Chapter 2

Liana's POV

Weston didn't get home until almost midnight.

I was a light sleeper, so the sound of the front door closing jolted me awake. Then I heard a flurry of footsteps drawing closer and closer.

The light clicked on, and the sudden brightness made me squint.

"Sure enough, it woke you up," Weston muttered as he pulled a box out of a shopping bag and set it down right in front of me.

Then he pointed his phone camera straight at my face.

"Mona insisted I bring this to you as an apology. Even though there was a reason for what happened, she still feels bad about disrupting our plans."

He gestured toward the box. "Come on, take a bite. I need to send her a video. Once she sees for herself that you've eaten some, she can finally get some sleep."

My blurry vision slowly focused on the box in front of me.

It was a strawberry cream cake—red velvet sponge dotted with delicate little strawberries.

It was Mona's favorite.

I looked up at the dark camera lens pointed at me and said, "I'm not eating it."

Weston sighed and lowered his voice. "Mona was just crying. Don't upset her again."

"None of this was her fault anyway," he added. "She's worried about how you feel, afraid you'll hold it against her. Just take a bite so we can all get some sleep."

Without waiting for my answer, he pressed the spoon right up to my lips.

The cloying smell of whipped cream hit my nose. I couldn't hold back the surge of stomach acid and started dry-heaving uncontrollably.

He stared at me in shock.

"I told you. I don't eat whipped cream," I said.

I gripped the edge of the bed, my knuckles turning white as the sour taste burned in my throat.

When we were kids, Mona couldn't resist sneaking a taste of a three-layer strawberry cream cake at a bakery.

Since she'd taken a bite out of it, we had to buy it.

Money was tight at home back then, and a cake that big was an unnecessary expense we simply couldn't afford.

Mom and Dad took their anger out on me, blaming me for not keeping an eye on her.

They punished me by refusing to let me eat anything else until I finished the cake.

Even now, I could still remember the greasy cream coating the back of my throat and the heavy nausea in my stomach.

Mona had always been frail and couldn't eat much of it, which only made her crave it more.

On our first anniversary, after seeing how badly I reacted to a cream cake, Weston apologized over and over. He swore he'd never let me anywhere near whipped cream again.

It took only him six years to forget completely.

"Fine. If you're not going to eat it, don't. Just pretend I never brought it."

Weston stopped recording, quickly packed up the cake, and carried it out of the bedroom.

When I walked into the living room, I saw Weston out on the balcony, eating the cake one spoonful at a time while his phone sat propped up on the table.

His tone was light and cheerful. "Liana already had some. It's late, so she shouldn't eat too much. Looks like I lucked out."

After a brief pause, he added, "Feel better now? Good night."

The woman on the other end of the line seemed to have fallen asleep already, but the video call was still connected.

Even after finishing the cake, Weston stayed right where he was.

I loosened the fingers digging into my palm and turned back toward the bedroom.

…

When I woke up the next morning, Weston was already gone.

I started clearing my things out of the house, tossing anything I hadn't used in ages and dropping old clothes into recycling bins.

In the end, everything I had left fit into a single suitcase and a bag.

I sat by the windowsill, running my fingers over the freesia petals, wondering what to do with them.

That was when Weston called. He said my wedding dress had arrived and asked me to come try it on.

The soft scent of freesia lingered around me.

I'd personally overseen the making of that dress, so I figured I might as well say a proper goodbye to it.

I walked down the corridor and saw Weston sitting on a couch.

The curtain in front of him was drawn tightly shut.

I didn't think much of it and assumed another customer was inside.

The next second, the curtain was pulled open.

Mona was standing on the fitting platform, wearing my wedding dress.