Chapter 2

2

I didn't stop. I walked out of that seven-year cage carrying the only things that truly belonged to me.

On the sidewalk, a young couple walked past. They were sharing an ice cream cone, laughing and taking bites of each other's swirls.

The girl's smile was radiant, her happiness palpable. The boy looked at her with a tenderness that seemed to overflow.

My eyes blurred as I watched them.

Landon and I were exactly like that when we were twenty-two.

Our meeting had been a cliché. A classic case of a knight in shining armor.

I was working as a waitress in a dive bar to pay for my tuition when a group of rowdy guys started getting handsy. The manager ignored my pleas for help, and no one else dared to step in.

Just as I was about to smash a beer bottle over one of their heads, someone beat me to it.

It was Landon.

He shielded me behind his broad shoulders and gave me a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. I've got you."

That was the first time in my life I felt truly protected.

I knew who he was, of course. Landon was the star student of the university, a billionaire heir. I was just a girl with a dead mother and a father who hated her existence.

I tried to bury my feelings, knowing we lived in different worlds.

But after that night, Landon became my guardian. He made sure no one bothered me again. He even drove me to and from work every single day.

I told myself a hundred times that we wouldn't have a happy ending.

But I was so starved for love.

After my mother died, I lived in total isolation for eight years. I was tired of the long nights and the silence.

So, we fell into each other's lives naturally.

I once told Landon the story of my parents. My father had cheated when I was twelve and demanded a divorce.

My mother refused to let go. My father just moved out to live with his mistress, waiting for the legal separation period to end.

On the day of my father's wedding to the other woman, my mother put on her old wedding gown and jumped from the twentieth floor.

The bright red blood stained the pure white fabric, turning it into a gruesome shade of crimson.

I watched her take her last breath. I could never forget that image.

I made Landon promise me: no white at our wedding.

I told him if the dress was white, I'd know he didn't truly want to marry me, and I would leave.

"I'll remember, Avery. You're the only bride I'll ever want," the twenty-two-year-old Landon had promised while holding me tight.

I knew his family would never approve of me.

So I worked twice as hard. I started a small design studio and took every job I could find to prove my worth.

But my small successes were nothing to the elite Lu family.

To them, I was a nobody. A girl with no pedigree.

But when I saw Landon, the golden boy, kneeling before his parents to beg for their blessing, I swallowed every bit of humiliation they threw at me.

Even after we got our marriage license, they refused to recognize me. They forbade a ceremony and demanded I quit my job to be a full-time housewife.

For love, I gave it all up. I dissolved my thriving studio and became a ghost in his mansion.

It wasn't until I got pregnant this year that the Lu family finally softened and allowed us to have a formal wedding.

Every woman dreams of her big day.

After seven years, I thought I had finally made it.

But at the very moment my dream was about to come true, it shattered into pieces.

I should have realized seven years ago that Landon and I were never on the same path.

I eventually returned to the small, lonely apartment I had kept.

I remembered how happy I was when I left this place seven years ago, thinking I'd never have to face the dark nights alone again.

It's funny how life works. I'm right back where I started.