Chapter 2

Justin Fox had once been a poor student Lucia Sanchez put through school.

Later, after he graduated, he used the gap while everyone was taking graduation photos.

Out on the field, he leaned down and kissed Lucia, and I caught him doing it.

I hit him across the face right there.

And I left him with a warning.

"We gave you money to help you study, not so you could learn how to shamelessly seduce women and take shortcuts."

"If you've got that kind of crooked ambition, you'd be better off figuring out how to break into the Fortune 500."

That falling-out turned two men who'd been like brothers into open enemies on the spot.

Everyone knew we were finished with each other from then on.

So when Justin happened to get accidentally locked inside an office.

Missing an important interview and losing his shot at a Fortune 500 company.

He wept and said it was my doing.

And Lucia believed him without a shred of doubt.

"Edward!"

Lucia came storming to me, furious.

"Justin is just a kid fresh out of school. He thinks of me as an older sister, and he's grateful because I helped him."

"That kiss was only his way of saying thank you."

"Why did you have to be so cruel?"

"Why did you have to ruin his job?"

That was the first time the two of us, always so loving, fought with heat in our faces.

Back then my career was climbing fast, and I was riding high.

I wasn't about to accept someone pinning that kind of label on me.

So I threw it back at her coldly.

"I ruined his job?"

"Lucia, open your eyes and look properly. He's just some poor student. Is he really worth me going that far?"

Lucia didn't catch what I was actually saying.

She only heard the contempt in my tone.

"Edward, now that you're pulling in seven figures and think you're something, you look down on a guy fresh out of college, is that it?"

"Fine. Let's see if you can stay this arrogant to the end."

Lucia threw that at me and turned and walked out.

The next day, she made a call herself.

And Justin quickly became her male assistant.

Twenty grand a month, easy work, pouring tea, running odd errands.

The whole company whispered that the two of them had something going on behind closed doors.

They even said Justin had been kept by Lucia back in college,

and that was why he got such an easy, high-paying job.

Hearing it made my blood boil, and I warned Lucia about it more than once.

She didn't care.

"A clear conscience needs no defending," she said, and that was the end of it.

But I knew that from that kiss on the field, there was nothing clean between them.

For the sake of the company's name, and to keep the stock from dropping too hard.

I went to Lucia's office for the first time.

And I saw it with my own eyes.

Justin, using the same spoon, digging into the cake Lucia had already been eating.

I fired him on the spot.

Lucia tried to stop me, but I was too angry.

I even said that if he wasn't fired, we'd divorce, things like that.

The company in our hands was one the two of us had built together.

It couldn't run without her, and even less without me.

So Lucia had no choice but to give in.

She could only sign the termination notice.

Until later, when I left the company for certain reasons I couldn't bring myself to explain, and became a househusband.

Only then did Lucia bring Justin back.

Thinking back on all of it now, I closed my eyes in despair.

"I'm sorry."

When you're under someone else's roof, you have to bow your head.

Even if I once had every reason to stand up straight.

But now, in a corner this tight.

The one who had to apologize first could only be me.

"Sorry now, after all this? Too late."

Lucia stared at me coldly.

She pushed the divorce agreement toward me again.

"Sign it."

"Sign it, and then I'll see whether your apology actually means anything."

In that document, those glaring words, walk away with nothing in the divorce, stung my eyes.

I gripped the pen tight.

"Can you not make me walk away with nothing?"

"You can keep every cent, just let me stay and take care of you, all right?"

"Because."

I lifted my head and forced the words out.

"You're pregnant..."

Lucia didn't so much as blink.

"No."

Someone slammed a hand on the table and shot up, furious.

"Lucia! Do you have to be this cruel?"

"Didn't you hear Edward say you're pregnant? He wants to stay and take care of you. What a good man he is."

"It was one bite of cake. It's not some huge thing. Why blow it up all the way to divorce?"

Lucia suddenly leaned back against her chair, glanced up lazily, and gave a mocking little smile.

"The husband is mine."

"But the child, is it really yours?"

For a few seconds the air went dead silent.

The people who'd been speaking up for me traded uneasy looks.

My eyes went red, hard.

I was almost trembling as I got the words out.

"Lucia, what do you mean?"

Lucia's smile turned even more scornful.

"Edward, when you sent those thugs to ruin Justin, did you never once think of today?"

"A man with a heart that vicious."

"How could he deserve to have me bear his child?"