Chapter 2

The instant Jace yelped, Maddie clamped down on my wrist and wrenched it aside.

My lower back slammed into the corner of a table, and the pain brought tears to my eyes.

"Ronnie, have you had enough?!"

The furious shout stopped me cold. I stared at her, stunned. She was shielding Jace, glancing at him with a look of tender concern so familiar it made my nose sting with a sudden ache.

Back in high school, Jace had once had me dragged into the equipment room and beaten within an inch of my life. My uniform had nearly been torn off my body, and he'd been about to press lit cigarettes against my skin when Maddie kicked the door open. She stripped off her own uniform jacket to cover me and pulled me out of there.

She'd turned to the boys with murder in her eyes and warned them in a cold, level voice, "Whoever touches Ronnie again is going to answer to me."

From then on, she'd looked out for me every step of the way. No matter how Jace tried to slander me, she stood in front of me and fought to clear my name, again and again.

So later, when Maddie's first business venture failed and she sank into despair, I ignored everyone who told me not to get involved. I sold off every share and asset in my name to help her rebuild.

At the celebration party after her company finally turned things around, Maddie cupped my face in her hands in front of everyone, her eyes soft with affection.

"Ronnie, I promise you the wedding of the century."

But happiness never lasts. Three months later, instead of a wedding, I got the news that Maddie had gone missing in the mountains.

I begged every god I could think of, over and over, that as long as Maddie was still alive, I'd trade my own life for hers without a second thought.

But the truth was that somewhere I'd known nothing about, the wedding we'd promised each other had already found a new groom.

I forced my trembling, aching body upright, and accidentally hit the projector switch behind me. Photos began lighting up the big screen one after another. The moment I saw them clearly, I froze in place.

On March twelfth, the day an avalanche had buried me and left me broken and bleeding, unconscious in a hospital bed for three days straight, Maddie had taken Jace to Rocke Isle to watch the sunrise.

On July nineteenth, the anniversary of when Maddie and I first got together, I'd been so depressed I nearly couldn't go on, standing on the edge of a rooftop more than once. That same night, Maddie had rented out an entire private island and lit up the sky with fireworks until dawn, just to make Jace smile.

While I spent every day and night on that mountain, searching every inch for a body, the two of them had been locked in each other's arms in front of a floor-to-ceiling window, lost in each other.

The last clip on the screen showed the whole Lowe family gathered happily in one room, celebrating Jace's birthday with him at the center of it all. The pampered golden boy pressed his palms together in front of the candlelight, then glanced shyly at Maddie beside him.

"It's our fifth anniversary together. I want a big, beautiful wedding."

Maddie pressed a reverent kiss to his forehead, looking at him the way a queen might look at a prince she adored.

"Of course. Whatever the prince wants, the prince gets."

Her eyes were full of tenderness, the exact same way she used to look at me the day I confessed my feelings for her.

Tears blurred my vision and fell without a sound.

"Stop watching." Maddie sighed and switched off the projector. "Ronnie, no one can help how feelings change. Just let it go."

I let out a broken, humorless laugh, then screamed at her, half out of my mind.

"How feelings change? Maddie, we had over ten years together. How could you just fall for someone else that easily?"

By the end, all that was left was a strangled sob. I stumbled toward her. "Say something."

"Enough! Ronnie, you've completely lost your mind! Maddie is your sister-in-law now. Whatever happened in the past should stay there!"

Ashlyn seemed to snap back to herself all at once. She shoved me back, her eyes red with fury, speaking through gritted teeth like I was her worst enemy.

We were blood siblings, born of the same mother. But the sister who had always sworn she'd protect me for the rest of my life was telling me someone else was the sibling she cherished most.

I choked back my tears and let out a bitter laugh.

"Right, I've lost my mind. How else would I have let all of you make a fool of me for five straight years?"

Ashlyn's whole body went rigid, but her voice stayed hard.

"You know the truth now. So you should just walk away, quietly."

I was about to argue when my mother, who had stayed silent until then, suddenly spoke up.

"Ronnie, you've had the status of the Lowe family's eldest son your whole life. Haven't you taken enough from Jace already, growing up? Just let him have this one thing."

I stared at her, unable to believe what I'd just heard.

This was the same woman who had once wrestled a knife out of my bare hands when I was in so much pain I wanted to end it all, who had held me while she cried and told me over and over, "Ronnie, you still have me." Right now, it was like she'd become a completely different person.

My childhood friend clicked his tongue.

"Ronnie, you've made your point. Don't ruin someone else's happiness. Are you seriously trying to be the other man here?"

I looked up and swept my gaze across every face in the room. All of them stared back at me like I was the enemy, their eyes full of nothing but disgust for the uninvited guest I'd become.

My chest ached with a sharp, stabbing pain. My whole body shaking, I looked straight at Maddie.

"Is that what you think too?"