Chapter 2

Claire frowned. "Nathan, what do you think you're doing?"

I took out some cash and gently set it next to the baby. "We've been classmates for years. You just had a baby. Shouldn't I give you something nice?"

The next moment, a non-disclosure agreement appeared in my inbox. The agreement stated that if Damian ever learned about Claire and me, the medical team treating my mom would pull out.

But what made my blood run cold was seeing my mom's name already on the document.

My mom's liver cancer had relapsed, and the cancer cells were spreading rapidly. The doctors were at a loss. Claire was the one who introduced me to a senior she'd known in graduate school, whose team specialized in treating difficult cases. Thanks to him, my mom's condition finally stabilized.

I never thought Claire would use my mom to threaten me.

Damian looked at Claire, puzzled. "What's with the attitude, Claire? Your classmate's just trying to be nice."

He took out a small box and opened it to reveal a diamond-encrusted Vacheron Constantin watch inside. "You're Claire's old classmate. It'd be rude of us to accept your gift without giving you something in return. Here, take this."

Ryan spoke up from the side. "Just take it, Nathan. Damian has plenty of these at home."

Damian laughed. "Exactly. Go ahead and take it. My wife buys me watches like this all the time. Sometimes she even gets the whole set. She really goes overboard."

A wave of bitterness washed over me.

Claire had always acted like she was broke when we were together. Once, she wanted to buy me a pair of shoes I'd liked on my birthday. But she'd complained that her boss had docked her commission that day, so I insisted we buy a secondhand pair online instead.

I looked around at our group of friends. One by one, they avoided my gaze and made excuses to leave the room.

It turned out it wasn't just Claire's marriage they'd kept from me. They'd all gone along with her pretending to be broke, too.

I could almost imagine how they must have mocked me behind my back while pretending to sympathize with me to my face.

I took the watch and walked out of the hospital in a daze.

When I got back to the hotel, I finally broke down.

When Claire and I were together, our friends joked about how broke we were. I worked part-time while studying to help pay my mom's medical bills, while Claire was just as badly off, stretching every dollar as far as she could.

We used to believe that if we worked hard together, life would eventually get better. Back then, we were so broke that we could barely afford a two-dollar bowl of street noodles, yet we'd sit there talking until the place closed.

After graduation, she insisted on returning to her hometown to start a business, while I accepted a job offer in Westhaven. We promised each other we'd work hard to build a better life. At the airport, she held me tightly and promised we'd get married once I bought a house.

I waited six years for that promise.

For those six years, I ran myself ragged. I worked during the day, took freelance jobs at night, and taught classes at a training center on weekends. When I was pushing myself the hardest, I slept only four hours a day for three straight months and nearly landed myself in the ER.

Yet I was happy then. It never crossed my mind that none of it was real.