Chapter 2

I raised my head and looked straight into his eyes. There was no love there, only the look of someone sizing me up.

Fortunately, my heart no longer ached because of him.

"Yes, I used to know," I said, meeting his gaze with steady clarity. "But now, I don't care to know anymore."

My calm reaction clearly fell outside his expectations.

He frowned slightly, annoyed.

I gave him no chance to press further. I slowly raised my left hand and slid off the costly engagement ring he had sent over.

The moment the ring left my finger, I felt lighter than I ever had before.

I set the ring down on the coffee table. The crisp sound it made felt like the final signal that everything between us was over.

I said, "Arthur, you married me because of June, not because of who I am. I used to be foolish enough to live in her shadow, but I won't do that anymore."

His face darkened instantly, the chill around him growing heavier.

"Eleanor!" my father shouted, trembling with anger as he pointed at me. "Have you lost your mind? Marrying into the Goodwin family is a dream for countless girls. You should be grateful."

"Dream?" I laughed softly, the sound full of bitterness. "You're sending one daughter out as a replacement for another to benefit the family. And you call that a dream?"

My parents' faces went pale, then flushed again.

Arthur's expression shifted, clearly surprised. He probably never expected someone as quiet as me to talk back like that.

He fell silent for a moment, as if reassessing my worth. Then he said in a condescending tone, "I'll pretend none of this happened. The wedding will proceed as planned tomorrow."

After saying that, he turned to leave, certain that I would never truly defy him.

"Arthur," I called out, stopping him. "You seem to have misunderstood. I'm not asking for your opinion. I'm informing you."

I stood up, didn't look his way, and headed straight for my bedroom.

Behind me, my parents kept begging while Arthur's heavy, angry breathing filled the room.

I ignored them all.

I pulled a small suitcase out from the bottom of the closet and packed a few clothes, my ID, and the small amount of cash I'd saved for years.

When I came out with my suitcase, the living room was completely silent.

Arthur glared at me, his face stern, his eyes looking like he wanted to tear me apart.

I walked right past him, completely unfazed.

"Eleanor, if you leave today, don't even think about coming back," He said through gritted teeth, his tone full of warning.

I stopped in my tracks, but didn't turn around. "I never planned to step into the Goodwin residence again anyway."

After saying that, I pulled open the front door and walked out, not looking back for a second.

Behind me came furious curses and the sharp sounds of glasses shattering.

Sunlight poured over me, wrapping me in warmth and a long-lost sense of freedom.

I took a deep breath. The air didn't have that heavy feeling from the Goodwin residence anymore, or that sense that Arthur was always thinking about someone else.

It felt so good. My life finally started right then.

*****

With the little cash I had, I rented a modest yet charming house with a small yard in a town called Cosbury, far away in Bondhurst.

When I left Larkmont, I bought a one-way train ticket. The train pulled away, leaving the nightmares of the past thirty years far behind.

My yard wasn't big, but it was quiet. There was an old magnolia tree in the yard, its leaves making soft rustling sounds in the breeze.

After setting down my luggage, the first thing I did was head to a flea market and pick out a coffee machine in fairly good condition.

During those thirty years of my previous life, Arthur rarely came home, and in that enormous villa, it was usually me alone.

To kill all that lonely time, and to copy June's elegant style, I threw myself into coffee, chess, and books.

Ironically, the coffee-making skill that had been valued the least became the only thing I could rely on now.

I cleaned the coffee machine thoroughly and placed it on the table in the yard. When I touched its smooth, sleek surface, a sense of calm I hadn't felt in years settled over me.

This wasn't about pretending to be someone else. This was something I genuinely liked.

Once I got settled, I started looking things up online.

I still had the memories from when I was fifty. I knew that in a few days, Flynn Leach, one of the top coffee artists in the country, would hold a small private gathering in Cosbury for coffee lovers.

Flynn was known for his integrity and not caring about fame or money. He was a real artist.

In my previous life, I saw an interview with him in a magazine and really admired him, but as a housewife, I never got the chance to meet him.

This time, I was going to live for myself.

I decided to go see him.

*****

I spent two days going around Cosbury and nearby areas, using what I learned in my previous life to find some really high-quality coffee beans.

Then, using the most traditional yet intricate method, I carefully crafted a coffee that had once been wildly popular in the last century. I named it Moonlight.

This coffee required a complicated process, demanding precise heat control, pure water quality, and even the right state of mind from the person who brewed it.

In my previous life, I once made it for Arthur. He only gave a faint comment that it was "not bad" and said nothing more. I knew it was because June had never liked such a bitter taste.

But this time, I put everything I had into it, hoping someone would truly appreciate it.

*****

On the day of the gathering, I used some connections to get Moonlight delivered to Flynn.

I didn't expect to be noticed right away. I waited quietly outside.

Meanwhile, Arthur, up in the top-floor office of Goodwin Group in Larkmont, was fiddling with his tie, annoyed.

He'd shoved down the news about the wedding being off and me running away, but the Sutton family kept calling, and it was driving him nuts.

What irritated him even more was that his life had begun to fall into a subtle disarray.

There were no more perfectly pressed shirts waiting for him in the morning. No water or medicine when his stomach hurt. No one was waiting when he came home from parties.

Once all these small things he had never noticed were gone, he felt weirdly unsettled.

He figured I was being stubborn and would come back in a few days, but a week went by, and there was no sign of me.

He sent people to investigate and only discovered that I had bought a train ticket southward, after which I seemed to vanish into thin air.

"Keep searching," Arthur snapped, slamming the documents hard onto his desk.

A strange panic, the kind that came from losing control, began spreading in his chest for the first time.

He started to realize that the woman who had always been quiet at his side was really gone.