Chapter 2

2 A moment later, he quietly slipped a warm pastry into my hand.

"Eat something. The surgery will take hours."

He treated me like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

Just like always, he thought giving me a sweet treat would fix everything.

It used to work every single time.

Yet deep down, I knew he was never going to marry me.

Two days ago, I went to his university office to surprise him.

Standing right outside the cracked door, I heard his colleague asking him point-blank.

"Declan, she's already twenty-eight. Aren't you ever going to take responsibility for her?"

His reply had been completely flat.

"She's nothing more than a sister to me. There's a ten-year age gap, and there will never be anything between us beyond familial duty."

I had clasped my shaking hands together and fled down the stairs as fast as my legs could carry me.

Late that night, when he reached for me in bed, I let him, treating it as our final goodbye.

I cried the entire time, but he just assumed it was because he was being too rough.

He didn't understand me back then, and he certainly didn't understand me now.

After sitting by the operating room all night, the surgeon finally came out at dawn to deliver the good news: my father had survived.

He was stable, though he still needed close monitoring in the intensive care unit.

Just as Declan and I finished settling my father into his private room, an unexpected visitor popped her head inside.

"Declan!"

A young woman with dimples and sparkling eyes stood at the door.

The moment Declan saw her, he frantically let go of my arm.

Before I could even process what was happening, the girl bounded across the room and threw her arms around his neck.

"Your mom told us to come over for lunch today. I had no idea I'd bump into you here!"

She had already met his parents.

After ten years with him, I didn't even know what his parents looked like.

"Your mom said we need to finalize the details for our engagement party."

I stared at the girl, who looked barely younger than me, my mind going completely blank.

"What did you say?"

She blinked in surprise, looking me up and down before tightening her grip on Declan's arm with a bright smile.

"Oh, you must be the little sister Declan always talks about!"

"I'm Maisie Brooks. Declan and I are getting engaged next month. Didn't he tell you?"

For a long time, I couldn't make a single sound.

I stared intently at Declan, silently demanding an explanation.

Maisie stepped forward, taking my cold hands into hers.

"I might be a year younger than you, but since you're Declan's sister, that makes you my sister too."

"If you ever need anything, just let me know. Treat me like your own sister-in-law!"

She and I were practically the same age.

Yet she was allowed to stand proudly beside him in the daylight as his fiancée, while I was relegated to being a secret little sister.

Declan turned his face away, refusing to meet my eyes.

I yanked my hand out of Maisie's grasp.

"No need. My father only had one daughter. I don't have a brother, so I certainly don't have a sister-in-law."

"Please leave. My father needs his rest."

I turned my back on them and sat down beside my father's bed, ignoring them completely.

Declan tried to step toward me to say something, but Maisie tugged on his sleeve.

"Alright, alright. The professor does need quiet. Let's not bother your sister."

"Bye for now!"

Her voice was sickeningly sweet, as if she didn't mind my coldness at all.

Still, I didn't miss the smug, assessing gleam in her eyes before she turned away.

For a second, a furious urge to scream at Declan rose in my throat.

Yet as the door clicked shut and I looked at my sleeping father, a strange calm washed over me.

I had wasted ten precious years on him.

I wasn't going to waste a single day more.

My mother was gone, and my father's dying wish was to see me happily married so I wouldn't spend the rest of my life alone.

I made up my mind to draw lots, writing down the names of the five eligible bachelors my father had vetted for me years ago onto slips of paper.

I shook the small container, and a folded slip popped out.

When I unfolded it and read the name, I froze.