Chapter 2

What I hadn't expected was that Ethan would buy a last-minute red-eye flight back.

Jessica came with him.

At two in the morning, Ethan threw open the front door, seething.

Jessica's eyes were swollen and red. The moment she saw me, she started in with her grievances.

"Happy now, Olivia? Ethan and I finally get a chance to unwind, and you have to pull this fake wedding stunt and force us to fly back in the middle of the night."

"You completely ruined my Miami trip!"

I glanced at Ethan, then at her. My voice was calm.

"Nobody asked you to come back."

Ethan's voice was sharp with anger.

"Olivia, I came back to talk to you like a reasonable person. Delete that post. I'm not ready to marry you yet. Just wait a little longer."

My answer was simple. "No."

Ethan took a deep breath. "Olivia, how long are you going to keep this up?"

"Everyone is watching. Do you realize you're forcing me into this?"

Jessica scoffed.

"Ethan, she's obviously doing this to pressure you into marrying her so she can keep you away from me."

Then she turned to me.

"Ethan and I are just siblings. It's not what you think. You're the one with the dirty mind, seeing something wrong everywhere. Delete that post now."

I didn't acknowledge her. I looked at Ethan and said the same two words:

"Not deleting."

Ethan laughed bitterly. "Fine. Then I won't show up to the wedding either. You'll be standing there with no groom. The one who'll look like a fool is you, not me."

I smiled.

"Whether you show up or not doesn't matter. You've been absent from my life for a long time already, haven't you? You've poured all your time and energy into Jessica. And I, your fiancée, had to wait thirty-three times just to take wedding photos with you."

"Ethan, who exactly is your fiancée?"

Ethan frowned, as if I were being completely unreasonable.

"Olivia, do you really have to put it so harshly?"

"Jessica isn't an outsider."

"She's my stepsister."

"She's important to me. We've known each other for years. She depends on me, and I take care of her. What's wrong with that?"

I smiled.

Over the past eight years, Jessica would call him in the middle of the night, saying she couldn't sleep.

Ethan would leave me without hesitation and drive over to keep her company.

In the beginning, he'd still feel guilty. He'd hold me and say she just lacked a sense of security.

But as time went on, they grew more and more brazen.

Whenever Jessica needed anything, Ethan would cancel every plan he had with me to be with her.

And if I so much as expressed displeasure, I became the unreasonable one—immature, graceless, not generous enough.

I looked up at Ethan.

"So in your eyes, she can take up your time whenever she wants, interrupt every date we have—"

"And I, as your fiancée, don't even have the right to mind. Is that it?"

Ethan softened his tone.

"Olivia, I know you want to marry me as soon as possible."

"But I really don't like this side of you. You used to be so easygoing, so reasonable. Why do you have to push me like this now?"

I looked down at Jessica's arm hooked through his.

Her body was practically pressed against him, and Ethan made no effort whatsoever to put distance between them.

I couldn't help but let out a dry laugh.

"Ethan, you have absolutely no sense of boundaries."

"Is Jessica your stepsister or your lover?"

Jessica's tears appeared on cue.

"Olivia, you're insane! There is nothing between Ethan and me! Why do you keep making these disgusting assumptions about us!"

Ethan wrapped his arm around Jessica's shoulders and wiped her tears for her.

"Olivia, apologize to Jessica. Right now."

I found it absurd. "Apologize for what?"

Ethan erupted. "You made Jessica cry! Of course you need to apologize!"

Just then, Vincent strolled in, fashionably late.

Ethan did a double take. "What are you doing at my place in the middle of the night?"

Vincent glanced at me.

"I'm here to help Olivia move out."

Ethan blinked, then visibly relaxed. A smug, knowing expression spread across his face.

"Thanks, Vincent, but it's really not that serious. Olivia and I are just having a little couple's spat."

His tone was dripping with self-satisfied understanding.

"Actually, do me a favor and talk some sense into her."

"Tell her to grow up and stop doing things that only embarrass herself."

Then he looked down at Jessica in his arms, his voice going soft immediately.

"I need to take Jessica to a hotel first."

"She took a red-eye to get back here. She's exhausted."

Vincent lowered his head and smiled—a smile loaded with meaning.

"Sure. Leave everything here to me."