ETHAN'S POV
Ethan Cole is not used to being helpless.
For the last ten years, he's built himself into a man who controls his environment. Who destroys his enemies. Who takes what he wants through strategy and timing and absolute certainty. He's a man who fixes problems. He doesn't let problems fix him.
But watching Sophie sit on the couch with her phone in her hands, reading terrible things strangers are writing about her, and knowing he can't stop it, is breaking something inside him that he didn't know could break.
She won't look at him. She's been awake for four hours and she hasn't made eye contact once.
Ethan picks up his phone and calls James.
"Find out who leaked the story," he says without preamble. "I don't care what it takes."
James doesn't ask questions. He just says okay and hangs up. Two hours later, he calls back.
"It's Richard Sterling," James says. "He paid a journalist named David Chen to plant the story. David Chen has been in business with Richard for years. They go way back."
Ethan closes his eyes. Of course it's Richard. Of course the strategy is bigger than just Jackson trying to win Sophie back. Of course this is a calculated move designed to take everything.
"What else?" Ethan asks.
"There's more," James says. "Victoria Sterling has been distancing herself from Jackson publicly. She's making statements about how she had no idea about his obsession with his ex-wife. She's positioning herself as a victim of his emotional infidelity. Smart move on her part."
Ethan stands up and paces his office. He sees the board now. He sees the game Richard is playing. He sees every move lined up like chess pieces. Jackson creates emotional chaos. Richard uses that chaos to leak a story. The story creates doubt between Ethan and Sophie. The doubt creates distance. The distance creates cracks.
And cracks can split things wide open.
"I want everything Richard has ever done that could be used against him," Ethan says to James. "Every illegal deal. Every corrupt business practice. Everything."
"Already compiling it," James says. "But Ethan, this is war now. This isn't business anymore."
Ethan hangs up.
He has to focus. He has to develop a strategy that will destroy Richard Sterling in every way that matters. He has to win the business war that's about to consume his entire life.
But when he walks back into the apartment, he sees Sophie sitting on the couch in the same position she was in when he left, and he realizes that none of it matters.
None of the business strategy. None of the revenge. None of the empire he's built. Because watching Sophie pull away from him, seeing the doubt in her eyes, knowing that she's wondering if she made a terrible mistake by loving him, makes every victory feel hollow.
Ethan has never had to choose between winning and protecting someone he loves.
He's never realized that those two things might be impossible to do at the same time.
He sits down beside Sophie. He wants to tell her that he's going to fix this. That he's going to destroy Richard Sterling. That he's going to prove that the article is a lie. That everything is going to be okay.
But Sophie doesn't need to hear that. Sophie needs to know that Ethan isn't the villain the article made him out to be. And Ethan understands something profound in this moment.
He can't prove that to her. No matter what he says, no matter what he does, Sophie has to choose to believe him. She has to trust herself enough to see through the lie. And right now, Sophie doesn't trust herself anymore.
So Ethan just sits beside her.
He doesn't speak. He doesn't try to convince her. He doesn't promise her that everything will be fine. He just sits there and lets her know that he's not going anywhere. That he's present even when presence feels like the smallest thing he can offer.
Sophie's phone buzzes. She looks at it and her face goes darker.
Someone has created a Reddit thread analyzing their relationship. They're dissecting photos. They're looking for signs of control and manipulation. They're making accusations about his business practices and his motives.
"Don't look at that," Ethan says quietly.
Sophie sets the phone down but he can see her hands shaking. He can see her trying to hold herself together and slowly coming apart anyway.
Hours pass. Ethan stays beside her. Not touching. Not trying to convince her. Just being there.
Night falls over Manhattan. The city lights come up outside their apartment and Sophie finally moves. She stands up and walks to the balcony. She opens the glass door and steps outside into the cool air.
Ethan follows her.
They stand together looking out at Manhattan. The city that brought them together and is now trying to tear them apart. The city that destroyed Sophie before and is destroying her again.
Sophie is so quiet that Ethan can barely hear her when she finally speaks.
"Do you regret asking me to marry you?"
The question lands like a punch.
Ethan opens his mouth to say no immediately. To tell her that he's never regretted anything in his life more than he regrets the day he met her and is now losing her. But that's not what comes out.
"No," he says. And he means it. "I don't regret asking you to marry me."
"Do you regret bringing me back to Manhattan?" Sophie asks. Her voice is small. Fragile. Like if he says the wrong thing, she'll shatter completely.
Ethan wants to lie. Wants to tell her that he regrets every single second of bringing her back to this city. That he regrets exposing her to the people who hurt her before. That he regrets being the reason she's standing on a balcony at night looking like someone who's lost everything.
"No," he says truthfully. "I don't regret that either."
Sophie turns to look at him. Her eyes are filled with tears that haven't fallen yet.
"Do you regret me?" she whispers.
The question is so vulnerable. So broken. So completely devastating that Ethan feels his entire world tilt on its axis.
He steps closer to her. He reaches up and touches her face. He makes her look at him directly.
"I could never regret you," he says. And every word is the truth. "Never. Not for a second. Not for a million seconds."
Sophie's face crumples. The tears finally fall.
"Then why doesn't it feel like you want to stay?" she asks. "Why does it feel like you're already leaving?"
And Ethan understands that this is the real damage. Not the article. Not the accusations. Not the scandal spreading through the internet. The real damage is that Sophie is so afraid of being left that she's already leaving first.
She's protecting herself from him by pushing him away. And she doesn't even realize she's doing it.
Ethan pulls her close. She resists for a moment and then collapses into him. She's crying now. Really crying. The kind of crying that comes from someone who's been holding it together for hours and finally let the dam break.
"I'm not leaving," he says into her hair. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
But even as he says the words, Ethan understands something that terrifies him. He's not the one who's going to leave. Sophie is. Not physically. But emotionally she's already drifting away. And he doesn't know how to stop it.
Because sometimes the greatest power in the world isn't enough when the person you love stops believing in you. Sometimes you can't win by winning. Sometimes you have to lose everything to understand what matters most.
And Ethan is about to learn that lesson in the hardest way possible.