Chapter 2

2.

Vanessa put down her fork and knife and stood up. She didn't want to hear another word of these hollow lies.

Seeing her rise, Benedict quickly got up with her, signing to ask what was wrong.

Vanessa shook her head and spoke softly―she knew he could read lips.

"I'm tired. I want to go home and rest."

She didn't wait for Benedict's response and walked straight out of the private room.

Stepping onto Sixth Avenue, Vanessa looked up. On the giant digital screen across the street in Times Square, the video of Benedict proposing to her was still playing on a loop.

"Vanessa Hayes, marry me!"―those words were plastered boldly across the center of the screen.

Tourists passing by were stopping to look up at the screen, sighing with envy.

"Oh my god, I heard that Mr. Vanderbilt's girlfriend is deaf. So when he proposed, he rented out the biggest screen in all of Times Square just so she could clearly see the words 'Marry Me.' After she said yes, he kept the video running for an entire month so the whole world could witness it."

"That man must love his girlfriend so much. He's going to be the perfect husband."

As the subject of all this talk, Vanessa just curled her lips in a sardonic smile.

Just one week ago, she would have reacted exactly like these strangers―believing wholeheartedly in Benedict's love, thinking he would be a wonderful husband.

She had grown up bouncing between foster homes. At the age of nine, a severe fever and medical negligence had cost her her hearing permanently.

From that point on, she became the target of relentless bullying at school.

Day after day of cruelty made her build high walls around her heart, sealing herself firmly inside.

That was when Benedict appeared. He fell for her at first sight and pursued her with a textbook example of relentless passion.

But she had seen these kinds of performances many times before. He confessed his feelings ninety-nine times, and she rejected him ninety-nine times.

Until that day. They were inspecting a construction site downtown together when the scaffolding suddenly collapsed. Without a moment's hesitation, he shielded her with his own body. A steel rebar pierced straight through his shoulder blade, yet he held his protective position, not moving an inch.

When he woke up in the hospital, still extremely weak, the very first thing he did was struggle to make a single sign.

"You're safe... thank god."

It was then that she realized, just to be able to truly communicate with her, he had hired the best teacher and spent three months in intensive American Sign Language training.

The walls around her heart cracked open for him in that moment.

Later, the wound left a permanent, circular brown scar.

Every time she saw that scar, her heart would flutter uncontrollably.

For the five years they were together, he was so good to her it was beyond reproach, making her feel his sincerity with absolute certainty.

Even when the elder members of the Vanderbilt family objected in every way possible, he still defied the immense pressure and proposed to her.

So that she could hear Benedict say "I do" with her own ears at the wedding, and to spare him from being torn between his family and her, she had risked the possibility of dying on the operating table and flown to Switzerland for the most advanced experimental hearing restoration treatment.

God must have been looking out for her. The surgery was a success.

She planned to surprise Benedict on their wedding day, so she kept the fact that her hearing had returned a secret.

She had fantasized about it more times than she could count―how overjoyed Benedict would be when he found out she could hear at the ceremony.

But the last thing she ever expected was that on the day she returned from Europe, she would overhear Benedict on the phone with his female assistant. The two of them were flirting, completely unrestrained and explicit beyond belief.

That was when Vanessa realized the truth. He had been messing around with his assistant behind her back for a long time.

Their affair had been going on for an entire year, and she had been completely in the dark!

A violent pain tore through her heart. She crouched down, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

Benedict's dismissive word from the private room echoed over and over in her head. "Keeping her."

Even though they were about to get married, he had absolutely no intention of ending that affair.

Did Benedict think that just because she couldn't hear, he could fool her for a lifetime?

The cold winter wind sliced through the collar of her coat. The chill seeped deep into her bones, but her mind only grew clearer.

She would show Benedict with hard facts that lies always get exposed in the end.

And she, Vanessa Hayes, would never tolerate betrayal.