Chapter 2

I was shaking so hard that I couldn't get a single word out. Behind me, Aunt Diana's side of the family had completely lost it. Ashley was doubled over laughing.

"Serena, even little kids wouldn't bother with a ring like that anymore. Your fiancee sure is generous, huh? Ha!"

"What are you standing around for? Say yes already! Go live your simple little life with your old-fashioned man!"

"That's enough!"

Dad slammed a can of iced tea down on the table and turned to me, his hand trembling as he pointed in my direction.

"Serena, if you insist on marrying a man like Derek, I'll cut ties with you completely. You will no longer be my daughter."

Mom wiped her eyes and took Dad's arm, guiding him out of the room.

I rushed after them, but my phone buzzed in my pocket. I glanced down at the screen. It was a transaction alert. 200 thousand dollars had been charged to the joint account.

Before I could even process that, a woman pushed through the door of the private room next to ours and walked in. It was Renee Young, Derek's childhood friend, the girl who had grown up next door to him.

She had a thick gold ring on her finger and was wheeling a 12-tier cake into our private room like she owned the place.

I was still trying to figure out when Renee had gotten that kind of money when I caught pieces of the conversation around me.

"Wow, Derek really went all out for Renee. Apparently it's her birthday, and he pulled out all the stops. Full banquet, gold ring—the whole thing.

"Honestly, they say you can always tell how a man really feels by how he treats the people around him. If he's this generous with a childhood friend, imagine how good he must be to his actual girlfriend. Lucky her."

I stared at the transaction record of 200 thousand dollars on my phone. Then I looked through the open doorway at the feast next door, the kind of spread I had imagined for our own table tonight.

The same man had arranged both. One of them got a banquet. The other got a bag of dinner rolls.

I had shared a cramped apartment with Derek for ten years. I had drunk myself sick at dinners with his clients until I ended up in the hospital with stomach ulcers. I had swallowed my pride and gone begging to relatives I had always looked down on, all for his sake.

He used to tell me he would make it up to me someday. Instead, he had humiliated me in front of my entire family tonight, then turned around and spent the money I gave him for our engagement party on a birthday celebration for Renee.

"Serena, what was that about with your parents? I put all of this together for them, and they just walked out like that!"

Derek came after me, already complaining before he reached me.

Something about it struck me as almost funny. "All of this? You mean the dinner rolls? Or the canned iced tea?"

Derek noticed the shift in my tone and reached for my hand, softening his tone.

"Serena, come on. You know I'm not good at all this. I'm a straightforward guy. To me, getting married just means building a steady life together.

"If anything, I'm a little worried about you. When did you get so caught up in material things? I've told you before—you spend too much time reading those romanticized ideas online.

"You could stand to take a page from my mom's book and learn to be a little more practical, a little more grounded—"

"And what about her?"

I cut him off and pointed toward Renee, who was showing off her gold ring to anyone who would look. Then I held my phone up in front of his face, the transaction record pulled up on the screen.

"You used the money I gave you for our engagement party to throw her a full sit-down dinner and buy her a gold ring and a 12-tier cake. Derek, is this what you mean by being old-fashioned? Is this how you treat people differently?"

Renee's eyes turned red almost immediately. She stepped behind Derek and looked at the floor. "I thought you knew about this, Serena. I thought Derek told you he was planning something for my birthday. If you're going to make a big deal out of it, I'll just give everything back."

She made a move to pull the ring off her finger. Derek stopped her, pressing her hand down, then turned to me, his expression showing that he barely had any patience left.

"Serena, are you done? Renee and I grew up together. It's her birthday. Is it really such a crime to do something nice for her?

"You're my fiancee. What's yours is mine. I spent my own money on a gift for an old friend. That's none of your business."

I was shaking. "Your money? Derek, the startup capital, the connections, even the suit you're wearing right now—tell me one thing you have that didn't come from me."

Something in his face shifted. Then he raised his hand and slapped me across the face.

"If you want to throw a tantrum, take it somewhere else. I'm not your dog, Serena. I don't answer to you. You think I've been putting up with this because I'm weak? Fine. You want to break up? Let's break up."

The rest of whatever he said got swallowed up by the cold air. There was a ringing sound in my ears.

I stood there looking at the man I had loved for ten years and felt something go completely flat inside me.

"Fine," I said. "Then we're done."

…

Derek and I had met in college. I was the daughter of a wealthy family. He was a boy who had grown up with very little and carried the weight of it everywhere he went.

When he told me he wanted to start his own business, I emptied out all the money I had to support him, no questions asked.