Chapter 2

But long before that, it was my dad who'd built the Saunders family up from nothing.

What Vivian had just done tore the last shred of goodwill between our two families to pieces.

I forced down my anger and demanded, "Vivian, do you have any idea what the elders in both our families would think if they saw what you just did?"

She didn't so much as blink. "Why worry? It's not like your family would starve. Marry me. I'll take care of you."

My expression must have turned uglier by the second.

She seemed to have forgotten that if there was one thing I'd always hated, it was the old rumors painting me as nothing more than the school belle's tagalong.

Ignoring my mood entirely, Vivian reached out and brushed a hand along my eyebrows, gently smoothing out the furrow in my forehead.

"Don't be angry," she murmured. "It's not a good look on you."

Her tone was light and easy, so much like the way she used to be, back before Leon ever showed up. There hadn't been a single crack between us then.

She used to talk seriously about our future together. The childish, playful side she showed only to me had nothing in common with the cold, aloof girl everyone else saw.

But now someone else had seen that side of her too.

I turned my head away, and her hand froze in midair.

"Mike." Vivian didn't get angry. Instead she laughed, as if she'd just noticed something amusing. "Do you know something? When you're mad, you look... exactly like Leon."

The scrape of a chair being shoved back cut through the room.

Ignoring the eyes turning toward me, I said coldly, "Vivian, take care of yourself."

I didn't spare her another glance after that. I picked up my things and walked out.

Vivian stood frozen for a couple of seconds before her own anger caught up with her, and she spun around and stormed off in the opposite direction.

When I got home, I found an anonymous email waiting for me. I opened it, already half-expecting what I'd find: another message from the sender offering to help my dad find a new position.

A few months earlier, the same person had offered to help me leave the country. I'd turned them down, but everything since then had still gone unusually smoothly, like someone was quietly clearing the way.

Whoever ran that inbox seemed to know everything about my life, always stepping in the moment I hit a wall. I'd tried tracing where the help came from, but every lead went nowhere.

I turned the offer down again, same as always. A minute later, an invitation to a party came in from Walter Saunders.

Figuring I might as well put an end to things with the Saunders family for good, I decided to go.

What I hadn't expected was to find Leon there, dressed head to toe in clothes from Vivian's private label. With the kind of attention she lavished on him, he'd become the mysterious young man everyone at the party couldn't stop talking about.

I kept my distance, but he came after me anyway, raising his glass with a lazy smile.

"Still sulking over Vivian? I'd think twice about how important you actually are to her. After all, you two grew up together, so how is it that I was the one who took her virginity?"

He reached up and loosened his tie, tilting his neck toward me. Old and fresh marks covered his throat. It was hard to tell just how many times he and Vivian had slept together.

I closed my eyes and turned away.

He draped an arm over my shoulder without a shred of respect for personal space, leaned in close, and lowered his voice.

"Vivian's not bad in bed, you know. After playing the saint for all these years, don't tell me you can't even get it up.

"She felt exactly how good I am. She was begging me for it in every position by the end."

That was more than I could take. I clenched my fist and drove it straight into his face.

"Keep whatever filth you and Vivian get up to in bed to yourself."

The commotion drew every eye in the room, and Leon was left looking thoroughly humiliated.

I stepped back, said a curt goodbye to Walter, and walked out of the hall.