Chapter 2

To be fair, Liam wasn't entirely wrong. Three years ago, my mother did have severe vision issues, and the doctors had recommended a cornea transplant.

But there were two massive secrets he didn't know.

First, my family was not "middle-class" as I had let him believe. We were incredibly wealthy. Three years ago, my father had already used his connections to fly my mother first-class to a top private hospital in Europe for her transplant. Her vision had been perfectly restored long ago.

Second, late last month, Liam's mother, Martha, had snuck onto a construction site to salvage cheap discarded materials. She accidentally fell into a pit of quicklime, which completely blinded her.

When she was rushed to the ER, the hospital had called me first.

"Chloe, please don't tell Liam," Martha had begged me over the phone. "He's already working so hard at his job. I don't want to stress him out."

I knew it was wrong to keep this from her own son, so I had tried to tell him that very night.

But during those weeks, Liam was out partying with Lily day and night. He would stumble home past 3 AM and sleep like a log until noon. There was literally no window of time to talk to him.

When the hospital notified me that a matching pair of corneas had finally become available under my registration, I figured I would just wait until the surgery date was locked in before breaking the news to Liam.

Who could have predicted he would pull a stunt like this?

Oh, the irony.

"Chloe, didn't you say the corneas would be ready soon? I asked the nurse today, and she said there are no corneas available for me!"

Looking at the blind old woman sitting in her hospital bed, I sighed and spoke in a calm, flat voice. "Martha, they *were* ready. But Liam insisted on taking them out of the hospital to show Lily. Lily dropped them and broke the vial. They're ruined. You'll just have to go back to the bottom of the waiting list."

I expected Martha to gasp and curse her son for his foolishness.

Instead, she shrieked my name, whipping her head wildly toward the direction of my voice. "How could you be so selfish?! This is all your fault! If you weren't so petty and jealous, Liam wouldn't have had to take the corneas out to appease Lily! You ruined my eyes! You're a murderer!"

"Did I stutter?" I asked, my voice cold.

I had planned to be reasonable, but Martha's delusional logic proved she wasn't worth my breath.

I turned on my heel to leave. Remembering how she had recently been boasting about getting me a "bridal jewelry set" for our engagement, I threw over my shoulder, "By the way, Martha, I'm calling off the wedding. You don't need to waste your time trying to find a cheap hundred-dollar cubic zirconia ring anymore."

As I closed the hospital door, I heard things shattering inside the room.

A barrage of screeching insults followed me down the hallway.

"Who do you think you are, you ungrateful bitch?! My son is a senior manager at a major firm! You should be begging to marry into our family! I never wanted you anyway!"

"If it weren't for your master's degree, you wouldn't even be fit to wash Lily's feet!"