After He Burned Our Roses, I Became the Wind He Could Never Hold

She was his beloved white rose, the garden he set ablaze with his own hands. For ten years, Elina lived as the shadow behind Sebastian Winters, the quiet foundation beneath every soaring success. And on the night the world crowned him, as he dedicated the Pritzker Prize to the skyscraper bearing his wife's name, he wore his mistress's serpent brooch pinned to his tie. The fairytale romance the cameras broadcast to the city collapsed, in Elina's eyes, into a single adulterous photograph and one line of words cold enough to freeze the blood. A decade of devotion, and she was nothing but his stepping stone, mocked as 'plain water,' betrayed in full view of everyone who once envied her. Elina didn't scream. She didn't beg. She signed the divorce papers without a tremor, activated the 'Ghost Protocol,' auctioned away every last jewel, and tore the white roses from her garden petal by petal. Then she erased herself from the world entirely, shedding the name Mrs. Winters to become Elina Bennett once more. When Sebastian finally understood the magnitude of what he had thrown away and offered a million-dollar reward in his frantic search, the only answer he received was her voice, calm and untouchable down the line: 'I forgive you, because I no longer care.' From that moment on, she was the free wind, sweeping beyond his reach, and he was left an eternal prisoner of the silence she left behind, chasing a woman who would never, ever look back.