Chapter 5

Nikki’s grip tightened around her phone.

“It doesn’t matter. It has nothing to do with me.”

She regretted bringing it up. A dull pressure settled in her chest, and she wanted the conversation to end.

Jane still sounded unconvinced.

“One of my students is related to the Ford family, so I asked around. He said Sean has never had a wedding. Apparently, the Fords have this old rule that the younger son cannot marry before the older one does.”

Nikki said nothing.

No wedding didn’t change much.

Sean and Vivian were still raising a child together. They had built a life together.

Her fingers tightened in the fabric over her chest.

Four years ago, Sean had told her that Vivian was pregnant and that he had to take responsibility.

That was the exact reason she had slit her wrists.

He had proposed to her just the day before.

They had been deeply in love for three years. Nikki had always known his family didn’t fully approve of her, but she had never doubted Sean’s feelings for her.

She had known Vivian existed.

She had simply never imagined Vivian would come between them.

When had Sean and Vivian started seeing each other?

When had Vivian gotten pregnant?

The questions came one after another, tangled up with every slight the Ford family had ever shown her and every bit of favor they had given Vivian. The weight of it all pressed down on her until she could barely breathe.

Jane was quiet for a moment.

“Babe, if you still cannot let it go, I can find out what really happened.”

“No.” Nikki’s voice was so calm that she could have been talking about someone else’s life. “I stopped caring a long time ago. Whether he gets married once, twice, or three times has nothing to do with me.”

Jane sighed, not having the heart to call her out.

“So... do you want to get married?”

“I do.” Nikki leaned back against the couch and stared at the ceiling. “Do you know anyone decent at your school? Set me up.”

Jane laughed. Her excitement was obvious, even through the phone. “Actually, I do. There’s a total knockout in the theater department. I’ll set you two up.”

Nikki laughed and ended the call.

The moment the line went dead, her laughter disappeared.

She stared blankly at the ceiling.

Something inside her seemed to sink slowly, like a stone dropping into deep water without a sound.

She turned onto her side and buried her face in her pillow.

After a long time, she let out a slow, muffled breath.

*

The Ford estate sat on a wooded hillside outside the city.

Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the mountains, and the living room alone was worth more than most people’s houses.

A crystal chandelier hung from the vaulted ceiling, casting a cold glow across the marble floors.

The dining table was made of dark polished wood, and every piece of custom porcelain had been arranged with perfect precision.

Sean sat at the table with no appetite.

He had barely touched his dinner.

Across from him, Susan set down her spoon and looked at him.

“Since you’re on leave, you should be home with Vivian. Eli is getting older, and it’s time the two of you made things official. At the very least, you need to get married at City Hall. You cannot keep putting this off. It is not fair to Eli.”

Vivian’s hand trembled around her fork.

Her eyes filled with tears as she lowered her head, her long hair falling across half her face.

She had a soft, delicate beauty that always made people want to protect her when she looked like that.

But Sean remained unmoved.

His father, Jeffrey Ford, sat at the head of the table, silent and imposing.

He didn’t speak at first. He simply continued eating, his gaze heavy enough to make everyone at the table feel watched.

After a moment, he set down his fork.

“Get the license taken care of this week. We’ll have the wedding in three months.” His voice was quiet, but it carried through the room. “This has gone on long enough. We gave our word, and we’re not going back on it.”

Sean slowly set down his fork.

The soft clink against his plate rang through the quiet dining room.

“We gave our word?” he repeated. A bitter smile touched his lips. “You gave your word. What does that have to do with me?”

Susan frowned. “Sean!”

“Four years ago, you told me Vivian was pregnant and that I had to take responsibility.” He looked up, his cold gaze sweeping across Susan’s face. “I agreed. For the past four years, I have done everything you asked of me.”

He paused, and his voice dropped.

“But what about the promise you made to me? Are you going back on that now?”

The dining room fell silent.

Jeffrey set down his fork and fixed Sean with a hard stare. “So now you think you can bargain with your own family? You’ve got some nerve.”

Susan quickly stepped in to ease the tension.

“Sean, Charles has been married for a year. There is nothing standing in your way anymore.”

The words struck a nerve.

All his life, Sean had lived in Charles’s shadow.

Charles was accomplished, ambitious, and dependable. He was the son their parents had spent their lives grooming to take over the family business.

Sean, on the other hand, had always been the second son who could do whatever he wanted, as long as he didn’t cause trouble, embarrass the family, or get in Charles’s way.

Years of being treated like an afterthought had left a hollow place inside him.

Then, four years ago, something changed.

For the first time in his life, Sean saw expectation and warmth in his parents’ eyes.

And for the first time, they spoke to him as though they truly needed him.

“Sean, this is something only you can do for the family.”

That sentence shook him to the core.

In the end, he had agreed.

He had thought it would finally give him a purpose. He had thought it would finally prove that he mattered.

For once, he had seen himself reflected in his parents’ eyes as someone other than Charles’s younger brother. For once, he had believed he could fill that empty place inside him.

But the price had been Nikki.

“You promised me.” Sean looked around the table. His voice was quiet, but every word carried weight. “No wedding. No real marriage. We would keep things the way they were.”

Susan and Jeffrey exchanged a glance, but neither of them spoke.

Sean understood then that his sacrifice had never earned him their respect.

It had only made them expect more.

Over the past few years, he had risen quickly at Air Costina and become the youngest captain in the airline’s history. Everywhere else, the four gold stripes on his shoulders commanded respect.

But in this house, he was still the unimportant second son.

The one who could be arranged, sacrificed, and pushed into a life he never wanted.

He had thought he had accepted that long ago.

Then he had seen Nikki again.

She had stood in the ER in a white coat, her mask covering most of her face. Only her eyes were visible. They were clear, calm, and completely distant, as though she had never known him at all.

He had stood there, frozen, while something hit him hard in the chest.

For four years, he had moved through life numb.

The moment he saw her again, feeling came rushing back.

Regret twisted through him so fiercely that he could barely breathe.

Susan and Jeffrey exchanged a look. Without another word, they let the subject drop.

Then Susan’s gaze fell on the bandage around Vivian’s wrist, and she changed the subject.

“We’re family. There’s no reason to let a little disagreement get blown out of proportion. You two had a fight about this, didn’t you?”

She took Vivian’s hand and gently brushed her thumb along the edge of the bandage.

“Look at you, sweetheart. Your dad was a renowned painter. Those hands of yours are too precious for you to be so careless with them.”

Sean’s gaze shifted to Vivian’s wrist.

The white bandage had been wrapped neatly around it.

He looked at it for only a second.

But then a different image flashed through his mind.

The faint scar on the inside of Nikki’s left wrist.

Its color had faded over the years, but the raised tissue still traced a pale line across her skin.

Where had it come from?

A cold thought struck him.

“Four years ago,” Sean said suddenly, his voice rough, “when you sent me abroad, what did you do to Nikki behind my back?”