I was devoted to Tom Collin, a man whose ambition I once admired. I gave up my career, my future, my entire identity for him. I was the perfect wife while he built his empire. But when he reached the top, I became invisible.
Then I found him with her—his college ex, the woman who’d abandoned him when he had nothing. When I confronted him, the man I married vanished, replaced by a monster whose hands left bruises on my skin.
I was finally ready to leave. But I never got the chance. He left our five-year-old daughter, Joy, alone for his mistress. And in his absence, my baby was murdered.
I buried my child, and with her, the weak woman I used to be. In a haze of grief, I let a handsome stranger hold me for one night in Italy—a single moment of oblivion.
Five years later, I live for one purpose: Revenge. Tom Collin will pay for what he did. He has no idea the woman now standing before him. But my new boss… he might. The magnetic CEO of our rival company is the stranger from that night. And he doesn’t know he’s the father of my secret daughter.


The cold hospital floor had stolen all feeling from my knees, but I barely noticed until Tom's voice shattered the suffocating silence around us.


"Get her out of here!" His command cracked through the air like a whip, raw and jagged with barely contained fury. Dark circles shadowed his bloodshot eyes, and the muscles in his jaw twitched with restrained emotion.


Camilla remained motionless in my embrace, her face buried against my shoulder while her tears soaked through my blouse. Her body trembled with each whispered word that escaped her lips like a broken prayer.


She seemed lost in her own world, deaf to everything around her. But when Tom's heavy footsteps approached, casting his shadow over our huddled forms, I felt her tense against me.


"I said get out!" he roared, his voice splintering at the edges as grief wrapped its cruel fingers around his throat.


Chapter 40 - Chapter 40 Torn From Joy