Chapter 2

My heart nearly skipped a beat.

"Please leave it at the door. I'll be back right away."

Even though the sender had left no name, I knew exactly who it was.

My ex-boyfriend, Rolf Gilbert.

Leaning back in the taxi seat, I let the memories from five years ago flicker through my mind.

That was the poorest year of my life.

My ex-boyfriend, Rolf Gilbert, had come down with a serious illness and couldn't cover the medical fees.

He was an orphan to begin with, and even his foster mother had given up on him.

But I didn't want to give up.

Back then, to scrape the money together, I worked five jobs a day. I washed dishes until my hands were raw and split open.

I even played an NPC in a haunted house, and slept overnight in so-called haunted homes as a test tenant.

Until there was nowhere left to turn.

To raise the two million dollars, I agreed to the marriage Mrs. Sanchez had arranged.

The day I paid off the medical fees, I watched Rolf look up at me with bright eyes and say,

"Snowy, once my surgery is done, let's go traveling together. We'll go to the Rocky Mountains, take our wedding photos. Okay?"

I only slipped my hand out of his, quietly.

"I can't."

"What?"

"I'm marrying someone else. The wedding's in three days."

And that day, it turned out, was the very day of Rolf's surgery.

Later I got married, and after he came off the operating table, he came looking for me a few times.

Seeing me and John Sanchez appear everywhere as a couple, in full view of everyone,

he vanished from my world completely.

The only thing that remained was a necklace that arrived in my hands every year on my birthday.

This year was no exception.

I'd thought the two of us were simply meant to miss each other for good.

I never expected John's first love, Yolanda Reyes, to come back home, making a scene about needing to find her child a father.

And what I expected even less,

was that John agreed to it without a second thought.

God only knows how thrilled I was in that moment.

It was as though the rope that had bound me for five years had suddenly snapped.

My eyes flew open, and with trembling hands I dug through my contacts to that number, sealed away for five years yet still pinned to the top.

"Free to meet up?"

A dozen or so seconds later, a reply came.

"Sure."

I stared at that single word, my heart pounding.

Thinking to myself that heaven had been so good to me.

Once I got home I turned my whole closet inside out.

I swore I'd find the best outfit I owned to wear when we met.

I was in the middle of tearing everything apart when the door was pushed open.

"Looking for something?"

John leaned against the door frame, watching me lazily.

"Even though we've signed the divorce papers, there's still a one-month cooling-off period."

"You really don't need to be in such a rush to move out."

I didn't answer, still carefully pairing outfits with shoes.

John stayed leaning against the door frame, watching me in silence.

No sign of leaving.

"Isn't Mr. Sanchez a very busy man?"

"How come you're so free today?"

Normally, every time he came home from work, John didn't even have time to say a word to me before he shut himself in the study.

He'd be busy holding a two-hour video call with Yolanda overseas.

Oh, right. Yolanda and her daughter were back home now, so he could visit them in person.

John ignored my dig.

He suddenly tossed a few small booklets my way and said he had one more piece of compensation for me.

"These five storefronts are in excellent locations. The rent adds up to over a hundred thousand a month."

I looked up, stunned. "Didn't you already give me a mansion?"

"I told you, that was a birthday gift."

John frowned slightly.

"You've been Mrs. Sanchez for five years. How is your outlook still this small?"

So it was because he'd seen how shabby my birthday had been, and it had stirred some pity in him.

I lowered my head. Mrs. Sanchez for five years. He assumed it was all glamour.

But the truth was, apart from the hundred thousand a month Mrs. Sanchez paid me as an allowance,

I'd gotten nothing at all.

Meanwhile his first love, Yolanda, even after marrying someone else and bearing that man's child,

received millions in living expenses from John every single month.

More than once I'd stumbled across John's transfer records, with notes attached:

"In case it's not enough for you."

"Don't go without."

Things like that.

But none of it had ever belonged to me, and I'd never coveted any of it.

I smiled and took the five certificates.

"Very generous of you, Mr. Sanchez. Thank you."

Only a fool turns down money, and besides, over five years of marriage I'd given up my youth and my energy.

This was compensation I was owed.

But right then, my face suddenly changed.

A violent wave of nausea surged up.

I bolted out the door, rushed to the bathroom, and hunched over the toilet, retching.