Chapter 1

Winter

My life flashed before my eyes as I stood in the middle of the bustling streets of New York with my phone in my hands.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing and I could have sworn that it was photoshopped but on my screen was my step-sister and my boyfriend in the most unlikely position ever.

The beeps didn't stop as the pictures kept flooding into my phone. I held my chest and my heart kept racing from what I had just seen.

I didn’t hear the blaring horn until I was standing in the middle of the street. My feet stopped in place as if heavy stones were keeping them glued to the ground.

"Get out of the fucking way!!" A driver sneered as he drove past me and I shook myself back into my reality.

A reality where my boyfriend was having an affair with my step-sister. I had no idea what to do or how to even react in a moment like this. From the moment Mom's heart began failing, life already seemed meaningless.

A lump formed in my throat and I trembled like a trivial leaf in the cold winter streets of New York. My phone rang immediately and my best friend's name flashed across the screen.

"Oh my God— Winter, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to— I just had to forward those pictures the moment I saw them too."

The phone remained on my ear but the lump in my throat made it difficult to say a word.

“Please don't do anything to hurt yourself. I need you to be fine.”

"Uh— Bella, it's fine,” I managed to say.

"No, it's not. They really had the effrontery to have an affair behind your back!!" She continued. “I am going to strangle them!!”

Bella sounded angrier than I was but I didn't even have the strength to calm her down.

"Winter," she continued. "Where are you? Do you need me to—"

"No no," I stopped her. "I just left the hospital and I'm going home now. I'll call you later." With that, I ended the call and looked away from my phone.

Hot tears were threatening to stroll down my eyes and no matter how hard I sniffed, I could still feel it clouding in my eyes.

I left my mom in that hospital as I watched the nurses take her into the Intensive Care Unit for better monitoring. I was still trying to hold myself together after hearing that her heart had weakened due to congestive heart failure and now this!

My heart was literally in pieces by the time I continued walking, wondering where I had gone wrong in everything. I forced myself to swallow my saliva the way I was swallowing the bitter pill. My step-sister Vina was having an affair with my boyfriend while I was trying to come up with the money for my mother's surgery??

The moment I got home, I pushed the door open and the strawberry diffuser welcomed me. I needed to bathe and beg my father for the money needed for his first wife's surgery but when I saw my stepmother in the sitting room, my heart skipped.

I walked towards the table and swallowed hard as I squinted my eyes, trying to discern what was happening.

"What is going on here?" I asked, sniffing back the tears.

She looked up at me and exhaled. "It's a good thing you're here, Winter."

I looked around still attempting to understand what she meant by that but I just couldn't bring myself to comprehend anything. Sheets of paper were scattered all around the table and she kept looking for something between the pile of documents on the table.

Just then, my father walked in dressed in an all-black attire. His grey beard looked rough and I could tell that he had been worrying about something but it was definitely not my mom he was worried about.

I have never been his favorite but that's quite understandable because they think I am not worthy. My father remarried when I was two and after a year, they gave birth to Vina, the daughter who is the inheritor of all their properties.

"Father," I muttered despite knowing that he wasn't going to acknowledge me. "What is going on?"

"We're in remission," He said sharply "..and we have just come up with an adjustment to the way we'd pay back our debts to the Flamur.

That was a name I've heard countless times in the last two years but I knew nothing more than my parents did business with them and they got into a bad debt after the man died.

I still couldn't understand why the house was in a mess with a lot of papers flying all over. I looked at my stepmom to at least explain things clearly but she just curled her blonde hair between her fingers and gave me a long look.

"The Flamurs are now bankrupt due to the deal and they need us to pay them immediately which we cannot do. For Christ's sake Winter, you know we have been running on losses at the company."

"I do not know that," I answered naively. How the hell would I know that when they never keep me updated on what is going on with the company?

They make me feel like an outcast and I can't even say a word to save my life.

"Well, now you do," my father said. "You are going to get married to Flamur's son."

"What!!?" I screamed. "That's not possible!" I turned to look at my stepmom. "You came up with this?? I cannot marry Flamur's son."

Everything happened so fast and I could no longer feel my head on my shoulders. The tears came running like I was in an ocean but nothing I was going to say would change their mind.

My father's brows drew over his wrinkled eyes as he sighed.

"But Vina should have married him," I sobbed. "Isn't she the—"

"Heiress," my mom answered. "And that is exactly why she cannot marry him. You know nothing about the family business and you cannot manage it if Vina marries another family. But you can marry into their family and we'll lose nothing."

That was it. All I was to them— a lamb to keep them from losing nothing while their favorite took the glory.

"Dad, you have no idea what this—" My fists clenched on either side of me.

"Leave your father out of this," She blurted and turned to look at me.

"Listen, I could pay you off even. If that's what it would take to get you to agree to this then fine. Didn't you say you needed some money for —" her voice trailed off and she brought out a cheque.

"You can either agree to this and get paid or you leave this house with little or no choice." Her voice was harsh like she already thought about this a long time ago. "Here you go, the amount you asked for. Now are you in or not?"