help you if I don't know what we're dealing with."
"You can't help me either way." She stands abruptly. "That contract is real, Ethan. Unlike his fake emails and photoshopped pictures, that document is legitimate. My signature. My choice. And when it goes public, no amount of lawyering will save me."
"Then tell me what it says!"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because you'll look at me differently!" The words burst out of her. "Because you'll realize I'm not the optimistic, naive wedding planner you think I am. You'll see what I really am—someone who makes terrible decisions when she's desperate. Someone who compromises her values to survive. Someone who—" Her voice breaks. "Someone who's not worth protecting."
The pain in her voice guts me.
"That's not true—"
"You don't know that. You don't know what I did." She backs away. "I should go. Thank you for trying to help, but—"
"I'm not giving up on you."
She stops. "What?"
"I said I'm not giving up on you." I stand, closing the distance between us. "Whatever is on that contract, whatever you think will make me look at you differently—I don't care. You deserve someone in your corner. Someone who fights for you instead of against you."
"Why?" Her eyes search mine. "Why do you care? You hate everything I represent. You think love is a delusion and marriage is a trap. Why does it matter to you what happens to me?"
Because I can't stop thinking about you. Because when you defended love in that elevator, I saw courage I've never had. Because you survived the same kind of betrayal that destroyed my mother, but you didn't let it turn you bitter and cold like me.
Because you make me want to believe again.
But I can't say any of that. It's too much. Too soon. Too real.
"Because you didn't deserve what happened to you," I say instead. "And because someone needs to prove to you that not everyone will betray you."
Tears spill down her cheeks. "Ethan—"
My phone rings, shattering the moment. James.
"This better be important," I answer.
"It is. I found something. About that contract Marcus is threatening to release." James sounds excited. Nervous. "Ethan, you need to hear this. It's not what you think."
"What do you mean?"
"The contract Zara signed three years ago? I pulled some strings, called in favors, got a copy from the county records." He pauses. "It's a business dissolution agreement. Breaking up her partnership with Marcus Reid and Vanessa Chen. Standard stuff—asset division, client allocation, non-compete clauses."
My stomach sinks. "That doesn't sound damaging."
"It's not. Except for one clause. Buried in the fine print on page seventeen." Another pause. "Zara agreed to pay Marcus and Vanessa three million dollars over five years as part of the dissolution. She's been making payments monthly for the last three years."
I look at Zara. She's gone pale.
"She paid them?" I ask slowly. "Even though they stole from her?"
"That's the thing—legally, they didn't steal. The business was a three-way partnership. When it dissolved, all assets were split three ways per the original partnership agreement. Zara got to keep the company name and reputation. They got the client list and vendor relationships." James's voice drops. "But here's where it gets interesting. Clause 23B specifies that if Zara ever publicly accuses Marcus or Vanessa of theft, fraud, or impropriety, she forfeits all payment schedules and owes them an additional two million in damages."
The world stops.
"She's been paying them to stay silent," I breathe.
"Exactly. And that's what Marcus wants to go public with. Not that she did anything wrong—but that she's been 'buying their silence' for three years. He'll spin it as her having something to hide. Make it look like hush money for crimes she committed."
"That's not what happened—"
"Doesn't matter. Public perception is everything. Once that contract goes public, people will assume the worst. That she's guilty of something terrible and has been covering it up."
I look at Zara. She's crying silently now, her whole body shaking.
"The worst part?" James continues. "She only has six payments left. Six months and she'd be free. Marcus knows this. That's why he's releasing it now—to destroy her right before she escapes him for good."
I hang up.
Zara won't look at me. "Now you know. I'm not a victim. I'm a coward who paid off her abusers to avoid a legal battle I couldn't afford. I chose money over truth. I chose silence over justice." Her voice is hollow. "That's who I really am."
"That's called surviving." I step closer. "You did what you had to do to rebuild your life. That's not cowardice—that's strategy."
"Marcus won't see it that way. Neither will the public."
"Then we change the narrative."
"How?"
I grab my phone, already dialing. "By telling the truth before he can twist it. We go public first. Tonight. Right now. We release the full contract with context—showing exactly what he and Vanessa did, why you agreed to pay them, and how Marcus has been blackmailing you for years."
"That'll make things worse—"
"Or it'll expose him as the predator he is." My mind is racing now, seeing the strategy. "We don't let him control this story. We take control first. Get ahead of it. Show the world what he really is."
"Nobody will believe me—"
"They will if we do this right." I'm already texting Nora, James, my PR contacts. "I've spent fifteen years destroying people's reputations in divorce court. I know exactly how to rebuild one. Trust me."
She stares at me like I'm crazy. "You want to go to war with Marcus. Tonight. Hours before he planned to release this."
"Yes."
"That's insane."
"Probably." I meet her eyes. "But I'm done watching him hurt you. Are you with me or not?"
For a long moment, she doesn't answer. Just looks at me with those broken, beautiful eyes.
Then her phone buzzes. She glances at it and her face goes white.
"What?" I ask.
She shows me the screen.
A news alert: "BREAKING: Anonymous Source Reveals Wedding Planner Zara Kingsley's Secret Payments to Former Business Partners—What Is She Hiding?"
Below it, a link to Marcus's blog.
He posted early.
"He released it," Zara whispers. "He released it an hour early because he knew we'd try to stop him."
I grab her hand. "Then we respond now. Right now. My apartment is two blocks away. We write a statement, record a video, and flood social media before his version becomes the only version. We have maybe thirty minutes before this explodes everywhere."
"Ethan, I can't—"
"Yes, you can. You've been surviving Marcus Reid for three years. Tonight, you stop surviving and start fighting back. With me. Together." I squeeze her hand. "Do you trust me?"
She shouldn't. I'm cold, cynical, broken in my own ways. I've spent years tearing people apart instead of building them up.
But she looks at me and whispers, "Yes. I trust you."
We run.