Chapter 2

I don't know how I made it back to the bedroom.

The nausea quickly turned into stabbing cramps, so bad I didn't even have the strength to go out and buy medicine.

I don't know how long I lay there before my phone buzzed.

It was Adrian.

His voice was low and warm.

"Ethan returned the bracelet. You didn't want to keep it?"

I managed a thin, breathless reply, and he immediately picked up on something being wrong.

"What's going on?"

"Ate something bad."

The other end of the line went quiet for a few minutes.

When Adrian spoke again, he said:

"There'll be medicine downstairs in twenty minutes. Once you're feeling better, we'll talk."

My chest ached with a tangled mess of emotions, and tears slid into my pillow.

Twenty minutes later, I went downstairs to get the medicine.

Ethan was sitting in the living room.

He raised his hand. Between his fingers was a sticky note.

In a man's handwriting: Take care of yourself.

Ethan's gaze was darker than I'd ever seen it.

"What is this?"

"Emma Hayes, which man are you screwing around with? Medicine delivered right under my nose."

He threw the box of medicine into the trash.

"You can't go a single minute without a man? You can't buy your own medicine?"

"It's just a box of medicine," I said, exhausted.

He could be endlessly attentive with Sophie—coaxing her with candy just to get her to take a pill.

But someone buying me a box of medicine was a crime.

In Ethan's eyes, my explanation seemed like nothing more than brushing him off.

He grabbed the ashtray in a fury and hurled it at me.

"I'm planning a wedding for you. I was going to marry you next month. You don't deserve it!"

The ashtray struck my forehead, splitting the skin open.

I didn't dodge.

Partly because I had no strength left.

And partly because it suddenly occurred to me—in five years, Ethan had planned four weddings.

The first time, there was a problem with the venue. Everyone consoled me, said it was just bad luck.

The second time, old Mr. Carter passed away. The guests exchanged uneasy glances, and some of the Carters were already calling me a jinx.

The third and fourth times were called off for various other "accidents."

Eventually, everyone could see the Carter family's true feelings.

I became the punchline—the girl who tried to marry into money and failed.

When I accompanied Ethan's friends home, some of them asked with cruel relish:

"Is it because you're bad in bed? Is that why he won't marry you?"

Some even cornered me in the bathroom, trying to put their hands on me.

So this wedding—how could it possibly happen either?

Ethan seemed surprised that I hadn't dodged. He paused for a moment.

His voice softened slightly.

"Why didn't you move? Come here, I'll clean up the wound."

Every time I came back battered, Ethan was the one who patched me up.

I used to think it was because he cared.

Later I realized he just didn't want word getting out.

I pulled away from his outstretched hand and fished the medicine out of the trash.

Ethan watched me, words on the tip of his tongue.

Then a woman's voice came through his phone.

"Ethan, stop arguing with her. We're all waiting for you."

My breath hitched. My hands shook as I tore open the medicine box.

"Your phone's been on a call this whole time?"

Ethan frowned slightly.

"Yes."

So that's why he'd appeared downstairs in the middle of the night. He'd been on his way out to see Sophie.

Her urging voice came through again.

Ethan glanced at me with a look of hesitation.

In the end, he left.

I leaned against the wall for a while, then opened the fridge. Not a single bottle of water—just Sophie's favorite desserts and drinks.

I turned on the tap and forced the pills down with harsh, metallic water straight from the faucet.

It felt like something was crawling down my throat. The nausea was unbearable.

I didn't know how many people had overheard everything that just happened.

But I never expected the first person to call and interrogate me would be my brother, Ryan.

"You cheated? Do you have any idea how many people are laughing at me right now?"

"Don't you forget—who rescued your brother from that pyramid scheme? Who's paying for Mom's treatment? You go apologize to Ethan right now! Get on your knees if you have to!"

"Ryan, I didn't cheat. He's the one who wronged me."

"Be grateful, Emma! Ethan's been more than good to our family. So what if there's a Sophie—"

His voice cut off abruptly.

I was trembling, barely able to believe what I was hearing.

"You've known about them all along, haven't you?"

I desperately wanted him to say no.

If he just said no, it would prove that at least one person in this world hadn't been lying to me.

But my own brother—the one I'd grown up depending on—said without a shred of concern:

"Now that you know, why aren't you trying harder to keep Ethan happy?"

"Everyone out there is dragging your name through the mud. Besides Ethan, who else would marry you? Making a scene about cheating right now is just stupid."

I never imagined a day would come when my own brother would blame me like this, as if everything were my fault.

"Listen to me, Emma. Ethan just got me a job, and Mom's medical bills went up again this month. Just bear with it."

I didn't know what else to say.

After a long silence, I canceled the train ticket I'd bought the night before.

In the beginning, it was Ethan who brought me out of the mountains.

He funded my education, looked after my family, gave me a kind of love I'd never known.

But later, all of those kindnesses came with a price.

After he rescued my brother from the pyramid scheme, he lent me out for the first time.

The day he covered my mother's astronomical medical bills, he brought Sophie home.

So in Ethan's eyes, we were never equals.

My phone buzzed twice more.

I picked up. Ethan's voice came through, cold and flat.

"You heard what your brother said? Stop making trouble."

I let out a bitter laugh.

"You gave my brother a job. What do I have to trade for it this time?"

Ethan was quiet for a moment, then his voice turned even colder.

"Over the next seven days, you'll be accompanying a few more people home. This afternoon, start with Mason Reed—go meet his family. Don't embarrass me."

The blood drained from my face.

This was the first time I'd ever spent a Christmas like this.