The drive back to the city was a blur of tears and a cold, creeping numbness. Demetri’s words echoed in the silent car, a devastating mantra. *It was never real. It was a beautiful, painful dream.* He hadn't just left her; he had retroactively erased their entire marriage, reducing it to a legal footnote, a transaction. The love, the passion, the shared battles—all of it, in his eyes, invalidated by their clinical beginning.
He had looked so calm. So at peace. That was what shattered her most of all. Her Demetri was a man of storms and fire. This new, serene version was a stranger who had walked in and set her world ablaze with a quiet smile.
Sasha was waiting in the penthouse, her face etched with concern. “Where have you been? You look…”
Nora didn’t answer. She walked past her, into t
