Chapter 2

I sat there in a daze for ages, until Michael was towering over me, watching with that smug look, before I finally snapped out of it.

He stared at me coldly, not a hint of sadness for his lost lover: just smugness and disdain in his eyes.

He sneered, "David, you never stood a chance against me. Do you know why you two never had kids? Because she never wanted a child unless it was mine."

I was so rattled by the certainty in Michael's eyes that I kept shaking my head, refusing to believe it.

I mumbled, "No. It can't be."

Fiona and I were expecting a child once, but we lost it to a miscarriage. And after a botched surgery, Fiona was never able to get pregnant again.

Michael looked me up and down, the smirk on his wrinkled face growing even more triumphant.

He said, "I always knew keeping this would pay off. David, you've spent most of your life trapped in a dream of your own making. How pathetic."

With that, he flung a piece of paper at me.

After reading it, it felt like my heart was ripped out and hurled into a bottomless pit.

It was a surgical record from thirty-five years ago, and the proof that Fiona had an abortion and underwent a permanent sterilization procedure at the same time.

The words "Patient's Voluntary Decision" were staring right at me, knocking the wind out of me and leaving me reeling.

I let out a hollow, bitter laugh, unable to hold it in any longer.

It hit me: Fiona really hated me that much. She didn't even want our child, and couldn't wait to get herself sterilized, not even bothering to recover first.

After forty years, I was nothing but a stranger in her heart.

A mouthful of blood spewed from my lips, and just before everything went black, my whole life flashed before my eyes, slipping through my fingers like sand.

I was the son of family friends of the Harpers. After my parents died in a tragic accident during high school, they took me in at the Harper residence.

From that moment on, my life became intertwined with Fiona's.

The first time I met her, she was eighteen, tall and graceful, almost glowing in the sunlight. I couldn't look away.

"I'm Fiona Harper. We'll be classmates from now on, so let's help each other out," she said, flashing a bright smile.

As I stared at her fair hand reaching out to me, my heart skipped a beat: I'd never felt anything like that before.

I stuck to her like glue, becoming her sidekick, her bodyguard, and her closest friend.

But everything changed when she met Michael in college. That was when I had to hide my feelings for her, locking them away deep inside.

But fate really knew how to play tricks on people.

The year we graduated from college, Fiona and I got drunk and did something reckless. Her parents caught us red-handed. And just like that, we got roped into a marriage contract.

After that, her courtesy towards me turned into outright disgust and hatred.

Fiona demanded, "Why couldn't you control yourself? Don't think I don't know what you're really thinking. There's no way I'm going to be stuck with you for the rest of my life."

Even though she was the one who showed up at my room that night, and I remember her making the first move, I never tried to explain myself, not even once.

Maybe, just like she said, I was selfish. Deep down, I wanted any excuse to stay by her side for the rest of my life.

But she was determined to keep stalling, arguing with her parents over and over, doing everything she could to push the wedding back again and again.

It wasn't until her second year of grad school, when her parents died in a car accident with a final wish for her to marry me, that she finally gave in and agreed to the wedding.

I knew all too well what it was like to lose one's parents so suddenly, so I did everything I could for Fiona, always putting her wishes first, never wanting her to feel even the slightest bit of pain.

And so her quality of life wouldn't suffer, I fought through every setback alone, carrying the Harper Group on my shoulders, no matter how tough things got.

But after forty years, she never cared about me.

If there was a second chance, I hoped I would never get tangled up with her again.

I was tired.

I didn't want to love her anymore.