The billionaire's undying love for me.

I used to believe that love made a sound. A soft, steady hum, like a refrigerator in a quiet kitchen. You only notice it when it stops.

Mine stopped on a Tuesday afternoon, at 3:47 p.m., outside Café Lumière.

I was holding a small paper bag with a chocolate-hazelnut cupcake inside, the kind Daniel loved. It was our three-year anniversary, and I had left work early just to surprise him. My feet ached in my cheap heels, my hair had survived the wind, and I was smiling like an idiot.

Then I saw him through the glass.

Daniel, my Daniel, sat in the corner booth with his hand wrapped around a girl's fingers. She wore a red dress and laughed with her head thrown back. Then he leaned across the table and kissed her. It wasn't a quick, guilty kiss. It was a slow one, the kind you give someone you have kissed a hundred times before.

The cupcake bag slipped from my hand. I didn't hear it hit the pavement.

I don't remember walking away. I only remember finding myself on a wooden bench in the little park across the street, my knees pulled up, my shoulders shaking, and tears running down my face as if they had been waiting years for permission.

"Three years," I whispered to no one. "Three whole years."

The park was almost empty. A pigeon pecked at crumbs near my shoe. An old man read a newspaper two benches away, politely pretending not to see a grown woman fall apart.

I pressed my palms against my eyes, and the memories came whether I wanted them or not.

Our first meeting was in the university library, on the third floor, over the last copy of a textbook I desperately needed. We reached for it at the same time, and he pulled his hand back, grinning.

"You take it," he said. "But you owe me a coffee."

I did owe him a coffee. Then another, and another, until one rainy evening he walked me home under his jacket and kissed my forehead at my front door. I floated up the stairs as if I had swallowed sunshine.

Our first fight was about nothing, really. I had forgotten his birthday dinner because I was covering a shift at the bookstore. He sulked for two days, and then showed up at my door with a handmade card that said, "I'm sorry I'm dramatic. Please forgive me." I laughed so hard I cried.

Then there were our little promises. We said we would travel one day. We said we would adopt a dog and name him Biscuit. We said we would grow old arguing about whose turn it was to do the dishes.

I laughed bitterly into my sleeve. Apparently, I was the only one who had meant any of it.

I should introduce myself properly, since this was the day my whole life was being rewritten.

My name is Ella Monroe. I'm twenty-three. I'm not rich, not famous, and not the kind of girl people write songs about. I have a round face and soft cheeks that aunties love to pinch, big brown eyes that give away every emotion, and a small mole under my left eyebrow that I spent my teenage years hating. I work as an marketing assistant at Blackwood Group, the biggest company in the city, take the bus to work, and bring home groceries on sale.

But I am loved. That was the part I held onto as I sat there trembling.

My mother, Grace, raised us on her own after my father passed away six years ago, working double shifts at the clinic and still finding the energy to braid my hair and help with homework. My younger sister, Lily, is sixteen and dramatic enough for a soap opera. My little brother, Noah, is twelve and hides his tenderness behind a wall of video games and sarcasm. They are the reason I get up every morning.

And then there's Tessa.

Tessa Reyes has been my best friend since we were nine, when she punched a boy for pulling my braid and then shared her sandwich with me as an apology to the universe. She is loud, fearless, and has never once told me a comforting lie.

My phone buzzed against my knee. Speak of the devil.

Tessa: Where are you?? You said you'd call after your big surprise. Did he cry? Did he love the cupcake??

I stared at the screen. My thumbs hovered. Then a fresh wave of tears hit, and all I could type was:

Me: He was kissing someone else.

Three dots appeared immediately. Then disappeared. Then appeared again.

The phone rang before I could breathe.

"WHERE. IS. HE." Tessa's voice was a growl. "Tell me where he is, Ella, I swear I'll..."

"Tess, don't," I choked. "Please. I just need a minute."

"Where are you?"

"The park across from Café Lumière."

"Don't move. I'm coming. Twenty minutes." There was a pause, and then her voice softened in a way it only ever did for me. "Hey. It's not you. You hear me? It's not you."

I nodded uselessly, even though she couldn't see me. "Okay."

When the call ended, the silence rushed back in. I wiped my face with the sleeve of my cardigan and tried to think. What was I supposed to do now? Storm into the café? Throw a drink at him like in the movies? Or just walk away quietly and let him keep his little red-dress fantasy?

No. I wasn't going to make a scene. But I wasn't going to be a fool anymore, either.

I had noticed things over the past few months. I just hadn't let myself notice. The late-night "work meetings." The phone always face-down. The way he had stopped saying "I love you" first and only said it back when I did.

I had made excuses for him. I had called it stress. I had called it love.

The truth was uglier. I had been so afraid of losing him that I had stopped paying attention to losing myself.

I took out my phone and opened our photo album. The last picture was from his birthday: Daniel with his arm around me, both of us grinning at the camera. My eyes were shining. His smile didn't quite reach his.

It was there the whole time, I thought. I just didn't want to see it.

My finger hovered over the delete button, trembling.

Behind me, I heard the crunch of footsteps on gravel. They were slow and unhurried, the walk of someone who has never needed to rush anywhere in his life.

I stiffened and quickly wiped my cheeks. Probably just a jogger.

But the footsteps stopped right behind my bench.

A shadow fell across me, long and tall, blocking out the evening sun. I caught a faint scent of cedarwood and something expensive, something I definitely couldn't afford. A black car idled quietly at the curb beyond the trees, far too sleek and polished for this shabby little park.

A deep, cool voice spoke above my head.

"You're crying over a man who isn't even worth the tissue."

My blood ran cold. I knew that voice. I had heard it just yesterday, in the glass-walled conference room at work, when it had coldly torn my presentation to pieces in front of everyone.

I turned slowly.

Standing there in a tailored charcoal coat, his dark eyes unreadable, was Adrian Blackwood, the arrogant billionaire I had spent the entire week hating.

And in his hand, held out stiffly as if he had no idea how to be gentle, was a folded white handkerchief.

"Take it," he said. "And tell me his name."