He Treated Me As Her, I Chose His Brother

Chapter 2 Losing Luca

The headline, "Shaw Heir Linked to Best Actress Zoey Larkin," was trending everywhere by morning.

Rowan had never once made our marriage public.

The comment section under it ran wall to wall with congratulations.

[Sweet superstar x ice-cold billionaire heir. I'm shipping these two so hard.]

[Guys, does anyone understand what this means? The Shaw heir sat in a hospital room with Zoey for an entire afternoon. An entire afternoon. That man's time is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.]

"They are perfect together!! Zoey deserves to be happy forever, I'm crying."

Maybe that was the moment divorce stopped being a thought and turned into a plan.

The kitten must have picked up on it, because she climbed into my lap and butted her head against my hand over and over until I laughed.

"All right, kitty. From now on, your name is Luca."

She mewed back at me like the name suited her fine.

It was the name Rowan and I had settled on years ago.

Why had we picked that one, out of every name in the world?

I was still turning that over when Rowan came through the front door.

He threw his jacket onto the couch and headed for the stairs the way he always did.

Then something occurred to him, and his whole face lit up.

"Evelyn, Zoey's been wanting a cat. This one will do. It's exactly the type she likes."

Before I could get a single word out, he lifted Luca straight out of my arms.

Something tore open in my chest and went numb around the edges.

I lunged forward and put myself between him and the door.

"No! Not this one! Take anything else!"

I screamed like someone who had lost her mind, grabbing at his sleeve, his arm, anything I could reach.

"It's a cat, Evelyn. When are you going to grow out of this petty little act?" Rowan's voice never lifted once.

I tried to pull her back, but he had a head and shoulders on me and no intention of loosening his grip.

All I could do was stand there and watch him carry her out.

"No. Please don't do this to me."

I prayed like a lunatic for something, anything, to stop him.

The door shut behind him anyway, and Luca was gone.

I sank down onto the floor with my face soaked through.