Chapter 1

The day I came back home, my adopted sister, Stella Mason, was wearing my engagement dress. She looked at me and said, "Can you let me have your fiancé, too?"

My mom, Victoria Shea, stood beside her, speaking softly. "Vivian, Stella just got her emotions under control. Don't trigger her."

My brother, Andrew Shea, blocked Stella, his gaze icy. "It's an engagement contract. No need for anyone to get hurt over it."

My fiancé, Lucas Sterling, was standing by the window, silent.

Everyone was waiting for me to go crazy.

I looked down at the diamond ring on my ring finger, slowly took it off, and said, "Okay."

*****

Stella was stunned.

She definitely didn't expect me to say yes without a second thought.

She was wearing a silver mermaid dress with a cinched waist, the skirt sparkling with tiny rhinestones.

I designed it myself.

I revised it seventeen times for today's engagement party.

The dress was a bit loose on Stella, but that didn't matter.

The dress could be altered, and I could give my fiancé over to her.

I walked up to her, lifted her cold hand, and placed the ring in her palm. "Hold on to it."

Stella's fingers trembled, and the ring nearly fell from her grasp.

Victoria instinctively reached out to steady her. "Stella, be careful."

It was a familiar gesture. It was as if Stella wasn't holding a ring, but cradling a heart that could shatter at any moment.

As for me, I'd flown for over ten hours, hadn't had a sip of water after getting out of the car, and the driver had dropped me off at the hotel.

No one asked if I was tired. No one noticed that all I had with me was an old toolbox, but no luggage.

Stella's eyes were red, her voice trembling. "Vivian, I didn't mean to take what's yours."

I nodded. "I know."

She bit her lip, tears streaming down her face. "This past year, while you were abroad, Lucas was always looking after me. I honestly don't know when I started falling for him.

"Maybe it was those nights when I had nightmares, and he waited outside my hospital room. Or maybe it was when my wrist hurt so bad I couldn't sleep, and he talked to me through the night."

As she spoke, her sleeve rode up a bit.

A faint scar stretched across her wrist.

That scar was the reason I got shipped off overseas last year.

That day, Stella was crying on the rooftop, holding the brooch Lucas gave me.

She said she wanted to wear it for a day, but I refused.

In the middle of our argument, the brooch dropped off the rooftop.

I reached for her wrist, but she screamed and collapsed to the floor.

That night, she cut her wrist.

Her suicide note had only one line.

She said she shouldn't have wished for my things.

So everyone blamed me for it.

Andrew took away my job at the company.

Victoria cried and asked me why I couldn't make room for a sister who had lost her biological parents.

My father, Charles Shea, shipped me out to the overseas branch that same night.

He said I could only come back once I learned how to care about other people.

I stayed there for a whole year.

Now, I had learned.

Whatever Stella wanted, she got.

"Vivian," Lucas finally spoke.

He walked over from the window, his brows slightly furrowed. "We can talk this through."

I looked at him.

It had been a year since I last saw him, but he hadn't really changed at all.

He was dressed in a dark suit, and the cufflinks on his sleeves were the pair I gave him when I was twenty-three.

He still wore them, not necessarily because he couldn't let go, but probably because he forgot to throw them away.

"Talk about what?" I asked.

Lucas paused, his voice steady. "An engagement isn't a joke. Stella was upset earlier. You don't have to take it seriously."

Stella's face instantly drained of color. "Lucas, I..."

Lucas shot her a glance, then turned his attention back to me. "Vivian, take the ring back for now."

I understood.

He wasn't rejecting Stella.

He thought I agreed too quickly. It was so fast that he didn't get the thrill of being the guy everyone fought over.

Back then, if Stella so much as glanced at him, I'd shoot her a glare.

If she called him in the middle of the night, I'd block her right away.

If she pretended to be sick so he'd take her to the hospital, I'd fight with him right there at the ER, all night long.

Everyone said I was jealous, mean, and nothing like a real sister.

Now that I had stopped fighting for him, he seemed unsettled by it.

"The ring's already hers." I shot Stella a look. "Go on, and stand by her."

The lounge went dead silent.

Lucas's expression turned stormy. "Vivian, is this really how you want to talk to me?"

"What way?" I asked.

"Talking like that, making everyone feel awkward on purpose," Lucas shot back.

I really didn't get it. "Wasn't it you guys who told me to let her have it?"