Chapter 2

From high school through college, what carried me through countless hard, penniless days was funding from a foundation under Ethan’s name.

Later I got into a university in Boston. In my junior year I landed an internship at his private equity firm. By then Stella had long since gone off to London to study, and I knew nothing about her existence.

Ethan kept me at his side and taught me how to survive in this city’s financial circles. I remember that dinner party — a partner who’d had too much to drink put his hands on me. Ethan, who never let anything show on his face, kicked the man flat onto the floor.

He pressed a heavy crystal liquor bottle into my hand and came around behind me, and the cool scent of deep-sea cedar wrapped around me at once.

“Know what you’re supposed to learn today?” he murmured against my ear.

I was so nervous I could barely breathe, and I forced myself to recite those workplace rules. “Le—learn when to advance and when to hold back, seize the initiative...”

“No. Not that official.” His long, strong fingers covered the back of my hand and guided it up, raising the bottle high. “Just a fight.”

With a dull crack, the bottle slammed into the man’s temple. Ethan pulled the silk handkerchief from his pocket and unhurriedly wiped the cold sweat from my palm. “Remember. From now on I’m your safety net — don’t let anyone push you around.”

I nodded at random and fled, terrified that one second later the admiration in my eyes would give me away completely.

Then, right before graduation my senior year, he handed me a three-year prenuptial agreement.

It was only to get his family off his back about marriage. The terms were perfectly clear: absolute secrecy about the marriage, occasional cooperation in front of the elders, no conjugal obligations, no interference in each other’s private lives. When the three years were up, I’d receive thirty million US dollars.

Because it was the first time I’d ever loved anyone, I let myself get a little greedy after the wedding. The thing I looked forward to most each day was waiting for him to come home from work at the villa in Boston’s wealthy suburb. Until that one late night, when his gorgeous female secretary brought a drunk Ethan back, his face almost buried in the woman’s neck.

Ignoring the secretary’s sneering, I insisted on helping him inside.

When I came out with the hangover soup, Ethan was leaning back on the sofa, his eyes perfectly clear — he’d obviously heard the exchange outside the door.

He didn’t drink the soup. He just got up and led me toward the study I had never once set foot in.

He pushed the door open. On the wall was a huge oil painting. A girl of sixteen or seventeen stood in a field of flowers, head bent, breathing them in, only a sliver of her profile showing.

“I’ve been in love with her since I was seventeen. Ten years.” Ethan lit a cigarette, the flame lighting up his cold, sharp features. “If she hadn’t gone off to London in a fit of temper, the one standing here as my wife would be her.”

Then, in that flawless tone he used at the negotiating table, he shattered my delusions completely. “I can’t give you what you want. If you can’t control your heart and cross the line into my life, that’s a breach of contract. Not only do you get nothing — you’ll owe an astronomical penalty.”

The hallway light cast my shadow long down the hallway. I stood frozen in place, like my soul had been drained out of me.

From that night on, I hid myself perfectly. Cool, restrained, respectful. Never again did I leak a single emotion I shouldn’t have.

And with time, it seemed I really did stop loving him.