Chapter 2

Lucas' fingers brushed against Lily's cheek.

Sophie's messages started flooding in.

[What's going on? You need me to do anything?]

[What the hell is Lucas thinking?]

[LOL. It's so obvious she's playing him. Can't he see it?]

I texted her back: [No rush. We're not even married yet.]

And even if we were married, people get divorced all the time. Besides, Lucas and I were only engaged right now.

The next day, Lucas showed up at my door with a huge bouquet of roses and a big smile on his face.

"Got it back for you," he said. "Don't be mad, okay?"

He handed me the bracelet, and I noticed the clasp was scratched up. It had only been one day, and it already looked like this, so I was sure someone did it on purpose.

"Julia, I went and got it back myself," Lucas said. "What else do you want? Can you stop being dramatic? We're adults here. Let's be mature about this."

When Lucas saw I wasn't taking the flowers, his expression darkened, and he said, "If you like roses, I can send them to you every day.

"You shouldn't accept random gifts from strangers anyway, or people might think I'm too cheap to buy you a few roses."

He sounded arrogant and way too confident.

Clearly, he thought pretty highly of himself.

I smiled and pulled out the necklace gift box he'd given me yesterday.

"You're right, I shouldn't accept things from questionable sources," I said.

Then I raised my hand and let the sunlight catch the bracelet I'd bought last night. It sparkled brilliantly.

"Besides, I can afford to buy my own stuff."

Lucas froze and didn't take the box from me.

I set it on top of his bouquet of roses.

"I don't just accept roses from anyone, you know," I added.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Lucas asked, but I was already closing the door.

His voice got cut off as the door clicked shut.

I didn't bother looking back at him. Instead, I grabbed my phone and typed a message to the family group chat.

[I'm calling off the engagement with Lucas.]

The group chat, which had been dead silent, suddenly exploded with messages.

My mother, Gianna Evans, texted: [Are you insane?!]

My father, Asher Evans, chimed in: [Stop messing around. The wedding's right after Christmas, and our families have several projects lined up together.]

My brother, Richard Evans, sent: [What's going on? Don't be childish. Bring him home for dinner tomorrow. We'll talk this through.]

Richard's wife, Violet, sent: [Yeah, listen to your brother. A marriage between two families isn't something to take lightly!]

I smiled and turned off my phone, ignoring all of them.

I was notifying them, not asking for their permission.

I finally had time off, so I went back to sleep and took another nap.

When I woke up around noon, I saw several missed calls on my phone.

Some were from my parents and family, and some were from Lucas.

I wasn't planning to call anyone back, but then Lucas called again.

"You want to cancel the engagement?" he asked, and his voice was full of confusion, like he couldn't wrap his head around it.

I calmly told him yes.

He didn't miss a beat. "Just because of a bracelet? Julia, if you don't like it, I can fire Lily. There's no need to blow this up over some girl, right? I thought you were a rational person."

I gripped my pillow tight, but my voice stayed calm. "It's because I'm rational that I'm canceling our engagement. Today it's Lily, tomorrow it'll be some other woman. Lucas, I thought you had boundaries like I do, but clearly I was wrong."

I could hear Lucas breathing hard on the other end, and he sounded pissed.

"Boundaries?" he snapped. "This is what you call boundaries? You accepted roses from someone else too, so what gives you the right to lecture me about boundaries?"

I laughed. "So you do know it's not okay to accept roses from someone else on Valentine's Day, right?"

Lucas went quiet.

I kept going. "And what about that bracelet you just gave away? Look, if you'd forgotten it or didn't want it anymore, I wouldn't have cared, but you gave it to someone else. Lucas, we're both smart people here, so don't play dumb with me."

After I said that, I hung up and deleted our engagement photos from Instagram.

I also posted to let everyone know that Lucas and I were done.

Both our families were in business, so getting the news out quickly was better for everyone.

I thought that was the end of it, but a month later, I ran into them at a party.

Lily showed up in this white designer dress, standing next to Lucas with her chin up, scanning the room like she owned the place.

When she spotted me, she walked right over.