His Heart Was Never Mine

My marriage to Liam Sterling was a merger, a union of two dynasties.

On the night we signed the papers at City Hall, he stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse, smoking one cigarette after another. Then he told me he was in love with someone else.

A girl he described as poor but resilient, a wildflower growing in the cracks of the city pavement.

I was quiet for a moment. I didn't tell him that I’d been quietly in love with him for years. Instead, I asked, "So what happens now?"

He gave a small, humorless smile, the city lights glinting in his cool gray eyes. "Give me two years. I won't be the man whose life is dictated by others forever." His voice was low, cutting. "Then, we'll divorce. But don't worry," he added, a gesture toward magnanimity, "I'll make sure you and the Calloway family are compensated."

I agreed.

But when that day finally came, he was the one who wasn't ready to let go.

1.

Three months into my marriage with Liam, I finally saw her. Ava.

It was my birthday.

The Sterling family had been planning the party for half a month. The venue, the catering, the champagne—everything was the absolute best. I overheard someone whisper, "Old man Sterling really treasures his new granddaughter-in-law."

"Every person with any real power in New York must be in this room tonight."

They weren't wrong.

And yet, even in a room full of power and precision, things go wrong.

The crystal chandelier directly above me began to fall.

In that split second, the only other person in its path was a waitress clearing glasses.

The room erupted into chaos. I was already moving to get out of the way when I saw Liam cut through the crowd, his eyes fixed, his expression urgent. He was rushing toward the danger.

And then he ran right past me and grabbed the waitress, pulling her into his arms.

The final tableau was this: my arm, sliced open by a shard of falling crystal, and the waitress, held tightly in Liam's protective embrace.

I had never been so publicly humiliated in my life.

It only lasted a second. Liam seemed to register what had happened, releasing the woman and rushing to my side. He scooped me up and carried me out of the ballroom and straight to the hospital. To the rest of the world, the incident was smoothed over, a husband's frantic concern for his injured wife.

When I woke up, Liam was standing by the window of the private hospital room, his back to me, talking on the phone.

"You shouldn't have come today," he was saying, his voice low and tight with emotion. "If you had been hurt… what would I have done?"

A pause.

"This thing with her… it will end. I promise. Just wait for me, okay?"

Just two sentences. That's all it took for me to understand. The waitress was Ava.

The woman he wanted to marry but couldn't.

He turned then and saw my eyes were open. A flicker of relief crossed his face. I tried to smile, but my mouth wouldn't cooperate.

He walked over to the bed, one eyebrow slightly raised.

"You're awake."

I managed a nod. In the three months since we’d signed the papers, our interactions had been polite, professional, like two colleagues sharing office space. We’d barely spoken since our wedding night. The silence in the room now was absolute.

Finally, he broke it. "You're not going to ask for an explanation?"

"I don't need one," I said, my voice flat. "I know who she is."

A small, almost bitter smile touched his lips. "You're just as smart as you were in high school."

2.

After he left, my best friend, Jessica, came to visit.

"The Sterling mansion is in total chaos," she said, fluffing my pillows. "But I have to say, the way Liam carried you out of there… he looked terrified. Is this a secret romance? An enemies-to-lovers situation? I'm so happy for you, Claire. When you first got married, I was so worried. But now? I think it's only a matter of time before you conquer that untouchable man."

Sunlight streamed through the window.

I thought about an hour before the party, when I’d been opening gifts in our bedroom. Liam's was the last one I opened. It was a necklace from Tiffany's. A delicate, beautiful thing. I put it on immediately.

And just before the chandelier fell, I had seen it: a bracelet from the same iconic blue box, on Ava's wrist.

My surprise gift was just something he’d picked up while buying a real gift for someone else.

"I've already agreed to it," I said suddenly, my voice quiet. "We're getting divorced in two years."

Jessica shot up from her chair, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and anger. "What? Why? Are you insane? Is he cheating on you? Is that it?"

I managed a weak smile.

It wasn't like that. Liam wasn't that type of man. In fact, he was fiercely protective of Ava's reputation. He loved her quietly, terrified that the vultures in our world would find her, pick her apart, or tarnish her name. Besides me, only his closest circle of friends knew he had fallen for a woman so far outside our social stratosphere.

"No," I said. "And as for why… I can't tell you yet. But it's decided. I gave him my word, and I'm going to keep it."

A lifetime with a man who didn't love me, versus the tangible benefits he and his family could offer mine. Anyone could do that math.

Jessica stared at me for a long moment, then sighed, her shoulders slumping. She didn't press.

"But Claire," she said softly, "you've been in love with him for so long."

I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.

What did it matter?

I met Liam Sterling when I was sixteen. We were lab partners in AP Chemistry for a semester. When I came down with a fever, he carried me to the nurse's office and sat with me all morning, missing the final basketball game of the season. When kids whispered that my mother was a homewrecker and I was the illegitimate daughter, he was the one who shut them down, telling me to hold my head high. We co-hosted the winter formal; he would say a line, and I would finish his thought.

And then, at twenty-three, when our families were brokering our engagement, we sat across from each other at a polished mahogany table. He looked at me with a polite, distant gaze and said, "I'm sorry, have we met before?"

He had forgotten me.

In that moment, I couldn't breathe.

I hadn't changed that much. I was still quiet, still preferred dresses, still didn't smile much. The only real difference was the subtle makeup I wore now, instead of the bare face of my teenage years.

But he didn't remember. All those moments that I had clung to like a life raft had just been casual acts of kindness for him. He wasn't kind to me; he was just a kind person.

So I smiled, pretending it was nothing. "You don't remember? Mr. Harrison's history class, junior year. I'm Claire Calloway."

Liam's brow, which had been furrowed in concentration, relaxed. He let out a soft sigh of recognition.

"Oh. Right. It's you."

3.

Liam came to the hospital to pick me up himself on the day I was discharged. The room was cluttered with gifts from friends and relatives—fruit baskets, bouquets, my own toiletries and clothes. He packed everything meticulously before taking care of the paperwork.

Downstairs, he carried all the bags. The elevator was crowded, and he stood beside me, positioning himself slightly in front, creating a protective barrier around me. Even then, juggling everything, he looked effortlessly composed.

When we stepped out into the lobby, I turned to him. "Thank you," I said, and I meant it.

Liam glanced at me. "Don't mention it. After all…"

He trailed off, his sentence unfinished. His gaze shifted, looking past me toward the hospital entrance. I followed his line of sight.

It was Ava.

She was dressed simply, holding a paper pharmacy bag and supporting a middle-aged woman who was walking with a pronounced limp. As I watched, I realized the woman’s left leg was unsteady, making each step a struggle.

I pulled my attention back to Liam, but he was already gone.

He was walking away quickly.

I hurried to catch up. I don't know if I was desperate to talk to him or just morbidly curious, but the words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. "Shouldn't you go say hello? I can get a cab home."

Liam stopped so abruptly I walked right into his back.

He looked down at me, his expression unreadable.

"That won't be necessary. Let's go."

I nodded dumbly. As we started walking again, his voice came, soft but laced with steel.

"Claire."

"I told you about her because I didn't want any unnecessary drama. But if you think that gives you the right to interfere in our lives… you're mistaken."

The hospital lobby was bustling with people. I dropped my gaze to the floor. "Oh."

"I'm sorry," I mumbled. "I overstepped."

He treasured her. Of course he wouldn't want anyone from his world to see her like this, to look down on her or judge her circumstances.

4.

After that day, I never brought up Ava's name again.

Neither did Liam.

But I knew he was watching over her. Living in the same house, you overhear things. I learned that Liam had secretly arranged a job for her—good salary, respectable position. To protect her pride, he had used a chain of connections so convoluted that even the person who hired her had no idea the request originated from Liam Sterling. He went to incredible lengths for her.

There were countless other things just like that.

As time went on, even I started to believe that if they didn't end up together, it would be a cosmic injustice, proof that the universe had no regard for true love.

My relationship with Liam remained cool and distant. He’d felt a sliver of guilt over my injury, but my thoughtless comment at the hospital had erased it completely.

It was two months before things between us started to thaw. And, of course, it was because of Ava.

Her mother, the woman I’d seen at the hospital, had been in a car accident years ago. She had a check-up every few months. One rainy afternoon, she slipped while bringing in laundry, hitting her head. A neighbor found her and rushed her to the emergency room.

As luck would have it, Liam was in a different city for an all-day board meeting. Ava couldn't reach him. Desperate, she came to the Sterling estate.

That same afternoon, Liam's grandmother had summoned me. She'd just returned from an auction with several new pieces of jewelry and wanted me to pick something out. I was halfway through examining a sapphire bracelet when I heard a knock at the front door. For some reason, my eyelid twitched. I stopped the maid who was going to answer it and went myself.

When I opened the door, I saw Ava's pale, desperate face.

She froze when she saw me, her lips pressing into a thin line. "I'm looking for Liam."

Before I could speak, Liam's grandfather appeared in the grand foyer behind me, his voice booming. "Claire, who is it? It sounded like someone asking for Liam."

I panicked, my eyes meeting Ava's. Then I turned back to the old man, forcing a smile. I looped my arm through Ava's, pulling her into the light and into the view of the Sterling family. "Grandfather, this is a friend of mine. She's here to see me."

Grandfather Sterling gave us a long, meaningful look. After a moment that stretched into an eternity, he nodded. "Well, don't let us keep you. I'll have the driver take you wherever you need to go."

"Thank you," I said, and quickly pulled Ava out of the house.

5.

I didn't take the driver.

Instead, I went to the garage and got the keys to one of Liam's cars.

At first, Ava refused to get in.

"Do you know where he is?" she asked. The moment Liam and I were married, she had blocked his number. My birthday party was the last time they'd spoken, and even that was on his assistant's phone. In her own way, she was a proud and resilient woman.

I rolled down the window, my expression hardening. "He's not coming back today."

"You came to him because it's an emergency. Whatever he can do, I can do. Get in the car, and I'll help you. If not, you're on your own."

Ava stared at me, her gaze intense. Then, she opened the passenger door and got in.

She gave me the address for the hospital. I didn't hesitate, pulling out onto the main road.

When we arrived, I handled the admissions paperwork, paid the initial fees, and called a friend of mine who was a surgeon to get her mother the best doctor in the hospital.

When it was all done, I went to wait outside the surgical wing. And that's when I saw him.

Across the long, sterile hallway, there was Liam. He looked like he'd flown straight here, still in his suit, his hair slightly disheveled. He was crouched down, comforting the woman he loved. He reached out and gently wiped a tear from her cheek, then took off his suit jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

"I've got it from here," he told her softly. "Everything will be okay."

Ava nodded, her eyes red-rimmed. "Okay."

I knew I wasn't needed anymore.

I left the hospital, opened my phone, and sent Liam a brief text summarizing what I'd done. Then I went home, took a shower, and waited.

At one in the morning, his reply came.

Two words.

Okay.
Thank you.

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