Chapter 2

The church had its own parking lot, but every time I came, I deliberately parked at the bottom of the mountain.

All eight thousand stone steps of it.

By the time I reached the bottom, my tears were usually dry.

I was just about to open my car door when my phone rang. Unknown number.

The moment I answered, a familiar voice came through.

“Ethan Sullivan, if you refuse to see me, the least you can do is let me see my son.”

I hung up immediately.

Then I blocked that number too.

For five full years, there had been no place in my life for the name Wendy Calloway.

And I’d been doing just fine.

I drove back to the office. The second I stepped inside, my assistant looked at me uneasily.

“Mr. Sullivan, the client we’ve been negotiating with for a long time suddenly says they want to terminate the deal.”

I looked up. “Why? There’s nothing wrong with our pricing or our product.”

My assistant looked baffled too. “I asked. They only hinted at it, but... they said we may have offended the owner of Calloway Group.”

So Wendy’s way of crushing people hadn’t changed at all over the years.

My assistant frowned. “Mr. Sullivan, our company doesn’t even compete with Calloway Group. Why would she target us?”

I set down my pen and answered evenly, “Because she’s my ex-wife.”

His eyes went wide so fast it was almost comical.

“She’s the one? The ex-wife everyone talks about... the one who cheated on you with some sales guy?”

The words were out before he could stop himself. He clamped a hand over his mouth, face full of panic.

“Mr. Sullivan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

I waved him off, my tone flat. “It’s fine. That was a long time ago. There’s nothing here that can’t be said.”

He still looked mortified, lowering his head as he muttered, “I always thought those rumors had to be fake. I mean... you’re you. Why would she ever betray you?”

Back then, almost everyone thought that.

Even I had thought that.

But reality proved otherwise.

No promise lasts forever.

I called the class president back.

If I counted the timing right, once I left this time, it might be hard to ever see them again.

So before I went, I wanted one last get-together with the guys I’d shared a dorm with in college.

That night, all six of us got together.

We hauled in four cases of beer and declared we weren’t leaving until we were completely wasted.

A few rounds in, everyone got louder.

The class president swirled his beer, hesitated for a long moment, then finally spoke.

“Ethan... there’s something I never told you.

“When Wendy couldn’t reach you, she called me a lot. She wanted me to help arrange a meeting. She said...”

Before he could finish, Jack slammed his glass onto the table with a sharp crack and started cursing.

“Hell no! Wendy Calloway is a heartless, ungrateful snake.

“If the Sullivan family hadn’t raised her, she’d have been a homeless orphan. Who the hell does she think she is?”

The class president shot him a warning look, trying to shut him up before he upset me.

But that only made him angrier.

“No, I’m saying it. If Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan hadn’t helped clear her parents’ name back then, would the Calloway family even have what they have now?

“And what did she do? She turned around and stabbed Ethan in the back. People like that deserve to get hit by a truck.”

His eyes were red when he looked at me. “Ethan, you were always too kind.

“After what she put you through, how are you still this calm?”

I smiled a little. “It’s not kindness. I’ve just really let it go.”

Wendy was absolutely a terrible woman.

But I had to admit, she was gifted in business.

By the time my parents had fully cleared the Calloway family’s name, Wendy was already twenty-five.

By then, her family had long since fallen apart. The old Calloway name was nothing but ruins.

The Calloway Group that existed now had been built entirely by her own hands.

And once, I had been her strongest ally.

Even now, when I thought back on those startup years, my blood still ran hot.

For one major contract she wanted, I drank with a client until I ended up with stomach bleeding.

For a key project she was determined to win, I stayed up four nights in a row putting together the bid proposal.

Back then, for the sake of her dream, I would’ve slept at the office every night if I had to.

I was so busy, I never even realized when she started seeing that man.