I faked being paralyzed after my accident, and today I sat silently in my wheelchair while my fiancée called me a useless cripple in front of every single person I thought loved me.

The news broke within an hour.

Vanessa’s arrest.

The fake paralysis.

The embezzlement.

The murder conspiracy.

By 5 p.m., every news station in the country was running the story.

My phone blew up with calls from the board, from reporters, from people I hadn’t spoken to in years, all suddenly desperate to get in touch.

I turned it off.

I didn’t want to talk to any of them.

I just wanted to be with Clara.

We sat in my study, the doors locked, while Marcus and the police hunted for Liam.

Clara’s mom had been moved to the private hospital wing I’d arranged, the specialist already on his way to see her.

Clara had talked to her on the phone, crying happy tears when her mom said the doctor thought the surgery would be a complete success.

Now she sat on the couch beside me, her head on my shoulder, our hands laced together.

“What happens now?” she asked quietly.

I squeezed her hand.

“Now I fix what they broke,” I said. “I go to the board meeting on Monday. I show them all the evidence. I fire everyone who was involved. I restructure the company. And I make sure Liam is behind bars right next to Vanessa.”

She nodded.

“And then?” she said.

I looked down at her.

Her dark hair was falling in her face, her eyes soft and warm.

I wanted to kiss her more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life.

But I didn’t want to rush her.

She’d been through so much.

We both had.

“And then,” I said, “I figure out what I actually want my life to be. The big house, the fancy parties, the fake friends… none of it ever mattered. Not really. I was just too stupid to see it until now.”

“What do you want?” she asked.

I looked right into her eyes.

“I want quiet,” I said. “I want people around me who actually care about me, not what I can give them. I want to wake up every morning and be excited about the day. And I want…”

I stopped.

I almost said I wanted her.

But I held back.

She smiled a little, like she knew what I was going to say anyway.

“That sounds nice,” she said.

Before I could answer, Marcus knocked on the door.

“Sir,” he said, stepping in. “We found Liam. He was trying to get on a private plane at the airport. Police have him in custody. He’s already asking for a deal, willing to testify against Vanessa in exchange for a lighter sentence.”

I let out a breath.

Liam was done.

Vanessa was done.

All of them were done.

“Good,” I said. “Thank you, Marcus.”

He nodded, closing the door behind him.

Clara sat up, turning to face me.

“See?” she said. “Justice.”

I smiled.

“Justice,” I repeated.

That night, I walked her to her small room at the end of the staff wing.

We stopped at the door.

Neither of us wanted to say goodnight.

“Thank you,” she said, looking up at me. “For everything. For my mom. For protecting me. For… being you.”

“I should be thanking you,” I said. “If you hadn’t knelt down beside me that night in the ballroom, if you hadn’t been kind when no one else was… I don’t know what I would have done. You saved me, Clara. Not the other way around.”

She reached up, touching my face gently with her hand.

“We saved each other,” she said.

And then she leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed me.

It was soft.

Sweet.

Perfect.

For a second, the whole world fell away.

There was no company, no lawsuits, no arrests, no drama.

There was just her.

Just us.

When she pulled back, her face was pink, her eyes shining.

“Goodnight,” she said, opening her door.

“Goodnight,” I said.

I stood there in the hallway for a long time after she closed the door, my lips still tingling, my heart feeling like it was going to burst out of my chest.

I’d spent my whole life chasing money and power, thinking that was what success was.

I’d been so wrong.

Success was this.

This feeling.

This girl.