Chapter 2

There was a stunned silence on the other end of the line, and then Liam burst into a full-blown tantrum.

His wailing sounded incredibly shrill against the quiet night air.

"You are horrible!" he screamed. "I was just joking about getting a new mom. How can you hold a grudge against a kid like that?

"You are so petty. This is exactly why Ms. Blake is better than you.

"I hate you. I'm never talking to you again."

I didn't say another word. After hanging up, I blocked his number without a second thought.

Sawyer gave me a worried look, but he was smart enough not to ask any questions.

I shot him a quick smile and let myself flop back into the tall grass, feeling a sudden wave of relief.

When I first moved into the Sterling estate, Isabelle hired eight different etiquette coaches to fix me.

They watched my every move. I had to be the perfect, ideal trophy wife.

Even if the world was ending, I wasn't allowed to break character or show bad manners.

They drilled me day after day, terrifying me with one rule: never do anything to embarrass the Sterling name.

I remembered the time Julian caught me picking wildflowers by the side of the road. He looked at me like I was doing something dirty.

"Chloe," he snapped, his voice dripping with disgust. "We didn't raise you to act like a peasant.

"Can't you at least pretend to have some class?

"You really are nothing compared to Claire."

Those cruel words used to haunt me, echoing in my head constantly.

But now, I didn't give a damn.

I wasn't going to let them ruin me.

I was going to see the world and chase the dreams I had left behind.

Even if Julian stood right in front of me this second, I'd walk right past him without blinking.

I must have passed out right there in the field. But when I woke up, I was inside the tent, tucked warm inside a sleeping bag.

I crawled out to find Sawyer already at his easel. He had this intense look on his face I'd never seen before.

He was painting fast, trying to catch the exact moment the sun hit the horizon.

"Don't move, Chloe," he called out softly.

He startled me. My hand froze in mid-air, right as I was tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

Sawyer began to paint with frantic energy, his eyes darting between me and the canvas.

It was obvious. I was his new muse.

When he finally put the brush down, I instinctively reached back to rub my sore lower back.

It turned out that being a model was nowhere near as easy as it looked.

I had pushed myself too hard to hold the pose, and now my old back injury was flaring up.

It hurt so bad I wanted to drop to the ground and curl into a ball. But feeling that weak triggered a dark memory. Then, uninvited, Julian's voice invaded my head.

"Are you ever going to stop, Chloe?" he used to shout. "Every single time I try to visit Claire's grave, you suddenly have back problems. If it hurts that much, why don't you just do us both a favor and die?

"Oh, so you can't stand up, but you can sit and work all day? You really are such a liar.

"What did I ever do to deserve being stuck with you?"

The image of Julian's cruel face blurred with the memory of the sweet boy who used to sing me to sleep.

I remembered lying on the floor, reaching out to beg him for a ride to the hospital. But Julian didn't help. He just stepped right over me like I was a piece of trash on the floor.

"You think you're hurting, Chloe?" he had said, looking down at me. "It's nothing compared to what Claire went through. You deserve every bit of this."

A wave of fear hit me that Sawyer might react the same way, so I swallowed my complaints and pretended I was fine.

As soon as I got inside my cottage, I collapsed onto the floor and hissed through the pain.

I turned on the TV, hoping for a distraction. Instead, Julian's face filled the screen. I flinched so hard I nearly tripped.

My thumb hovered over the remote to change the channel, but then I stopped.

I had decided to face my fears, so I couldn't run away now.

Gritting my teeth, I turned the volume up. I tried to massage the knot in my lower back myself.

Just then, Sawyer's voice drifted through the door. "Chloe? You in there?"

I let him in, and he didn't waste time with small talk. "You were frowning the whole way down the mountain," he said. "And you're walking stiff. Did you throw your back out posing for me?"

I was stunned. I didn't think he noticed things like that.

Seeing my expression, Sawyer grinned and whipped a bottle of essential oil from behind his back like a magic trick. "I actually ran home to grab this.

"I took a sports massage class in college. I'm pretty good at it. If you're cool with it, I can help work that knot out.

"Consider it payment for being my muse."

He looked at me with the eager energy of a golden retriever waiting for a treat.

I barely nodded before he got to work.

I had to hand it to him. He wasn't lying. His hands worked magic, and the tension in my back finally started to melt.

Julian always hated my bad back. Deep down, he knew I only had it because I took a beating meant for him.

It happened during his freshman year of college. He tried to run away with Claire. His grandfather, Franco, lost his mind and was about to break Julian's legs with a golf club.

I didn't think twice. I threw myself over him and took the full force of the swing on my own back.

Before I passed out from the pain, I heard him mumbling to himself.

He cried, "Chloe, wake up. I promise I'll stop messing around... I know I was wrong.

"You're such a fool. Why? Why did you take that hit for me? What are you going to do if your back is ruined forever?

"I'll hire the best physical therapist in the world. I'll learn how to do it myself. I'll massage your back every single day."

But I never got a single massage.

The morning I got discharged from the hospital, Julian knocked out his bodyguard and fled the country with Claire overnight.

When I finally tracked Julian down, I was clutching my aching back just to stay upright. But he was busy massaging Claire's calves, looking at her with a gentle care he never wasted on me.

Claire spotted me. She grabbed Julian by the collar and pulled him into a messy, passionate kiss.

She stared right at me like she owned him, and I turned and ran like a coward.

The noise from the TV snapped me back to reality. Julian was on screen giving an interview, looking totally unbothered when they asked about the rumors of our split.

"My wife is just going through a phase," he said smoothly. "She's traveling to clear her head. She'll be back soon."

He sounded so sure of himself, like he knew I was too weak to leave the Sterling family for good.

The reporter sighed with envy.

I knew she wasn't the only one. Plenty of people were jealous of me.

On paper, it was a fairy tale. I was a girl from a nowhere town whose parents died saving a group of wealthy kids from kidnappers. The Sterlings took me in, raised me, and married me off to their golden boy.

To the outside world, I had won the jackpot.

But only I knew the actual price of that ticket.

I lost my parents. My husband treated me like air, and my own son couldn't stand me. Behind my back, I was the punchline of everyone's jokes.

I poured years of my life into the Sterling Group, and all I got in return was the hollow title of Mrs. Sterling.

Every week, Julian flew out of the country just to clean the dust off Claire's headstone.

Even on the day his company went public, he skipped it to visit Claire's parents, acting like he was the grieving widower instead of my husband.

Whenever work stressed him out, he locked himself in his trophy room to polish the awards he won with her.

Thanks to him, Liam learned to call the photo of Claire "Angel" before he ever learned to say "Mom."

Claire was dead, but Julian made sure every part of my life revolved around her memory.

I couldn't handle the TV anymore, so I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block it all out. Suddenly, warm hands cupped my face.

Sawyer said softly, "Chloe, don't waste your tears on people who don't deserve them.

"You will find someone who cherishes you. Someone who loves you the way you should be loved."

It was only then that I realized my cheeks were soaking wet.

I pushed Julian out of my head. Instead, I forced myself to calm down and started working on a new design sketch.

Design had been my obsession since I was a little girl. Now that I had a second chance at life, I wanted to really go for it.

I got lost in the work and didn't close my laptop until the sun went down. My stomach growled, telling me it was time to eat.

As soon as I picked up my fork, I paused. My mind drifted to how intense Sawyer looked when he was painting.

It made me wonder if he was like Julian. Maybe he got so zoned out while working that he forgot to eat.

Back when I was eight months pregnant, Isabelle fell deathly ill. Julian had just joined the Sterling Group and was working himself to the bone. He used to get terrible stomachaches because he constantly skipped meals.

So, I started showing up at his office with a lunchbox every day.

At first, he ignored me. He would let me sit in the reception area for hours while he worked.

But eventually, he stopped fighting it.

He would actually stop working, eat the food, and even chat with me about what was happening at the company.

Looking back, those were the only peaceful moments we ever shared in our entire marriage.

I shook the memory away and walked over to knock on the neighbor's door. Sawyer answered almost immediately.

"Have you eaten yet?" I asked. "I accidentally cooked enough for an army. You want to come over and help me finish it?"

His eyes lit up like a puppy seeing a treat. He clutched his stomach and groaned dramatically. "Chloe, you are a lifesaver. I totally forgot food existed. I get so busy I forget to exist. Just let me save my file. I'm right behind you."

We fell into a nice rhythm over the next few days. He came over every evening to crash my dinner, and in return, he insisted on tackling the dishes and the chores.

Little by little, Sawyer was starting to fill up the empty spaces in my heart.

*****

A design firm in Jelaston snapped up my designs. They invited me for a face-to-face interview.

The morning I was set to leave, I headed over to Sawyer's place at the crack of dawn to say goodbye.

The second I stepped outside, I spotted a fleet of black luxury cars swarming the front of his cottage.

Eight guys in dark suits and sunglasses were standing guard. They blocked his front door like a human wall.

I hesitated, not sure if I should turn back, but I decided to walk up anyway.

I didn't get far. One of the bodyguards immediately reached out to block my path.

"Don't you dare touch her!" Sawyer roared, bursting out the door.

He grabbed the bodyguard's wrist and shoved it away.

His usual sunny smile was completely gone. He looked cold, almost dangerous.

Sawyer swept a cold look across the group, daring them to move. Once he checked that I wasn't hurt, he pulled me inside.

Once we were safe, I told him the good news about my designs.

"This place is a paradise, but you were right that night," I said. "I can't just rot away out here.

"I need to go back to Jelaston and start my life over."

Julian and Liam were in Jelaston.

But that city was my home, too. I wasn't going to let ghosts from my past scare me away from my future.

Sawyer rubbed his chin, and that mischievous smirk came back. "Perfect timing. I am actually heading back to Jelaston, my hometown. Why don't you ride with me?"

Before I knew it, I was in the car with him, heading back to the city.

I was a nervous wreck at first, terrified of running into Julian. But Sawyer's non-stop chatter eventually drowned out my anxiety.

My work in Jelaston went smoothly.

I had to stay in the city for a while to finalize the designs and keep an eye on the project.

I had barely settled into my new rental when someone knocked on my door. It was Sawyer, standing there with bags hanging off every limb.

"Chloe, I ran away from home again," he said, blinking his big puppy eyes at me. "They froze my cards. Can I crash with you for a bit?"

He grabbed my arm and swung it playfully. "I promise I'll cook to pay my rent."

True to his word, Sawyer whipped up a feast of spicy dishes that I loved.

I stared at the chili sauce and the red peppers on the table in a daze.

How long had it been since I allowed myself to eat something spicy?

It had been so long that I could hardly remember the taste.