Soulmate On Stage Fiancé No More

The color drained from Seraphina's face as she scrambled to explain.

"Please, everyone, don't jump to conclusions! Liam is not some charity case. His success is a result of his own incredible talent and hard work!"

"What Liam and I have is real. Please, don't get the wrong idea!"

"As for Miss Sinclair, she has been using her family's power to harass my boyfriend. We've been suffering in silence for a long time..."

"Right, Liam?"

As she spoke, her gaze darted to Liam, her eyes flashing with a desperate warning.

As a Grammy-winning superstar, her public image was everything. Being outed as a homewrecker would detonate her career.

Liam's brows furrowed. He pulled Seraphina closer into his protective hold, and when he turned to face me, his expression was terrifyingly dark.

"Ava, have you made enough of a scene?"

"Leave. Now. We can talk about this at home."

"Talk at home?" I looked at him and let out a bitter, hollow laugh. "Liam, what home do we have left?"

"In front of TMZ and God knows who else, I'm only asking you one question: whose fiancé are you?"

Liam's eyes darkened. He took a menacing step toward me, his voice a low command.

"Seraphina is a public figure. All these cameras... you're destroying her reputation."

"Be mature. Don't cause trouble here. Go home."

Be mature.

That phrase again.

For ten years, no matter what he did, no matter how much he wronged me, his answer was always the same: "Be mature."

He told me to be mature, so I accepted keeping our relationship a secret, watching him play the part of a charming, single bachelor in high society.

He told me to be mature, so I never questioned his schedule, not even when he used "work" as an excuse to spend holidays with Seraphina, forcing myself to believe it was for his career.

He told me to be mature, so I swallowed all my insecurities and suspicions, striving to be the elegant, perfect fiancée he demanded.

But now, he was telling me to be mature to protect another woman's reputation.

A sharp laugh escaped my lips. Her reputation? What about mine?

These reporters were sharks that had smelled blood. The only scoop they wanted now was my relationship with Liam. The story they were dying to write was about the Sinclair heiress who gave a man ten years of her life only to be publicly cast aside.

If I just slunk away now, my humiliation would be plastered all over New York by morning. The Sinclair family name would be dragged through the mud because of me, and I would become the laughingstock of my entire world.

He knew all this, of course. He simply didn't care.

In his eyes, my reputation, my family's honor—it wasn't worth a single strand of Seraphina's hair.

My entire decade of devotion was nothing but a stepping stone for his ambition—a total farce he could discard the second it became inconvenient!

Well, right now, I was done being mature.

I was going to make him and that woman pay for every last second of the last ten years.