---- Chapter 22 Barron Carroll POV: | woke up in my own bed. The restraints were gone. The basement was a fading nightmare. For a moment, a wild, irrational hope surged through me. It was over. She had punished me, and now she had forgiven me. She was back. | got out of bed, my legs unsteady, and walked through the silent penthouse. | called her name. The only answer was the echo of my own voice. | found her on the terrace, standing with Keenan Sullivan. They were watching the sunrise. His arm was around her, and she was leaning into him, her head resting on his shoulder. They looked... peaceful. Perfect. And in that moment, | knew. | had not been forgiven. | had been replaced. The sight of them together was a physical agony, a thousand times worse than any electric shock, any scalpel. It was the pain of absolute, irrevocable loss. "Emerson," | said, my voice a broken croak. They turned. Her face was calm, serene. There was no hatred in her eyes anymore. There was nothing. Just a cool, distant ---- pity. That was so much worse. "It's over, Barron," she said, her voice gentle. "No," | pleaded, taking a step towards her. Keenan moved to stand in front of her, a human shield. The irony was not lost on me. "Don't do this. Please. | love you." "Your love is a poison," she said, her voice unwavering. "And | am finally free of it." She held up the divorce papers. My signature was a black, ugly scar on the page. "This is goodbye." | fell to my knees. The strength, the pride, the arrogance that had defined my entire life, it all crumbled to dust. | was nothing without her. "Please," | sobbed, the word torn from the depths of my shattered soul. "Don't leave me. I'm sorry. For everything. |' Il do anything. ' Il spend the rest of my life making it up to you. Just... don't leave me alone." She looked down at me, her expression unchanging. "You were never alone, Barron. You had me. You had a wife who adored you. You had ten chances at a family. And you threw it all away. For what? A debt? Pride? It doesn' t matter anymore." She took a step forward, moving around Keenan until she stood directly in front of me. She knelt down, so our eyes were level. ---- "You once told me | belonged to you," she said, her voice a soft, deadly whisper. "You were wrong. | am not a possession. | am not a company to be acquired. | am Emerson Keller. And | belong to no one." She stood up and turned her back on me, for the final time. "Live a long life, Barron," she said over her shoulder. "And think about what you' ve lost every single day." She and Keenan walked away, their footsteps echoing on the marble terrace. They didn' t look back. | was left kneeling on the cold stone, the rising sun a cruel mockery of the darkness that had consumed my world. She was right. | would live a long life. And every day, every hour, every breath would be a new kind of hell. A hell of my own making. A hell named Emerson. As | watched the car they were in disappear down the long driveway, my eyes fell on something sparkling on the ground near where she had stood. It was a small, silver locket. One | had never seen before. | crawled over to it, my hands shaking, and picked it up. | opened it. Inside, on one side, was a tiny, faded photograph of a young Emerson and an equally young Keenan, their arms around each other, grinning at the camera. On the other side, an inscription was engraved in delicate script. ---- It said: "My K. Always. - E." It was a relic from their childhood. A promise made long before | had ever entered her life. A promise she had clearly never forgotten. | had never stood a chance. My hostile takeover had been doomed from the start. | had acquired her company, her fortune, her life. But | had never, ever, truly owned her heart. That had always belonged to him. In "CEO, That Intern is Actually Your Wife" by CrushReel, delve into a captivating romance where a billionaire CEO becomes contractually linked to an unexpected partner. When faced with the urgent need to fund her grandmother's critical surgery, our protagonist finds herself in a unique situation—entering a one-year contract marriage with a stranger. As the story unfolds, themes of love, sacrifice, and the complexities of modern relationships come to light. The novel offers a fresh take on the familiar billionaire romance genre by exploring the dynamics of office relationships and the intricacies of contract lovers. Discover this modern tale of unexpected connections and heartfelt emotions, available to read at CrushReel.