Chapter 2

I knew who Sophia was. She'd been Samuel's junior back in grad school.

And she was the only daughter of the powerful Summers family. She was spoiled, confident, and used to getting what she wanted. She fell for Samuel the moment she saw him. He was poor but brilliant, a quiet man with that soft, thoughtful kind of charm.

She chased him for two years straight.

Samuel couldn't stand her back then. He thought she was shallow and self-centered, and that they lived in completely different worlds.

He only had eyes for me. Whenever she tried to get close to him, he'd come home and tell me everything.

He used to say, "Wendy, one day, I'm going to make sure you can eat at any restaurant you want and wear all those fancy brands too."

After graduation, Samuel started his own company and got too busy to deal with her anymore. Sophia went abroad for two years to get another degree, and she basically disappeared from our lives.

At the time, Samuel just scoffed, "Girls like her always have someone to fall back on."

But two years later, Sophia came back.

They ran into each other at a business gala. By then, Samuel wasn't the confident senior she once admired. He was a struggling entrepreneur, desperate for funding.

And Sophia? She wasn't the lovesick girl chasing him anymore. She was the heiress of Summers Group—someone far above his reach.

That night, Samuel came home practically glowing. His eyes lit up as he said, "You won't believe it. Mr. King saw me talking to Sophia and said the contract's ours. He liked our proposal."

That was the deal he'd been chasing for two weeks. One time, when they suddenly changed the specs, I was the one who delivered the revised documents in a thunderstorm. I slipped, broke a bone, and ever since then, my arm still aches whenever it rains.

But all my effort couldn't compare to one friendly chat Sophia had with him.

After that, he started talking about her more and more.

He talked about how Sophia introduced him to this investor, recommended that stock, and how Sophia got him into some exclusive business parties.

Then one night, he said, "Wendy, you really need to start dressing better. Look at Sophia. She's always so polished.

"Sophia knows all these high-end brands. She can talk about a million things with the wives of these bosses. And you? You're showing up at work every day in your patched-up clothes. I can't even think about taking you to a place like that."

He didn't stop there. "Sophia plays the piano, the violin, rides horses, and dances ballet. You just know when the supermarket discounts start."

He kept going on about Sophia, always putting me side by side with her.

At first, I stayed quiet. I felt small and ashamed.

Until one day, he said, "Sophia actually knows things. You just sit at your desk all day staring at those boring files. There's nothing going on in that head of yours."

That was when I snapped. "Samuel," I said, "if I had gone to grad school instead of working to pay for yours, maybe you'd be the one with an empty head right now."

He froze, clearly not expecting that.

Then he muttered, awkward and defensive, "I didn't mean it like that. I just think you could do better, that's all. Don't take it the wrong way."

I looked at him, at the guilt flickering across his face, and somehow I couldn't bring myself to delete the wedding dress ad I'd saved on my phone—a $399 mystery-box gown.

I knew money was tight. I didn't care about the price, or the brand, or the kind of wedding we'd have.

Even if the dress came from a secondhand store, as long as I could marry him, as long as we could finally have a home of our own, I'd be happy.

I grew up without a family, but to me, Samuel already was home.