Chapter 2

The light above the operating room door came on. Graham sat outside and slowly closed his eyes.

A scene from five years ago rose vividly in his mind.

Back then, he had still been Graham Doherty, living in a run-down tenement building on the north side of town.

His mother worked as a housekeeper for other families, a hard and thankless job. His father was a drunk and a gambler who hit people when he was intoxicated, came home demanding money whenever he lost, and smashed things when he did not get it.

His life had been gray, with no end in sight. The only bright spot was throwing himself into his studies and dreaming that one day he would escape that suffocating home.

That changed the day several men in suits showed up at the door. They told him he had been switched at birth with the son of the wealthy Winthrop family and that he was the family's true heir.

On the day he was brought to the Winthrop home, he carried a canvas backpack that had been washed until it faded, and his canvas sneakers were caked with mud.

He stood in the living room of the luxurious mansion, ill at ease, while the muddy prints he had left on the carpet drew stifled laughter from the staff.

Just as he was so mortified that he wished the floor would swallow him whole, a girl who was almost too beautiful walked over.

She crouched down, wiped the mud off his shoes with a wet wipe, and took a brand-new pair of soft slippers from the shoe cabinet to set at his feet.

"Welcome home," she said, looking up at him with a smile. "Graham Winthrop."

At that moment, she was like his guardian angel. At his most humiliated and wretched, she had given him a little dignity and warmth.

He only learned later that she was Holly Ainsworth, the future heir to the Ainsworth family and the dream match that countless wealthy young men chased after.

The Ainsworths and the Winthrops had arranged the engagement long ago, so even if just in name, she was his fiancée.

In the time that followed, Holly helped him slowly find his place in this unfamiliar world of high society. She taught him etiquette, took him to parties, and quietly stepped in whenever the other rich boys mocked him behind his back.

He fell for her helplessly. She became the light that had suddenly broken into his dark life, his one and only salvation.

That lasted until the day Colin was supposed to be sent away. Holly came to find him out of nowhere, and instead of her usual warm courtesy, she sounded earnest and anxious.

"Graham, Colin has been spoiled his whole life. He's never had to struggle for anything," she said. "If he goes back to his birth parents, he won't be able to handle it.

"Could you let him stay, for my sake? Think of it as gaining a brother."

Only then did Graham fully understand.

All her kindness, all her gentleness, and all her patience had probably been for this moment alone. It had all been so that the Colin she loved could stay with the Winthrops and stay by her side.

He refused, flatly and without hesitation.

He could not accept it. The son of the woman who had stolen his life was supposed to go on holding everything that should have been his, sharing his parents, and maybe even sharing the fiancée he had only just started to fall for?

He was not that generous.

In the end, Colin was sent away after all.

Graham had thought Holly would hate him for it and ask to call off the engagement.

She did not.

The engagement stood, and she remained his fiancée in name. She simply grew colder and more distant toward him.

He later heard secondhand that Holly had wanted to break off the engagement, but her family had flatly refused. Now that the real Winthrop heir had come home, the engagement naturally had to pass to him.

Holly's grandfather had even made it clear that if she dared to call it off for the sake of an impostor, the Ainsworths would make Colin pay for it.

Holly stayed by Graham's side after that, like a dutiful puppet without a shred of warmth.

The wedding was pushed back again and again, from when he was 20 until he was 25.

He had made a fool of himself. He clung to an empty title as her fiancé, to whatever scraps of concern Holly occasionally threw his way, and to the love his parents had shown him after Colin left. That love had always been meant to make up for something, and it had always been held at arm's length.

He endured it in silence and still clung to a ridiculous sliver of hope. He believed time could change everything, that his parents would eventually accept him as their real son, and that he could warm Holly's heart even though it had long belonged to someone else.

Then, five years later, they ran into Colin at the hospital. He had collapsed from exhaustion while making food deliveries and been rushed to the emergency room.

His parents held the pale, frail Colin and wept uncontrollably. Then they turned to Graham and begged him. "Graham, let Colin come home! Look at him. Look at the kind of life he's been living! He won't take your place, we promise. Just let him come home, okay?"

Graham could not help glancing at Holly.

She was standing beside the hospital bed with her eyes fixed on Colin, not even blinking. The tenderness, adoration, and buried longing in her gaze were so intense they nearly spilled over. In five years, Graham had never received even a fraction of that.

Graham heard something inside him crack and shatter for good.

He finally understood that for five years, he had been nothing but a clown putting on a show.

His parents had never truly let go of Colin, and there had never been any room for Graham in Holly's heart.

He had lost everything, and he had lost badly.

After coming home from the hospital that day, he did two things.

First, he contacted a law firm and had them draft a legally binding declaration voluntarily severing his relationship with his parents, along with an agreement dissolving the engagement. He signed both.

Second, he hired an immigration agency to fast-track his application for permanent residency abroad.

All he had to do was wait until the end of the month. Once everything was approved, he could leave this place for good and get away from the people and things that had been suffocating him.

He simply had not expected one last twist before he left.

Silently, he said goodbye to his parents and to Holly.

From now on, they would go their separate ways, and he hoped they would never see one another again.