Chapter 4

The next day, I went to the villa we'd planned to move into after getting married.

It was my family who bought the place.

Ryan said he didn't want to depend on me too much, so he paid for half the renovation.

Back then, I thought he had real integrity.

But looking back, I thought he was making sure he'd have a right to stay there from the very beginning.

The property manager rushed over as soon as he spotted me. "Ms. Linwood, if you'd given me a heads-up, I could've made sure everything was ready for you."

"Is anyone inside?" I asked.

The manager looked uncomfortable, shifting on his feet.

I didn't need him to answer. I already knew.

*****

When I pushed open the door, the living room was thick with the smell of a fragrance diffuser. It was that sickly sweet, fruity scent I can't stand.

There was a half-finished bubble tea on the coffee table, and a white jacket tossed over the sofa.

I headed into the bedroom.

The closet door was wide open. My pajamas were stuffed into the corner.

On the vanity, someone had already opened up my stash of skincare products.

On the nightstand, there was a pink hairpin.

Nina came out of the bathroom, wearing my bathrobe.

She froze when she saw me, panic flashing across her face. "Summer."

I stared at her. "Who said you could move in here?"

She bit her lip. "Ryan said no one was living here, and I needed a quiet place to recover from my allergy."

"No one living here?" I gave a short, sarcastic laugh as I looked around the room. "My clothes, my bed, my cup, and my house. Does that look empty to you?"

Nina's eyes started to water again. "I didn't mean to take your things."

"So what do you call what you're wearing right now?"

She glanced down at the bathrobe, her face turning pale.

Suddenly, Ryan's voice came from the doorway. "I told her she could stay."

I turned around.

He was standing by the door, holding a pharmacy bag, his expression dark. "She got discharged, and there's nobody to take care of her at the hotel. This place is closer to the hospital."

"So you let her move into my house?" I demanded.

"I figured you wouldn't care."

I nodded slowly. "Always assuming, aren't you?"

Ryan took a deep breath. "Summer, don't be so cold. Sure, you can take the house back, but Nina's sick. If you kick her out today, where is she supposed to go?"

I looked at him, and suddenly, I felt so exhausted. "Ryan, do you really think the whole world should clear a path for her?"

"Shrimp? Sure, I can let her have it. The engagement party? You trashed it for her. Even the house. Now she's living in my place.

"In your eyes, as long as it's for her, there's nothing I can't give up. Everything I have, you hand it over if she wants it."

I paused, every word hitting hard. "But what about me?"

Ryan fell silent. He never could answer that.

To him, I was always the one who didn't need caring.

I didn't argue anymore. I gave the property manager a look. "Change the locks. Starting today."

Nina started to panic. "Summer, my stuff is still inside."

I looked at her. "I'll have someone pack it up and send it to the Hawthorne family."

"And that bathrobe you're wearing..." I paused for a moment. "Take it with you. It's dirty now."

Nina's face flushed bright red.

Ryan snapped, "Summer."

I ignored him.

Just as I was about to leave, I heard a faint beep from upstairs.

I stopped in my tracks. That sound was all too familiar to me. It was the villa's security system reconnecting after being offline.

I had the system installed myself. There were cameras on every floor, but in the master bedroom, they only covered the doorway and the hallway, never pointed at anything private.

I glanced up at the corner. The indicator light was on.

Ryan followed my gaze, and his expression changed.

Nina froze for a second.

I didn't say a word. I turned and walked out.

Once I got in the car, I checked my phone. The security system showed over a dozen unusual alerts.

Someone had unplugged the network cable and tried to disable the cloud backup.

Too bad for them. I had set it up so that whenever the network went down, everything would be cached automatically, and once it was back online, all the data would be uploaded.

I opened the latest video.

In the footage, Nina was sitting at my vanity, slowly applying my lipstick in front of the mirror. She looked perfectly healthy, so much for playing the sick card.

Was this some soap opera happening to me?

Her phone rang, and she answered it with a cheerful tone. "Don't worry. Ryan already let me move in.

"Summer? Girls like her are a piece of cake. All I have to do is shed a few tears, and Ryan will think she's being way too pushy."

Whoever was on the other end said something, and Nina laughed. "Of course, that plate of shrimp at the engagement party was intentional.

"I wanted her to know who Ryan puts first these days."

My fingers tightened around my phone.

The video kept playing.

She got up and walked over to the closet, pulling out one of my dresses and holding it up against herself. "Once she calls off the engagement, the spot as the Hawthorne family's future lady owner could be mine."

After a few seconds, she added, "Don't forget what you promised me.

"As long as I get Summer out of the picture, you'll hand over five percent of the Hawthorne Westside Project's silent shares to me. Monica, you'd better not go back on your word."

The video cut off right there.

I sat in the car, staring at the image of her face frozen on the screen. I smiled.

So Nina wasn't the only one acting.

The Hawthorne family was pulling the strings behind the scenes, too.