Chapter 2

When the call ended, my friend reached over and felt my forehead, like she was checking something.

Then she said, still puzzled, "No fever, though. Tilda, you're not yourself today."

I laughed softly. "Aren't I?"

She nodded hard, laying it on thick. "Everyone in Metropolis City knows Austin is the apple of your eye, your whole heart."

"I mean, look at this birthday party. You started planning it more than six months out, and you came in to oversee it yourself."

"You even revised the guest list over and over before you settled it, all to smooth the way for Austin."

"And now you want to just leave Austin here and go have dinner with Mr. Vance? That's not like anything you'd do." I looked toward Austin at the center of the crowd, in a well-cut suit, poised and polished.

Even yesterday's near-perfect SAT score seemed to announce that he was fortune's favorite.

The guests even envied me for having such an outstanding son.

Only I knew the whole thing was an illusion.

I answered, "There's nothing impossible about it. I'm a businesswoman, after all."

Then I headed for the front door. Just before I reached it, Austin rushed out and grabbed my wrist.

His face was all accusation. "Where are you going?"

I shook his hand off, my tone flat. "To talk business."

Austin flared up at once. "Talk business?!"

"Do you know what today is? It's my eighteenth birthday party!"

"What business could matter more than me?"

I lifted my eyes. "Then what do you think I should be doing?"

Austin said it like he had every right to. "Aren't you supposed to introduce me to your business partners?"

"What?"

This time it was my turn to be stunned.

"Weren't you dead set on applying to the National Defense Institute of Technology? Why do you suddenly want to meet my business partners?"

"So now you're not saying I'm forcing you into the business world?"

In my last life, Austin lived off everything I gave him, yet he was always disgusted by the smell of money on me, forever failing to understand his own grand ambitions. Even his inheriting my company at the end had only happened because I pushed him into it. Was it possible he'd actually wanted my company all along?

Seeing me stare at him without hiding it, Austin's face went from red to white with humiliated anger.

But he was thick-skinned. He didn't dare admit what he really wanted, so he changed the subject.

He gave a snort. "I knew it. When you agreed just now to let me find my dad, it was all fake."

"So the rumors are true. You really did do something to wrong my dad, didn't you?"

"All these years, you couldn't face him because you were guilty, right?"

At this pressing, I froze. "What are you talking about?"

Instead of doubting it, Austin only grew more convinced of his own theory.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. "Tilda Matthews, have you no shame?"

I blinked. If I hadn't heard my own name, I'd have thought he was cursing at someone else.

Right then, Mr. Vance's call came in.

Austin bristled even worse.

"Still calling it business? You're going off to meet your lover, aren't you?"

"Tilda Matthews, being this loose, how do you face my dad?"

Austin was making enough noise that plenty of people were looking over.

Even his classmates were asking what had happened.

I looked toward the crowd and shook my head to signal "it's nothing." They tactfully stopped asking, though they couldn't help stealing glances this way.

I drew a deep breath and told Austin there was no such thing.

He only got more worked up.

"If there's nothing, what are you explaining for?"

"You must have done something to wrong my dad. That's why he's refused to come home for eighteen years."

"Tell me, who is your lover?"

I nearly laughed from anger. It took me a long moment to find the words.

"You're sure you want to make a scene this ugly?"

Austin sneered.

"I'm not the one who did the shameful thing. What have I got to be embarrassed about?"

At that moment, a man walked in from outside.

The instant he saw me, he came over, thrilled, and pulled me into a hug. "Tilda, were you waiting here for me?"

Beside me, Austin went out of his mind. "Tilda Matthews, and you said you had no lover!"