A year bound by contract, a lifetime bound by her heart. When his grandmother's dying wish orchestrated their marriage, she surrendered everything while he guarded his distance. She loved him in silence through twelve months of polite distance, but he couldn't see what was standing right in front of him. On their first anniversary, he handed her divorce papers like a gift. Cold. Final. No regrets. She simply walked away without protest, without tears, without the drama he'd braced himself for. Twelve months later, fate rewrites their script. She hasn't transformed into some ethereal version of herself—no dramatic glow-up, no reinvention. She's still the same clumsy, stubborn woman he married. Stupid in matters of the heart, perhaps, but unbroken. He tells himself he doesn't care when they collide again. He expects indifference to feel like freedom. But watching her laugh with other men hits differently. Seeing her eyes blank when she looks at him—no adoration, no longing, just the polite courtesy she'd offer a stranger—something fractures inside his chest. She's moved on. She's finally let go. It shouldn't hurt. It shouldn't sting at all. So why does it?