Chapter 2

"Besides, Zach's a widower who married into the Birch family. He needs a child too. Without an heir, the family could strip him of his place."

Jenna reached for my hand.

"Neither of us chose this, Enzo. We're both doing what we have to. You have the biggest heart of anyone I know. I know you hate it, but just bear with it a little longer."

As if that settled everything, Jenna rose and brushed a kiss against the corner of my lips before heading into the bathroom.

Left standing there alone, I found myself thinking back to the first time we'd met.

Rain had been pouring that night. Jenna had been beaten black and blue before the Birch family's bodyguards dragged her out of the estate.

Standing beneath an umbrella, Zach looked down at her broken body with undisguised contempt.

"A stray mutt actually thinks it belongs in the Birch family?"

He planted his foot on her hand, grinding it into the pavement until blood stained the rain-soaked ground.

The scene was so gruesome I almost climbed back into my car and drove away.

Zach glanced at me and sneered. "Well, if it isn't one of the Birch family's lackeys. A bastard daughter deserves a penniless nobody like you."

Then, he had Jenna taken to a hotel.

As for me, I'd been drugged and dumped onto the same bed.

I never touched Jenna that night. Instead, I spent the entire night sitting in an ice-cold bath, forcing myself to ride out the effects of the drug.

By the time I was lucid enough to think straight, I still had to take care of Jenna, who hadn't regained consciousness.

Zach hadn't expected me to fight off the drug. When he found out, he flew into a rage and forced me to my knees.

I begged him to let me go. I was just an ordinary employee. The last thing I wanted was to get caught up in the power struggle of a wealthy family.

But he only ground my face into the floor with his shoe, laughing as he humiliated me. "You deserve this. An orphan like you was born to be beneath everyone else."

Then, he locked Jenna and me in the Birch family's basement.

To him, we were nothing more than prisoners to torment.

The temperature had dropped well below freezing, yet he gave us nothing but a single thin blanket.

I was shivering so violently I could barely feel my fingers. In the end, I inched closer and wrapped my arms around Jenna, hoping to steal even a little warmth from her.

I asked her, "Do you hate him?"

Jenna kept her eyes on the snow falling beyond the window. "One day, I'll make them pay for all of this."

The humiliation didn't end until Zach married into the Birch family.

The day of the wedding, the entire Birch estate was draped in decorations. It seemed like the entire city was celebrating the union between two powerful families.

Meanwhile, Jenna and I were thrown out of the estate with nothing.

But Jenna didn't leave. She stood outside the gates, her eyes fixed on Zach and the expression on her face impossible to read.

Back then, I thought she was staring at the man who had humiliated her.

I thought she hated him. It wasn't until she was finally acknowledged by the Birch family that I realized how wrong I'd been.

She had never hated Zach for what he'd done to her. She'd wanted him all along.

What she truly hated was being the illegitimate daughter. Because that was the only reason she could never marry Zach herself.

I let out a quiet, bitter laugh, pulling myself back to the present.

Now that I'd finally seen Jenna for who she really was, it was time to leave her for good.

The sound of running water abruptly stopped. A moment later, Jenna hurried out of the bathroom, her phone clutched in one hand. Worry was written all over her face.

"Don't panic. I'm on my way."

She didn't even bother rinsing the shampoo from her hair before grabbing her car keys and rushing for the door.

It wasn't until she was about to leave that she remembered I was still there.

"I'm sorry. Zach's dog suddenly went berserk and bit him. I have to go check on him. He lives alone, and there's no one else to take care of him."

She hesitated for a moment before adding, "And don't bring up divorce again. I'm only willing to hear it so many times."

"Okay," I said quietly.

Just as she reached the door, I couldn't stop myself from asking one last question. "It's Annie's first day back at kindergarten tomorrow. The teacher asked both parents to be there."