Chapter 2

When we returned to the Covington house the next morning, the air was thick with unspoken accusations and my father' s simmering fury. My stepmother, Eleanor, Hailey' s mother, looked at me as if I were something she' d scraped off her shoe. Hailey herself was a picture of distressed innocence, dabbing at perfectly dry eyes.

"You did what?" my father, Mr. Covington, finally roared, his face purple.

Ethan, ever the opportunist, launched into his carefully rehearsed explanation, painting himself as a man driven by desperate love for me, forced into a secret marriage by circumstances. He conveniently left out the part about using me to make Hailey "unavailable" for Thorne.

My father wasn' t buying all of it, but the part about Hailey being saved from Thorne appealed to his desperate need to see her secure a different kind of fortune, perhaps one less… cursed.

"Ava," my father said, his voice dangerously low, turning to me. "You will support this. You will say you and Ethan married weeks ago. This Thorne business… Hailey is too delicate for such a man, such a situation."

Eleanor chimed in, her voice saccharine. "Yes, Ava, dear. Think of your sister. She' s not strong like you."

Strong. They always called me strong when they wanted me to bear a burden.

Then came the real threat.

"That heirloom project of yours," my father said, his eyes cold. "The restoration of your grandmother' s botanical illustrations. It requires considerable funds. Funds that might dry up if you cause… complications."

My grandmother' s legacy, the one beautiful, untainted thing left from our family' s past. My art, my passion. He knew where to hit.

I looked at Ethan, his face a mask of feigned concern. I looked at Hailey, who was now examining her nails, bored with the drama now that the focus wasn't solely on her. I looked at my father and stepmother, their faces hard with calculation.

A cold fury rose in me, sharp and clean.

I would not be their pawn. I would not live Ethan' s lie.

"No," I said, my voice clear and steady in the sudden silence.

Ethan' s head snapped up. "Ava…"

"If Hailey is too delicate for Mr. Thorne," I continued, meeting my father' s gaze, "and you need a Covington to go, then I will go in her place."

A collective gasp. Hailey looked horrified.

"Ava, don't be ridiculous!" my father sputtered.

"Am I?" I asked, a bitter smile playing on my lips. "You want to save Hailey from a supposed monster. Fine. Send me. I' d rather face a monster with my eyes open than be a fool' s secret."

Eleanor looked like she might faint. "But… you' re married!"

"Am I?" I looked directly at Ethan. "Or was that just another part of the plan?"

He flinched.

The fight was ugly, vicious. They cajoled, threatened, pleaded. Ethan tried to pull me aside, whispering promises he clearly didn' t mean. My father spoke of duty, of family, of the shame I would bring. Eleanor wept crocodile tears for Hailey' s lost opportunity, then for my certain doom.

Through it all, I held firm. If they were so desperate to send a Covington, it would be me. The one they considered expendable. The one who wouldn't be missed as much.

The irony was, I was genuinely terrified. But the thought of living the life Ethan had planned for me, a life of quiet humiliation and deceit, was infinitely worse.