Chapter 2

I nodded, though the whole thing struck me as almost funny.

The first time he'd shown me any concern in five years, and it landed on the day we signed the divorce papers.

Was it to clear the guilt in his own heart, or had he only realized, now that I was leaving, how badly he'd failed me all along?

Either way, I didn't care anymore.

A sweet, coaxing voice from outside broke the silent look passing between us.

"Walter..."

Abigail Cannon trotted straight up to Walter Gilbert with no hesitation at all.

She slipped her arm through his, and everything in her eyes was showing off, and a dare.

Walter's mouth opened on reflex, as if to explain, but when his eyes met my indifferent gaze, the words stuck in his throat.

"Don't let me keep you."

2.

With that, I closed the door.

I'd accepted long ago that he didn't love me.

But watching Abigail cling to his side and play the coquette without a shred of restraint, my heart felt like it was being torn in two on the spot.

That kind of pain left me unable to breathe.

Two years in the finishing-school program, and one lesson never went out of style: give ground to gain ground.

I wasn't asking him to have a change of heart. I only wanted to feed the flame on that guilty conscience of his.

If I couldn't have love, then I shouldn't be shorted the compensation I was owed.

Walter hadn't been gone long.

Bernice Winfield showed up at my door, and when she saw me packing my bags, she frowned and knocked the things right out of my hands.

"Ruby Lawson, you're really going to donate a kidney for him?"

"Do you have any idea how much harm losing a kidney does to your body? I've never met a woman as stupid as you!"

"He's completely in the dark, he has no clue what you've done for him, and here you are, this eager, already packing to move into the hospital?"

Seeing me stand there with a miserable face, Bernice was furious that I wouldn't fight for myself.

She jabbed a finger hard against my temple.

"What a setup you've got. If it were me, even if I were donating a kidney, I'd make sure he knew, make him owe me that debt. Then when it came to love and money, he'd hand them over with both hands and be grateful for the chance."

"This whole giving-in-secret storyline of yours only happens in TV dramas."

Bernice was my teacher at the finishing-school program.

My parents prized sons over daughters. When I first started college, the family couldn't scrape together the bride price for my brother.

From somewhere they'd picked up a ridiculous idea, and they spent every last cent sending me to the finishing-school program.

"Ruby, study hard, land yourself a rich husband. Your dad and I are doing this for your own good. That way you'll never have to worry about food or clothing for the rest of your life."

"And your brother's bride price will be taken care of. Your brother and his girlfriend have been together so many years. You don't want to see her walk away from a good match over sixty thousand in bride price, do you?"

I clenched my fists, uneasy, and for the first time I talked back to my mother.

"Mom, I got into the top school in the country. Give me four more years, just let me graduate from college and..."

She didn't let me finish. A vicious slap came down across my face.

My mother glared at me, eyes wide with rage, as if she were looking at an enemy.

"With the way things are with money in this family, where's the time to wait four years for you?"

"I already paid the registration fee. If you won't do as you're told, you can forget about college too!"

The pressure and the sheer force of will at home left me no choice but to enroll in the finishing-school program against my own heart.

The one thing in that memory I could be grateful for was that when we were graduating and being matched with our targets, I saw Walter Gilbert's name in a stack of files.

On my first day of college, Walter had appeared on the speaker's platform as a distinguished alumnus.

One look, and I couldn't pull my eyes away.

That feeling, one glance and I was gone, made me choose him without a second thought.

"This man's a tough one, and I hear there's something wrong with his health too."

I ignored Bernice's warning and got close to Walter. I had always been ashamed of the tricks women used to seduce men for fame and money, so I carried an honest heart and worked my way into his life bit by bit.

I chose nursing as my major for him, and I put together all kinds of medicinal broths for him.

It wasn't until after we married that I slowly came to understand: maybe what brought us together was never love. It was just that the spot beside him happened to be empty, and it needed someone like me, someone who could keep his life running smoothly.