Chapter 2
"Do you work for the Pierce Group?" The taxi driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror as he took me away from the building.
"I quit," I said.
"Oh, then you must know about Mr. Pierce and his childhood sweetheart, right?"
I paused.
The driver kept talking to himself, amazed. "They say the two of them were promised to each other as kids. When Mr. Pierce lost everything at ten, Mrs. Pierce didn't break the engagement.
"She stayed with him for fifteen years. I even heard she took a hit for him and lost a chunk of her knee."
The more he spoke, the more impressed he sounded. "Women like that barely exist anymore."
My knee throbbed.
I touched the warped scar and stayed quiet.
The driver asked, "You worked there. You must've seen Mrs. Pierce, right? Is she really as pretty as they say?"
I shook my head. "I don't know."
He fell silent, though I still heard him mutter under his breath, "No way..."
But it was true—I had never seen her.
Everyone else knew Samuel had someone waiting for him. I was the only one kept in the dark.
He kept sending me overseas. And every rumor I heard, I brushed off as someone trying to smear him.
It wasn't until I stood outside that study door and heard Charlotte giving him advice herself that I finally understood what all those pointless assignments had really been for.
But Samuel never needed to hide anything from me.
When I first stood beside that fallen young master, I never expected to gain a thing from him—least of all the title of Mrs. Pierce.
*****
A week passed before Samuel finally noticed someone had been missing for quite a while.
He stood in my room. Nothing looked different, as if I might walk back in any minute.
He turned to Thomas. "What did she take with her?"
Thomas answered, "Nothing."
"Don't lie." Samuel's brows tightened. "She left with a huge suitcase. She couldn't have taken nothing."
Thomas wiped the sweat gathering at his temples. "She did take a few things, but they were just junk. I even told her to bring some money for the road, but she wouldn't."
"What junk?"
"A cheap little iron butterfly, a broken desk lamp, and a pair of headphones."
Samuel's hand clenched instantly.
The iron butterfly used to be a butterfly knife.
The day his family went bankrupt, he swung that knife at Jennifer when she tried to approach him.
But Jennifer hadn't backed away. She had stepped into the blade's reach and wrapped her arms around him. "Don't be scared. I'm not going to hurt you."
She had been brought home by his parents, raised to be part of his future inner circle.
But when everything fell apart, when the house emptied and everyone his parents "left him" either ran or hid, Jennifer was the only one who walked toward him.
Later, she melted the butterfly knife and reshaped it into a small iron butterfly.
When the house was being cleared out, the only thing she managed to save was a tiny desk lamp.
For fifteen years, the two of them lived with almost nothing.
That cheap lamp somehow lasted until now.
Samuel's life had long outgrown old things like that.
He never expected Jennifer to still keep it.
"The headphones," Samuel said quietly. "Were they the black pair?"
"Yes, Mr. Pierce."
He closed his eyes.
That pair was a birthday gift from him.
He kept asking, "And she really didn't take anything else?"
He couldn't believe it.
Jennifer had walked away with nothing but a handful of worthless things.
How was a girl with an old injury supposed to survive in Ashbourne?
But the worry faded quickly.
Jennifer had stayed by his side for fifteen years. There was no way she didn't have an angle.
Maybe this was just her tactic to make him remember the life they shared. And then, she would come back and negotiate for more.
Yes. She would come back.
Fifteen years had changed him completely. Why wouldn't she change too?
She must be calculating.
But that was fine.
Samuel sat down on Jennifer's tiny sofa and leaned back, eyes closed.
Fine. If she returned and wanted more money, he'd give it to her.