Chapter 2
Eleanor’s chest tightened, a vise of unbearable sorrow clamping around her heart as she sank to her knees and clutched Logan’s leg with desperate hands. “Logan, please,” she whispered, her lips trembling as though each word might shatter her fragile composure, “help me appeal to the prison authorities. My grandmother has passed away, and I need to see to her funeral. I can’t go back now—not like this.” Her voice quivered, a fragile thread woven with grief and supplication, echoing in the sterile hospital corridor.
Logan’s handsome features hardened into a mask of disapproval, his brow furrowing as if her plea were an affront to his ordered world. “Prison regulations aren’t a trifle we can bend with a handful of coins, Eleanor. Your grief is real, I see that, but you must tether it to reason before you let it spill out like this.”
“Reason?” She lifted her tear-streaked face to meet his gaze, her voice a tremulous wave cresting with raw emotion. “For eleven months, I’ve languished behind bars, and four times you’ve wielded your wealth to pull me out—each time to drain my blood for Riley. Why does that bend the rules, but this—this one moment I beg for—doesn’t?”
“The circumstances don’t align,” Logan replied, his tone as cold and unyielding as a winter wind cutting through barren trees. His dark eyes held no flicker of warmth, only the steely resolve she’d come to know too well.
“How can you say that?” Her voice broke, anguish seeping through every syllable like blood from an open wound. “I know Riley reigns supreme in your heart—I’ve accepted that bitter truth. But my grandmother just slipped away, Logan. She raised me, poured her soul into me, and I couldn’t even hold her hand as she faded. I need to walk her to her rest, to whisper my goodbye. I can’t bear the thought of her spirit drifting alone into the dark. Please, I’m begging you—grant me this one mercy.”
“You still have an uncle, don’t you?” Logan’s voice softened, but only slightly, a concession laced with detachment. “I’ll see to it he’s supported. Your grandmother will have a funeral worthy of her memory.”
“That’s not what this is about.” Tears streamed down Eleanor’s cheeks, unchecked rivers carving paths through the dust of her despair. “She’s gone, Logan. No grand ceremony can bring her back. I just want to stand by her one last time, to feel her presence before she’s lost to me forever. If you give me this, I’ll bleed for Riley whenever you ask—I swear it.”
Logan’s gaze turned to ice, a glacial stare that pinned her where she knelt. “Are you bartering with blood now? This isn’t a transaction, Eleanor. It’s your duty to Riley. If not for what you did, she’d still walk beside me, not be bound to that chair.”
Eleanor squeezed her eyes shut, his words sinking into her like shards of glass, piercing the tender remnants of her heart. The memory of Riley’s fall haunted her still—a year ago, the tumble down the stairs, the spinal injury that stole her legs, the accusation that Eleanor had pushed her. Riley’s claim had been a guillotine, swift and merciless. The Barrett family had closed ranks, their condemnation unanimous, their eyes burning with disgust. No footage, no witnesses—just Riley’s word against hers, and Eleanor had been defenseless.
Logan had stood before her then, his voice a blade of ultimatum: “Eleanor, Riley’s pain is beyond measure. Justice demands a price for what you’ve done. Three to ten years is the norm for such an assault, but Riley’s mercy spares you—only one.” The irony had twisted in her gut like a bitter root. She’d resisted, demanded the police, clung to her innocence—until Riley unveiled the damning video, a grainy lie showing Eleanor’s hands on her, shoving her down the stairs. The Barrett family’s revulsion had been a palpable weight, their gazes stripping her bare as if her very breath tainted the air. Logan’s bodyguards had dragged her to her cell, her protests swallowed by their iron grip.
Now, the toll of blood loss and grief pinned her to the hospital bed for two days, her body a hollow shell too frail to rise. On the third day, fate twisted the knife deeper. In the prison’s drab recreation room, the television blared with garish light, broadcasting Riley’s lavish birthday celebration. The media crowed that Logan Barrett, CEO of the Barrett Group, had poured a hundred million into the spectacle. There she was—Riley, radiant in her wheelchair, her beauty undimmed by suffering, a fragile goddess bathed in adoration. Logan hovered at her side, his every glance a tender caress, his devotion a beacon that illuminated their bond. They were a vision, a celestial pair sculpted by destiny itself.
Fresh tears traced silent paths down Eleanor’s cheeks as the screen’s glow flickered against her hollowed eyes. Today, Clara’s body was being laid to rest, and Logan—who’d vowed to ensure her farewell—stood instead at Riley’s side, orchestrating her triumph. The realization crashed over her like a tidal wave: Logan’s heart was a locked vault, and no key she forged from sacrifice or love would ever pry it open.
She’d carried a secret for a decade—ten years of loving Logan from the shadows. He’d once been a distant star, blazing in a firmament she could only admire from afar, their worlds divided by an unbridgeable chasm. Three years ago, fate had intervened with cruel caprice—a car accident that plunged Logan into a coma, defying the finest doctors the Barrett family could summon. It was Madeline Barrett, his grandmother, who’d clung to superstition, proclaiming a marriage might summon the fortune to rouse him. Then Riley, his betrothed, had vanished—kidnapped days before the wedding. In desperation, Madeline had scoured for a bride with a matching horoscope, finding Eleanor, a quiet caregiver in their employ.
The marriage had dangled a lifeline—Eleanor’s ailing grandmother, Clara, would receive care at the elite Zlamsas hospital, a sanctuary beyond the reach of ordinary souls. Eleanor had seized it, not just for Clara, but for the ember of love she’d nursed for Logan through seven silent years. She’d vowed to tend him, coma or not, her heart a willing captive. A month after their vows, he’d awakened, his fury a storm unleashed when he learned the truth of their union. Divorce had been his immediate demand—until he discovered her blood matched Riley’s rare type. From then, she’d become a vessel, a living font tapped whenever Riley’s fragile frame faltered.
For two years, Eleanor had poured herself into being his wife, a silent sentinel of devotion—until Riley’s accusation had shackled her in prison. Ten years of love, pure and unblemished, and what had it reaped? Logan’s eyes saw only Riley, his heart a fortress she’d never breach. Perhaps she’d been a fool to dream he might one day turn and see her.
Rain lashed from a sky heavy with grief on the day of Eleanor’s release, the clouds weeping as if mourning her losses. No one awaited her at the prison gates. She trudged through the downpour, boarding bus after bus, until she reached Serenity Villa, Logan’s domain. Her clothes clung to her like a sodden shroud, water pooling at her feet as the fingerprint lock yielded to her touch. Inside, Logan descended the grand staircase, his pristine suit a stark rebuke to her bedraggled state, his presence as commanding as a king in his court.
Surprise flickered in his dark eyes, a fleeting ripple across his composure. “Why are you here?”
Her fingers trembled, chilled to the bone as she met his gaze. “I was released today.”
“Ah, I forgot.” He paused before her, a tower of indifference. “Rest. I’m heading out.”
“Logan,” she called, her voice a fragile tether as he turned away. “I need to speak with you.”
He glanced at his watch, impatience etching his features. “It can wait until I’m back.”
Her hand shot out, grasping his sleeve with a quiet defiance that stilled him. “It won’t take long.”
Reluctance hardened his jaw, but he stopped, irritation simmering in his stare. “Make it quick.”
Eleanor studied the perfect lines of his profile, a faint smile curving her lips—a smile born not of joy, but of clarity. “Logan, let’s get a divorce,” she said, her tone steady, resolute, a bell tolling the end of a decade’s delusion.
Confusion clouded his gaze as he turned fully to face her. “A divorce? Because I didn’t fetch you from prison?”
“This isn’t about today.” Her smile held, unshaken by his disbelief. “I mean it, Logan. I want a divorce. We’ll sort the papers when you have time.”
“Eleanor, I don’t have patience for your games.” His expression darkened, a storm brewing as he shook off her grip. “Take a shower, clear your head. You’re not thinking straight.”
He strode out, leaving her rooted in the foyer, the echo of his departure swallowed by the rain’s relentless drum. Logan thought her mind was muddled, but he was wrong. Never had her thoughts been so crystalline, so unshakably certain.
Upstairs, she drew a bath, steam rising like a veil as she powered on her phone, fully charged after a month’s dormancy. A flood of WhatsApp messages awaited—none bore Logan’s name. Idly scrolling, she froze, her breath catching as a post seared into her vision. Riley’s words glowed on the screen: “True love is shown through enduring companionship.” Beneath them, a photo—Riley beaming, radiant as ever, while Logan peeled an apple at her side, his devotion a quiet hymn captured in a single frame.
