Chapter 2

Evelyn's POV

The man on the other end of the line suppressed his excitement:

"Good! I'll process your paperwork and arrange the flight right away. You don't have to worry about a thing. Next week, I'll have Zachary Lowe pick you up personally!"

I also fought back the urge to cry.

"All right, Dad."

"Evelyn, did he hurt you? Tell me, and I'll have Zachary deal with him!"

"It's nothing. I can handle it myself."

I hung up and stood outside the clubhouse trying to hail a cab.

The rain poured down as if someone were dumping buckets from the sky. Drenched from head to toe, I shivered so hard my teeth chattered.

After what felt like forever, a cab finally pulled over, and I scrambled in, soaked and miserable.

The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror and quietly turned the heater all the way up.

"Young lady, why are you all alone in such heavy rain? Didn't any family come pick you up?"

I didn't answer.

Family—that word was far too complicated for me.

When I was two, my mother divorced my father, changed our names, and went off the grid to raise my grandmother and me.

From then on, my father and my brother were erased from my life.

When I was little, I asked my mother where Dad and my brother had gone, and why they never came looking for us.

The moment my mother heard that, her face turned pale. She smashed the dish she was washing and locked herself in her room for the entire day.

I was young, but I could vaguely sense that my father must have done something unforgivable.

After that, I never dared ask again.

It wasn't until three years ago that my father reappeared in my life.

By then, my mother had long since passed away.

He said he had spent years searching for us, claiming there had been a monumental misunderstanding between him and my mother, and that he wanted to explain everything to me face-to-face.

For the past three years, he had been trying to convince me to move abroad and live with him and my brother.

I had refused because I couldn't bear to leave Julian Vance.

My father had voiced his objection to my relationship with Julian more than once.

He said he understood men, and that Julian was too unsettled in his heart to be a good match.

I didn't listen, thinking my father simply didn't understand the depth of our love.

Now, it was clear my father had been right all along.

The moment I returned home, the first thing I did was check the playback from our security cameras.

The recordings began six months ago.

Melanie Sterling had always visited me often, which I used to consider completely normal.

Yet the footage on the screen froze the blood in my veins.

While I was simmering soup in the kitchen, Julian and Melanie were pressed against each other in the guest bathroom.

While I was taking a shower in the master bedroom, the two of them were rolling around on the living room sofa.

After I left for work, Julian brought Melanie straight into the master bedroom, having his way with her on my bed without a shred of restraint.

Clip after clip, the images were horrifyingly shocking.

Every single corner of this home had been defiled by them.

My hands shook violently, and a sickening surge of bile rushed up from my stomach.

I dashed into the bathroom, clinging to the toilet bowl, and threw up until my vision blurred.

There was nothing in my stomach, only acidic bile, choking me until tears and snot smeared across my face.

I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water aggressively onto my face.

The woman in the mirror had bloodshot eyes, looking utterly pathetic.

Taking a deep breath, I backed up all the surveillance footage to an encrypted cloud drive, and then began packing my things.

Inside the jewelry chest in the walk-in closet lay the sapphire necklace Julian had flown to Geneva to bid on.

That day, he had been negotiating a multi-billion-dollar merger, but upon hearing this one-of-a-kind piece was up for auction, he walked out on a room full of executives and boarded a ten-plus-hour flight just to raise his paddle.

All because I had once casually mentioned that I loved sapphires.

I tossed the necklace into the cardboard box at my feet.

Then there was that limited-edition Birkin bag, with only twelve produced worldwide.

Julian had pulled strings for over six months just to secure the luxury pre-spend allocation.

The day he brought it home, he smiled like a little boy seeking praise.

The bag, worth millions, was tossed into the cardboard box just the same.

That cross crucifix—Julian had knelt in a church for hours to request it from the priest.

He was the privileged heir of the Vance family, yet he had knelt until his knees were black and blue, just to pray for my peace and safety.

I stared at the talisman in my hand for a moment before dropping it into the box as well.

Born with a silver spoon, Julian had never touched a stove, yet he learned how to cook and brew soup for me.

Once, when I nicked my finger cutting fruit, he dragged me to the ER in the dead of night.

The ER nurse had teased him, saying it was just a scratch and would have healed on its own had we arrived any later.

To marry me, he had turned against the entire Vance family and spent three grueling years securing absolute controlling interest of Vance Enterprises, before finally getting down on one knee to propose.

Those acts of devotion had once felt sweet to the very marrow of my bones.

Now, they were rancid—like a spoiled delicacy that only induced nausea.

I cleared out the things he had given me, item by item, dumping them all into the box.

Next were the things I had given him.

The scarf I had spent two months knitting, which he wore every single winter.

Into the box.

The cufflinks I had saved six months of salary to buy, which he once wore on his shirts every day.

Into the box.

Our relationship scrapbooks—three thick volumes filled with ticket stubs, photos, and handwritten notes.

Into the box.

I picked up the overstuffed cardboard box, intending to haul it outside.

Just as I stepped out the door, I crashed right into a solid chest.

Julian Vance stood at the threshold. His hand reflexively caught my wrist, his eyes darting to the box in my arms.

"Where are you going so late? What are you holding?"