Chapter 2

2.

Valerie walked away with her entourage.

The engine roar of her luxury car was piercing in the quiet night.

Her assistant sighed heavily beside me. "Mr. Thorne, why provoke Ms. Sinclair like this? You know she still holds a grudge against you."

"Sometimes, taking a step back makes life much easier."

I gave a bitter smile, picked up the ring by my feet, and dropped it into the trash can.

"Go ahead with your work, Evans. Don't worry about me."

Evans shook his head and left.

I caught a cab back to the Sinclair Estate alone. Valerie wasn't home.

I went into the walk-in closet, took off my expensive, tailored suit, and slipped into a plain white T-shirt.

I pulled out a suitcase and packed every single piece of my modest wardrobe into it.

When normal couples fight, they have to worry about divorce lawyers and asset division.

Yet the only tangible tie between Valerie and me had been that pair of rings.

Who could have guessed that the high-society wedding of the century had happened without a single legally binding marriage license?

I still remembered every word Valerie said on our wedding day.

"Logan, whether in my heart or on my legal documents, the only man who will ever exist is Graham Brooks. You shouldn't have married me."

Still, I had thrown myself like a moth to a flame down a road with no destination.

What else could I do? She was Valerie Sinclair, the girl who had dazzled my entire youth.

I once believed that with enough time, I could warm her cold heart. Instead, I had become nothing more than a disposable trophy husband in everyone's eyes.

When I wheeled my suitcase out the front door, the villa was dead silent.

It felt just like the rainy night when Grandpa Sinclair first brought me home.

Ten-year-old Valerie had stood on the second-floor landing, looking down at me with curious eyes.

Then, she had padded into the kitchen and brought me a warm glass of milk.

......

After leaving the Sinclair Estate, I booked a plane ticket.

Following a two-hour flight and a five-hour drive, I arrived at a sleepy coastal town down South.

People say that when you grow old, you always want to return to your roots.

When you have nowhere left to go, you crave the comfort of a quiet hometown just as much.

Even if there wasn't a single living relative waiting for me.

I rented a small cottage with a private yard.

The local southern drawl felt both strange and familiar. I was too young when I left, and I had spent my entire adult life in New York.

I had long forgotten how to speak the local dialect, and sometimes I could barely understand it.

Luckily, the cottage next door was rented by an outsider as well. She had just moved in a bit earlier than I did.

A few days ago, when I couldn't understand an elderly vendor at the fish market, she had stepped in and helped me out.

The next day, I baked some fresh pastries and brought them over to thank her.

Chatting with her, I learned she was an artist who came here seeking inspiration.

She looked like a fresh college graduate, radiating bright, youthful energy.

Far away from the cutthroat social circles of New York, in this unpretentious coastal town, I suddenly realized I was only twenty-seven.

Because I had spent so many years treading on thin ice at the Sinclair Estate, I had felt prematurely aged and weighed down.

I bought pots of blue hydrangeas and lisianthus from a local flower shop and planted them all over the yard.

Beside the flowerbed, I placed a small wooden rocking chair.

It was simple and rustic, but I was completely content.

The gardens at the Sinclair Estate were covered in red roses, Valerie's favorite. Inside the glass greenhouse stood a white grand piano and a wooden easel.

Valerie and Graham had designed that space together years ago, and no one was ever allowed to touch it.

Two years after Graham passed away, Grandpa had ordered the gardeners to pull up all the red roses.

When Valerie found out, she flew into an uncontrollable rage.

"If those roses are gone, I'm never stepping foot in this house again."

From that day on, no one dared bring it up, and the red roses and Graham became the absolute taboo of the Sinclair Estate.