Chapter 2

On Christian's birthday, we had agreed to celebrate together.

I spent weeks researching, ultimately booking a private mountaintop restaurant.

I baked a birthday cake from scratch.

I even wore the specific lingerie style he liked best.

From noon onward, I was counting down the hours until evening.

Yet when night finally fell, my phone buzzed with an incoming call.

"I'm sorry, Rosalie. Something came up at the office and I have to work late tonight. Go ahead and eat without me."

My fluttering heart plunged straight into an abyss.

Even so, I forced a smile into my voice and told him it was okay.

Worried that he would forget to eat while buried in work, I made him pasta for his birthday, packed it into a thermal container, and drove down to his corporate headquarters.

Yet the moment I pulled up to the front entrance, I saw him walking out side by side with Sierra.

They were laughing and chatting casually, debating which trendy new restaurant they should hit up for dinner.

As Sierra walked, she suddenly stumbled in her high heels.

Christian reacted with practiced instinct, catching her firmly by the waist.

Their eyes locked, and both broke into easy smiles.

Sierra looked up at him with sultry eyes, her hand resting against his tailored suit over his chest.

Christian raised an eyebrow playfully.

"Taking advantage of the situation, Rosalie?"

His words sounded teasing, but his arm tightened around her waist instead of pulling away.

I knew Christian far too well. The signs were impossible to miss—

The slight upturn of his lips, the fond indulgence in his expression, and the predatory, undisguised desire for Sierra flickering in his eyes.

When he finally caught sight of me standing a short distance away, his face instantly hardened, a brief flicker of guilt darting through his gaze.

Sierra saw me too. Instead of stepping back, she leaned in closer to him in open defiance.

Only then did Christian let go of her, putting a deliberate foot of distance between them.

Sierra pouted in annoyance, then suddenly strutted over toward me, raising her hand high in the air.

Traumatic memories rushed back in a violent flood.

My body instinctively flinched, shrinking away from the anticipated blow.

Instead, she burst out laughing.

That mocking laugh hit me harder than any physical slap ever could.

She sneered.

"Oh, Rosalie—

"You're still the same pathetic, low-class nobody you've always been."

In the end, they didn't go to that restaurant.

Sierra declared that seeing something repulsive had ruined her appetite.

Before leaving, she planted a deliberate kiss on Christian's cheek right in front of me, calling it his birthday present.

On the drive back home, Christian's expression was stormy.

The live comments flooded my vision in a frantic stream.

[Holy crap, does Rosalie have zero manners? Crashing Christian and Sierra's date out of nowhere like a lunatic.]

[Ugh, my favorite pairing just got ruined! Rosalie, please just disappear!]

[Anyone else feel like Sierra completely outclassed Rosalie just now? Seriously, what does Christian even see in her?]

After a long stretch of suffocating silence, Christian finally snapped.

"Why did you show up unannounced?"

I clenched my fingernails deep into my palms, fighting to keep my voice steady.

"I was worried you'd be hungry working late. I brought food."

"Next time, call me first. Don't just show up out of the blue."

A bitter laugh escaped my lips, slicing my heart open.

"Why? Are you afraid I'll catch you lying about working late again and ruin your date with Sierra?"

Christian slammed his foot on the brake, bringing the car to a screeching halt. He whipped his head around, his eyes blazing with fury.

"Who gave you permission to speak to me like that, Rosalie?!"

"The Knight Group just closed a massive deal with the Vance Corporation. Taking a business partner out to dinner counts as work!"

"Is that so?"

I pointed trembling fingers toward the back seat, which was completely filled with flowers. My voice shook violently.

"Then who sends a business partner nine hundred and ninety-nine red roses? Is that some kind of new corporate etiquette I've never heard of?"

Christian choked on his words for a second, his tone turning utterly frigid.

"Rosalie, can you stop throwing a tantrum? There is nothing going on between Sierra and me. We're just friends."

"How could the two of you ever be friends...?"

At a charity gala years ago, Sierra had deliberately shoved me down a grand staircase in front of high society.

That fall had killed my unborn child and damaged my body so severely that doctors told me I couldn't carry a pregnancy for at least five years.

Christian had gone completely feral back then, ready to destroy her.

Yet the Vance family had shielded her with high-powered lawyers and corporate leverage, threatening to pull out of vital joint ventures.

In the end, I had swallowed all my agony and signed off on dropping the charges just to ease the tension between the two powerful dynasties.

Back then, Christian had held me with bloodshot eyes, swearing to me that he would make her pay one day.

The physical trauma within my body hadn't even fully healed yet.

And here he was, calling Sierra Vance his "friend."

Knowing exactly what I was referring to, Christian let out an exhausted, impatient sigh.

"How much longer are you going to obsess over something so trivial?"

"Grow up, Rosalie. We're adults in the real world now. It's always better to have an ally than an enemy in high finance."

I stared blankly at his handsome, detached face.

It felt as though an invisible hand had wrapped around my heart, slowly and mercilessly squeezing the life out of it until it bled.

Faint memories drifted back from our high school days. Back then, if Sierra laid a finger on me, Christian would hunt her down the next day and make sure she suffered three times as much.

Even when his parents beat him black and blue with belts for tarnishing the family name, he had never backed down.

Battered and bruised, the young boy had gritted his teeth and sworn that anyone who dared hurt me was his mortal enemy.

That reckless, fiercely loyal boy slowly faded away in my memory.

My eyes burned with tears, blurring my vision.

I couldn't see the man in front of me clearly anymore.

And I could no longer see into his heart.