Collide Into Ruin

Chapter Four: Goodbye, Hello

Emilia let out a humorless laugh, shaking her head. "Help? You were helping her while you were supposed to be with me?"

He ran a hand through his hair, clearly agitated. "She doesn't have anyone else, Em! All she has is me. I couldn't just abandon her."

"Bullshit," Emilia spat, her voice rising. "You've been lying to me! Sneaking around with her while I waited for you like an idiot! I loved you, Chase! And you—"

"Loved?" he cut her off, his lips curling into a smirk that sent ice through her veins. "Don't be so dramatic, Emilia."

The words were like a slap. Emilia's breath hitched, but she refused to break. "Dramatic? You cheated on me! You threw away everything we built for—for some washed-up actress who needed a man to fix her problems?"

"So that's why you cheated on me?!" Em's voice cracked, raw with disbelief and fury.

Chase said nothing. But his face—God, his face—gave him away. The guilt was there, tangled with something uglier. Justification. Defensiveness. The kind of regret that wasn't about hurting her, but about being caught.

"It was a mistake," he said, his voice low. "A relapse in judgment."

Em let out a shaky breath, but before she could say anything, he added, "She needed me." Then, colder, "And maybe if you weren't so obsessed with your job, you would've noticed that I needed something too."

Her stomach dropped. The cruelty in his words struck deep, cutting sharper than the betrayal itself. How could he say such a thing? She had worked tirelessly to build a future for them, sacrificing everything—yet she had always made time for him. Always. She had loved him with every piece of herself, even on the nights she came home exhausted, even when he felt distant, even when she had sensed something was wrong but convinced herself it was just in her head.

And this was his excuse?

Chase exhaled harshly, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't mean—"

But he did. She could see it. The truth was written in his posture, in the way he didn't even reach for her.

The realization hit her all at once, a tidal wave crashing over her, dragging her under. This wasn't just about the cheating. This was about all of it. The way he had checked out long before this moment, the way he had already decided she wasn't enough.

And she had never even seen it coming.

Her vision blurred. She sucked in a breath, but it felt like she was breathing through broken glass.

Chase shifted his weight, like he was waiting for something—for her to scream, to cry, to beg him to take it back.

She did none of those things. Instead, she forced herself to look at him—really look at him—and the person standing in front of her wasn't the man she thought she knew. Maybe he never had been.

Her vision blurred with fury and devastation. She ripped the engagement ring from her finger and threw it at him. The tiny band of gold and diamonds, once a symbol of their love, clattered to the floor between them.

"You don't get to make me the villain here, Chase! You lied! You betrayed me! You broke us!"

Chase swallowed hard, something flickering in his gaze, but he quickly buried it. His jaw clenched as he bent down, picking up the ring. His fingers ran over the band, as if testing the weight of what he had just lost.

Flashback - 5 months ago

Chase had just finished a late-night meeting when his phone buzzed. Hallie. He hesitated before answering.