When Love Turns Cold

Arabella didn't move.

The cold steel pregnancy test box was still in her hand, her reflection trembling in the glass wall behind Sebastian.

He stepped fully into the office and closed the door with a soft click.

"You broke in," he said quietly, eyes fixed on her.

She clenched the box. "It wasn't locked."

"Because I trusted you wouldn't."

She laughed bitterly. "You trusted me? You?"

Sebastian said nothing.

He walked toward her, slowly, eyes dropping to the contents she had spilled across the desk: the forged contracts, the bank statements, the empty trail of Juliette's fake pregnancy.

"I guess I should've expected this," he muttered.

"You let her humiliate me," Arabella snapped, chest rising and falling. "You let her parade around pretending to be pregnant, knowing she wasn't!"

Sebastian's jaw twitched. "You think I wanted this?"

She threw the test kit at him, and it bounced off his shoulder, hit the floor.

"I don't know what you want anymore!"

"I wanted peace!" he snapped suddenly, voice breaking through the stillness. "I wanted out of the constant war between your silence and my guilt. You stopped fighting, Arabella. You became a ghost in my house!"

"I was surviving!"

"You weren't living."

"I couldn't live with a husband who slept beside another woman and called it a merger!" she shouted.

His face twisted. "It wasn't like that..."

"Then tell me what it was!" Her voice cracked.

Silence. For one long, brutal moment.

Sebastian finally exhaled and sat heavily behind his desk.

He didn't look at her. He just spoke.

"She told me she was pregnant… the day I was going to come back to you."

Arabella's breath caught.

He looked up at her, and for the first time in months, his eyes weren't cold.

They were tired.

"I swear to you, I was done with her," he said. "I was done pretending I didn't want to fix us. But she showed me a fake ultrasound. Told me she was three weeks along. I didn't question it."

"You didn't question her," Arabella repeated, voice dead.

"I panicked," he admitted. "She said she didn't want money, just time. I thought I could manage both. I thought I could… keep you, and help her too. Just until she...until it was over."

Arabella's hands curled into fists. "You let the world think I was second. Again."

"I didn't know how to fix it," he said. "Every move I made just hurt you more."

"Then why didn't you let me go?"

His eyes met hers.

"Because I never stopped loving you."

The words were quiet.

Deadly.

Arabella blinked.

She should've felt vindicated. Powerful. In control.

Instead, her legs nearly gave way.

"You don't get to say that now," she whispered. "Not after everything."

"I know."

"Not after Juliette. After lying. After dragging my name through the press..."

"I know, Arabella." His voice cracked this time. "But I need you to know… I never believed she'd take it this far. I thought it would burn itself out."

She shook her head slowly. "You think that makes it better?"

"No," he said. "But it makes it real."

He stood, slowly. Walked toward her again.

Arabella stepped back.

He stopped, pain flickering in his eyes.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," he said. "I'm just asking you to remember… that once, you loved me too."

She stared at him for a long time.

Then whispered, "That version of you… is dead."

And turned to leave.

But just as her hand reached for the doorknob...

Sebastian said something that froze her in place.

"I know you've been seeing Lucien Wolfe."

Her breath hitched.

"And I know what he offered you."

She turned slowly, pulse thundering.

He held up his phone... an image of her and Lucien from the bar.

"He's not doing this for you. He's doing it for leverage. You're a pawn to him. The same way you were a pawn to Juliette. I'm the only one who ever saw you as more."

Arabella's voice was cold now. Icy.

"Is that so?"

"I loved you," he said. "He wants to use you."

She gave him a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"Then maybe we're more alike than I thought."

She walked out without another word.

Later That Night – Lucien's Penthouse

Lucien poured two glasses of bourbon as Arabella paced the glass balcony overlooking the Hudson.

"I confronted him," she said flatly.

Lucien nodded. "And?"

"He says you're using me. That I'm just leverage to you."

Lucien handed her the drink. "He's not wrong."

She froze.

"What?"

Lucien stepped closer, voice calm and razor-sharp.

"I didn't lie to you, Arabella. I told you I wasn't a man to fall in love with."

She stared at him. "So I'm just… a chess piece to you, too."

"No," Lucien said. "You were a pawn. But pawns become queens when they reach the other side of the board."

Arabella didn't speak.

Didn't blink.

Lucien leaned in, close enough to smell his cologne... dark and expensive.

"Tell me," he whispered, "do you want to destroy him… or do you want to win?"

She didn't answer.

Not yet.