Chapter 4 Liam
Chapter four
Liam
The pain starts in my chest. A physical, grinding ache behind my ribs that radiates outward like a skyscraper imploding, leaving fine particles of destruction everywhere, in my spine, my shoulders, the thick muscle of my heart.
It's been forty-eight hours since I walked out of her shop.
Forty-eight hours since I kissed her like a madman before she pushed me away, staring at me with eyes that had already started watering.
I deserve this pain. Every fucking inch of it.
I'm in my office, surrounded by glass and steel and the crisp, clean scents that aren’t hers.
I can't breathe. My lungs are full of recycled regret.
My phone sits on the desk, silent. I've called her eight times.
Texted seventeen. The texts started as explanations—I need to handle something.
Give me time.—then cracked into something raw: I can still taste you, and it's killing me.
By morning, they'd devolved into something I don't recognize from my own fingers: Fucking respond, Star. I don’t beg.
Roan leans against my doorframe, arms crossed. "Bro, you look like shit."
"Thank you. bro." My voice is gravel. I haven't slept. Can't. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face when she confronted me about Bethany.
"She's not answering?"
I don't bother asking who he means. My brother knows.
They all know. I sent a single text to the family group chat—Bonded—and my phone has been blowing up with everything from congratulations to death threats ever since.
Only Roan has shown up in person. Only Roan understands that I'm one bad decision away from burning the whole empire down.
"She's managing," I lie. "She's just… processing."
"Processing," he says, stroking his chin. "That's what we're calling it when your omega goes radio silent after you tell her you're marrying someone else?"
"I told her I'm not marrying someone else."
"You told her you're working on it. That's not the same thing."
I stand. Too fast. The room tilts, and I brace a hand on the desk. The pain in my chest spikes into a white-hot poker. It's the bond. My body is punishing me for walking away from her. This is what my father felt—this exact gnawing, acid ache. For the first time in my life, I get it.
"I need to see Bethany."
"Now?" Roan's eyebrows climb. "You're in no shape—"
"Now." I grab my jacket. "I need to end it. Properly. Face to face."
Roan studies me for a long moment. "You know what this costs, right? The merger. The shipping lanes. Our entire Southeast expansion plan."
I tighten my cufflink until my knuckles turn white, staring at the screen of my silent phone. "I know."
"You're going to lose half the board."
My jaw tics. I stuff the device in my pocket like I can trap her absence there. "I know."
"Fine. You're going to lose your fucking mind if you don't." He pushes off the doorframe. "I'll have the plane ready in an hour. But Liam?" He catches my arm as I pass. "If you're doing this, you need to be sure."
"I'm sure." The words are iron. "I was sure the moment Star said she'd find another alpha."
Roan's grip tightens. "She said that?"
"Yes."
Her voice didn't even shake. She delivered it like a fact. The pain in my chest blooms into something violent. My knuckles crack as I clench my fists.
Roan releases me. "You don’t think she would, do you?"
"I feel sorry for her if she does." I stop and hold his gaze. "Him I won't feel sorry for. There'll be no need to cry for his corpse."
He stops me again. "Liam…"
"I can't fucking breathe, Roan. Every minute I'm away from her, it gets worse.
It's not in my head. It's in my cells. If I'm going to hurt anyway, I might as well hurt with her.
But I am not—I am not letting her think there's another alpha out there who could—" I can't finish.
The thought of another man's hands on her, another man's teeth in her skin, another man hearing the way she moans—
I punch the wall. The drywall cracks. Pain explodes in my knuckles, sharp and clean and real, and I welcome it. It's better than the other pain. The one that feels like dying by inches.
Roan doesn't flinch. "I'll call the pilot."
The flight to Singapore is twenty hours of staring at a silent phone.
No notifications. Just the scream of the engines and the silence of her inbox.
The bond is becoming physical in ways I didn't know were possible.
My hands won't stop shaking. Cold sweats keep drenching my shirt, then chilling into something rank and desperate.
I keep catching the ghost of honeysuckle, bright and sharp in my nose, until I realize it's coming from my own skin—our scent turning sour without her.
When I try to sleep, my body jerks awake like it's falling, searching for warmth that isn't there.
My father used to sit in his empty chair and sweat through his clothes. Now I am.
Bethany is already waiting in the hotel lobby, a vision of cream silk and tailored trousers, her blonde hair pulled back in a sleek knot, every inch the polished beta executive who runs her family's empire with quiet competence. She's beautiful. Smart. The perfect strategic partner.
She takes one look at my face and her composure fractures. "Oh, Liam."
"Don't." I can't handle pity. Not from her. "Can we—let's just sit."
We end up in the hotel bar because it's neutral territory. She orders sparkling water. I order whiskey. The first sip burns. I think of my father. I put the glass down.
"You're not marrying me," Bethany says gently. Not a question.
"I'm not." I force myself to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry. The merger—"
"Forget the merger." She says it so calmly it takes a second to register. "I'm not marrying a man who's already bonded, Liam. I'm not a monster."
I meet her gaze for the first time. "You can tell."
"You're flushed. Sweating. I’ve known you for years, and I’ve never seen you perspire, even on a sunny day." She leans forward. "I knew the moment you walked in. Everyone can tell when bonded mates split. It’s never pretty."
The image of my father flashes behind my eyes—grey-faced, weak, dying of a severed connection. She takes my hand, and I flinch. Her touch feels wrong, like another betrayal. "What's her name?"
"Star." It comes out as a rasp.
"That's lovely." She squeezes and lets go. "You need to go to her."
"I will. I am. I just—" I swallow. "I needed to do this right. Not over the phone. Not through lawyers. You deserved better than that."
"I did." She looks away, and for a heartbeat I see the sharp flash of what she's actually losing—not just a merger, but the partnership she mapped out, the dignity of an orderly exit, the months she spent believing this match was stable ground.
Then she smooths her blouse, and her face settles.
"But I also deserve to not be the villain in this story.
So here's what's going to happen: we end the engagement publicly.
We'll cite irreconcilable differences. We'll spin it as a mutual decision made after careful consideration. "
"Bethany—"
"The merger is shot," she says flatly. "But I won't let you burn the personal bridges.
My father respects you. We can salvage a business relationship if we're strategic.
But you need to give me two weeks." She holds up a hand when I start to protest. "Not for me.
For the press. For the board. I need to brief my team, handle the fallout.
If you announce it today, it looks like you left me for another woman. "
"I did."
"No." Her voice sharpens. "You left me for your mate. There's a difference. One is tawdry. The other is chemistry. The board will forgive that. They won't forgive tawdry."
I think of Star. Of her saying I'll find another. "I can't give you two weeks," I say. "She's already—she thinks I'm not coming back. She's not answering. If I wait—"
"Then you'll lose her," Bethany says. She studies me for a long moment. "It's really love, isn't it? Not just the bond. It's actually love."
I want to deny it. But the words won't come. "It's real," I say instead. "All of it. The bond. Star. It's the only real thing I have right now."
She nods. Her face softens. "Then you need to go. Now. I'll handle the press release. I'll come up with something. We'll figure out the business fallout after."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me." She stands and smooths her blouse.
"Just don't make me regret being decent.
And Liam?" She looks at me, and I see the woman underneath the business partner.
"When you find her, tell her I said she's lucky.
Not because you're some prize. But because you just burned your entire life down to keep from hurting her. "
I fly back the same day, nearly two straight days in round-trip travel.
Instead of feeling exhausted, I'm energized.
I'm flying home to my mate. I spend the return flight texting Star every thirty minutes like a man possessed.
I'm coming back. We have a lot to discuss.
I ended it with Bethany. Nothing. The blue bubbles sit unread.
The car service drops me off at her shop in the morning. The door is unlocked, and Paula is standing at the worktable. She looks at me and her lip curls. "She's not here."
"I can see that." I look around, trying to control the fraying edges of my temper. "Where is she?"
"Gone."
"Gone where?"
"Don't know." She goes back to the roses, stripping them with methodical violence. "She packed a bag, said she needed to get away. Told me to keep the shop running; she'd be in touch."
"Paula—"
"Don't." She slams the shears down. "You don't get to come in here with your thousand-dollar suit and your panic and your where is she like you didn't do this.
She was fine before you. She had a business, a life, a plan.
She was supposed to launch the online branch later this year—the subscription boxes, the cafe partnerships, everything she'd been building since she opened this place.
Then you walked in, destroyed everything, and when it got real, you walked out. "
"I had to—"
"No." She rounds the table and gets in my face.
She's smaller than me, but her fury is alpha-level.
"You didn't have to. You chose to. You chose to leave.
You chose to make her wait. You chose to let her think she wasn't enough.
So now she's gone, and I don't know where, and even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. "
"She's bonded." The words are a snarl. "She's in pain. She needs—"
"She needs to not be in pain anymore." Paula is relentless. "And you are the source. So figure it out, Mr. Vaughn. Figure out how to fix the mess you made, and when you've actually got something to offer besides panic and excuses, maybe she'll decide to give you another chance."
She turns her back on me.
I stand there for a moment, breathing in the space where Star should be. The worktable is scattered with Queen Anne's lace. Her scent lingers, faint, underneath the flowers. Honeysuckle and grief.
I walk out.
The city blurs as I go back to my penthouse.
I call her again. Voicemail. Text. Nothing.
I use every contact I have. Private investigators.
Security firms. People who owe me favors.
I put a trace on her phone—the same phone she's not answering.
I check her credit card activity. Nothing.
No transactions. It's like she vanished into thin air.
Roan finds me at midnight, staring at the city lights, as if I see into every home. "Anything?"
"Nothing." My voice is shredded. "She's just... gone."
"She's a grown woman, Liam. She has resources. She's not—"
"She's in heat withdrawal," I say. "She's bonded, alone, hurting, and I did that."
"What are you going to do?" Roan asks quietly.
"Find her," I snarl. "I don't care what it takes. I will tear this city apart. I will search every house, every friend's couch, every hotel room until I find her."
"And then?"
I look at my brother. "Then I'll make her stay," I answer, the words dropping into the space between us like stones. "She won't get to leave me again."
Roan’s eyes widen. "You know you can't really do that, right?"
Silence stretches, thin and dangerous. The honeysuckle and grief of her empty shop still cling to my clothes, threads of a bond unraveling without its mate.
I breathe them in and let them settle into my lungs.
I stare out at the city, every light a place she might be.
I think of my father in his empty bed. Of Bethany's face when she realigned her future around my absence.
Of Star's steady voice saying I'll find another.
Then I give Roan a cold stare, "Watch me."