Chapter 2
The moment I stepped out of the airport, the humid, sticky air of Harborland enveloped me like a blanket.
"Charlotte?"
Even after ten years, I knew that voice instantly.
I turned. There he was. Samuel, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit, flanked by an assistant and bodyguards.
Time had been kind to him since he looked almost the same as he did when I first met him at eighteen.
All the rage and hatred I had imagined I would feel upon seeing him again were all gone. In its place was a strange, unnerving calm.
It's funny. No matter how deeply you can love and hate someone, one day, you wake up and feel nothing at all.
It was like I had been scrubbed clean, reborn.
I gave him a polite nod and turned to leave.
But he lunged forward, his hand closing around my arm, forcing me to stop.
"Charlotte, have you been well?"
I glanced down at his hand on my arm. He flinched and pulled it back as if he had been burned.
"I've been great," I said.
If anything, my life had only gotten better since I left him.
"You're still angry with me.
"Charlotte, what happened back then was complicated. I had no choice..."
I shook my head, cutting him off.
"Samuel, there is nothing you could do, not even dying, that would ever make up for what you did."
The color drained from his face. He opened his mouth to say something, but just then, a singsong voice called out from behind him.
"Honey, you came to get me!"
A woman came flying into his arms, and Samuel caught her with practiced ease, letting her hang off him like a designer accessory.
I had always known that for every rule, there is an exception. I just wasn't his.
How boring.
The woman disentangled herself from his embrace, and when she saw me, a smug smile spread across her face.
"Charlotte! Long time no see!"
It was Rose Maxwell, my junior from the conservatory, the most spoiled and celebrated "It Girl" in all of Harborland society.
So, this was the "red rose" Samuel had so ruthlessly discarded me for.
I declined her cloying invitation to join them and went to wait for my ride at the curb.
A moment later, a gleaming, extended Rolls-Royce pulled up in front of me. The tinted window slid down, revealing Samuel's face.
"Where are you going? Get in. I'll give you a lift."
His words hit me like a slap. "Wherever you're going, you can walk!" That's what he used to tell me when we were together.
Harborland was expensive, so to save a few dollars, I had walked everywhere, even in the sweltering summer heat.
I remembered walking to a prenatal checkup when I was six months pregnant. It was a five-minute walk. I had made that walk a hundred times. But that day, I collapsed. My unborn child bled out of me, a crimson pool spreading on the hot pavement.
I hated Samuel for his coldness, but I hated myself more for my own weakness.
I didn't answer him, fixing my gaze on the ostentatious car.
"Come on, Charlotte, get in!" Rose chirped from inside. "It's brand new, and the seats are so comfortable!
"I've been practicing so much with the orchestra lately, and even though it's only a five-minute walk, Samuel worries about me getting tired!"
Her voice was a weapon, dripping with triumphant provocation.
Samuel's expression tightened. He looked at me with anxiety.
"Charlotte, this..."
I knew he was thinking about the baby.
The sun had been so brutal that day. My clothes were soaked with sweat, but the pain in my heart was a thousand times worse.
Because on that same day, my husband was test-driving his new sports car, taking Rose up the winding mountain roads to watch the sunset.
After I was discharged from the hospital, I stormed into his office and screamed at him, completely hysterical.
"Samuel, do you even have a heart?"
Publicly humiliated, he showed no mercy. He had security drag me out like a piece of trash.
As I stood there, staring at the glittering corporate headquarters built with the fortune I brought into our marriage, I felt, for the first time, that it had all been for nothing.
That was our fifth year of marriage.
We had moved to a new house, one with a small, damp basement. He knew I was terrified of the dark, but he locked me in there anyway.
"Charlotte," he said coldly through the door, "I am so disappointed in you."
He never once asked about the baby.
For seven days, I listened to the sounds of laughter and music from the parties he threw upstairs. Each cheer was like a knife twisting in my gut. When he finally let me out, I was a walking corpse.
A bitter smile touched my lips, but I didn't say a word. I simply walked past them to the Bentley that was now honking for me.
As the car pulled away, I stared out at the glittering, chaotic streets of the city.
I was back in Harborland.
I was here to bring my son home.
Staring down the road, back in this city after ten long years, I knew my heart was not the same. It had changed a long, long time ago.
The next day, I was invited to be a guest judge at a prestigious piano competition.
Rose was one of the contestants.
To be blunt, she had no talent and even less discipline.
Her fingering, her technique, and her rhythm were lousy. I shook my head and gave her the score she deserved.
When the final results were announced, out of seven judges, I was the only one who hadn't given her a high score.
She stood on the stage, the confident smile on her face cracking for just a second.
Then she glared at me, grabbed the microphone, and challenged me in front of everyone.
"Charlotte, I'll call you 'teacher' today out of respect. But I have to ask: do you really think it's appropriate to use your position to settle a personal grudge? Does that feel right to you?
"The other six judges are all masters in their field. By giving me a zero, are you suggesting you know better than all of them?"
Instantly, the whole room buzzed with gossip and whispers.
From the audience, Samuel stood up.
"Charlotte," he said, his voice carrying across the room, "if you hate me, take it out on me. Don't punish Rose for our history."