CHAPTER 9 The First Search
POV: Julian
It turns out, four years of silence can turn a woman into a ghost. I stared at the thick manila folder on my desk, my pulse thudding like a sledgehammer against my ribs.
Three weeks. I had given Miller three agonizing weeks and a blank check to find my wife, and this pathetic, empty file was all he had to show for it.
"That’s impossible," I snapped, standing up so fast my leather chair slammed into the floor-to-ceiling glass behind me. "People don't just evaporate into thin air, Miller. She’s a woman who planned out her weekly groceries down to the exact brand of organic thyme! Find her!"
"With all due respect," Miller replied, standing up and adjusting his suit coat, "your wife spent four years being entirely invisible. She built a life where nobody paid attention to her. When a ghost moves, nobody notices."
The word ghost hit me like a physical blow.
He left, but the silence he left behind in my office was suffocating. Miller was wrong about one thing, though. Maya hadn't been invisible. I had just been blind. Completely, arrogantly, unforgivably blind.
My phone chimed on the desk. A text from Clara. Dinner at eight, right? I picked out the wine for us, babe. Don't be late! A cold, bitter disgust flooded my mouth. I didn't reply. I just grabbed my jacket, slammed my office door shut, and drove straight to Clara’s high-rise apartment.
When she opened the door, she was wearing a silk robe, her blonde hair pinned up, looking like the picture-perfect tragic artist I had spent four years pining over. Four years of believing that Clara was the one who got away. The passion I had lost. The life I was supposed to have.
"Julian!" She beamed, stepping forward to wrap her arms around my neck. "You're early. I was just—" I caught her wrists, firmly but gently holding her off. "We're done, Clara."
Her smile froze, the delicate, perfectly practiced expression dropping for a fraction of a second before turning into a pout. "What are you talking about? Is this about the gala? I told you, I was drunk! I made a mistake—"
"No, I made the mistake," I cut in, my voice dead and quiet. "For four years, I let myself believe that you were the love of my life. I let myself treat a saint of a woman like a placeholder because I was too stupid to see what was right in front of me."
Clara stared at me, her eyes widening in disbelief before she let out a sharp, mocking laugh.
"A saint? Are you seriously talking about Maya?
Julian, please! She was a glorified housekeeper!
She was boring, she was quiet, and she only stayed because you paid for her comfortable little life.
She didn't love you—she was convenient!"
"She gave me everything!" I roared, the rage finally snapping through my controlled composure. "Every piece of stability I had, every quiet success, every moment of peace in my life was because she was standing in the shadows holding it all together! And I let you tear it apart!"
"I didn't tear anything apart!" Clara shrieked, her face twisting into something ugly, something I had never allowed myself to see before.
"You came to me every time you were stressed!
You looked at me like I was the sun! You are rewriting history, Julian!
You never cared about her until she embarrassed you by walking out! "
"Then I'm rewriting it now," I said, stepping back toward the door.
The spell was completely broken. Looking at Clara didn't give me a thrum of nostalgia anymore.
It just made me sick to my stomach. "Pack your things out of the guest house at the estate by tomorrow morning.
If you try to contact me, my legal team will handle it. "
"You're making a mistake!" she screamed behind me, her voice ringing down the hallway as I walked away without looking back.
"She’s not coming back to you, Julian! You broke her!
" The elevator doors slid shut, cutting off her voice, but her words echoed in the steel box all the way down to the garage. She’s not coming back.
My hands were shaking as I got back into my car. Clara was right about one thing: I had broken Maya. I had taken her warmth, her quiet grace, and her steady devotion, and I had starved her until she had nothing left to give.
I pulled out my phone, opening the empty messaging thread with Maya's old number. I didn't care if it took months. I didn't care if it took the rest of my life. I was going to find her. And when I did, I was going to burn down the world to earn her back.