Chapter 2

Every time Silas fainted when we were kids, my parents scolded me. They said it was my fault for stealing the nutrients that should've gone to him in the womb, and that was why he was born so sickly.

They said it so many times that eventually I believed it too.

I really thought it was all my fault. So I grew up drowning in guilt and bent over backward to be good to Silas. Anything he wanted, I saved up to buy for him. Every time he got into trouble, I quietly took the fall.

In middle school, Silas stole money from the school bully. After class, the bully showed up with a whole gang to corner us. The second Silas realized things were going south, he pointed at me and shouted, "My brother took the money! It had nothing to do with me!"

Then a dozen guys jumped me. The bully had them pin me down and brought a metal pipe down on my arm, snapping the bone.

Even then, I gritted my teeth and never told anyone the truth.

In tenth grade, Silas hid in the girls' restroom and secretly filmed our female classmates on his phone. When it all came out, he was afraid of being punished, so he pinned it on me too.

I got a formal disciplinary mark on my record and was publicly reprimanded in front of the whole school. The humiliation was the least of it.

For the rest of high school, every girl except Corinne treated me like a pervert and spat at me whenever they saw me.

The guys despised me too. They called me the scum of the earth, and every few days they'd corner me in the bathroom and rough me up...

But I still didn't say a word. I clenched my jaw and took the blame for Silas.

Because Silas had said, "Emmett, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I've been sick my whole life, and no girl has ever liked me. I was just too curious. That's why I went into the girls' restroom and filmed them. I didn't mean any harm.

"Why does it have to be me who's sick? If I weren't sick, I could date and fall in love like a normal person..."

Every word out of his mouth was like a sharp knife driven deep into my heart.

The more he talked like that, the guiltier I felt. I thought it was because of me that he was in so much pain.

So my whole life, no matter how unforgivable his mistakes were, I was willing to take the blame.

But it turned out he'd never been sick at all!

Inside the bedroom, Silas pressed Corinne down beneath him and laughed suggestively. "Come on, Mrs. Carlisle. Wedding nights don't last forever. Let's not waste a second."

Corinne didn't push him away. The sounds of the two of them spilled out through the crack in the door, and by then, tears were streaming down my face.

I didn't sleep at all that night. Early the next morning, Mom came to wake me.

"Silas wore himself out last night. His health is delicate—he can't take that kind of strain. Hurry up and go make him some bone broth so he can get his strength back."

How ridiculous. Silas had slept with my wife, and I was supposed to get up early and make him broth so he could recover?

In that moment, I really wanted to ask her: Did she even think of me as her son?

If she did, how could she be this biased? I'd always been the most devoted son. Why had she and Dad never once seen me?

I gave her a long look but said nothing. I just turned and went to the kitchen.

Once I was there, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number. "Hello, is this Silver Pines Senior Living? I'd like to sell the private residence I bought for my parents last month."

Corinne was the only child of a family with old money and serious power. Money was the one thing they'd never run short of. So before the wedding, I'd spent every penny of my savings on my parents.

I'd bought them a private residence at the most expensive senior-living community in Crestholm, then set aside the rest to catch up on their retirement contributions and buy them top-tier health insurance, so they could spend their golden years happy and healthy.

But now I was done being the sucker. If they loved Silas that much, Silas could take care of them in their old age!

"Sell it within a week, and I'll give you an extra ten percent on your commission," I said flatly, then hung up.

The moment I ended the call, Corinne appeared in the kitchen doorway, as sexy and alluring as ever. "Emmett, what's this tantrum about now? We just got married, and you already want to sell our home?"