When I woke up, the sunlight had just slipped past the window frame, and there was a dull ache at my temple.
“Who brought me back?” My voice was hoarse, dazed.
Amy, my assistant, walked in carrying some medicine. At my question, she couldn’t help but smile.
“It was Young Master Blake Hawthorne. He ran back from the garden carrying you in his arms. Scared the medical team half to death–they thought something serious had happened.”
I froze. “Blake?”
She nodded, still grinning. “Yes.”
The image of those frantic eyes from before I lost consciousness surfaced in my mind. My heart skipped.
“Did he… say anything?” I asked, trying to sound casual. “Did he seem worried?”
Amy tilted her head, thinking, then mimicked his usual drawl:
“It’s not like she’s gonna choose me as her fiancé anyway. Might as well hit the beach and drink. I’ll swing by for the engagement party though–got a hell of a wedding gift planned.”
My worry nearly turned into laughter.
Fiance? He was the fiancé.
What kind of “wedding gift” was he planning?
But just days later, all of high society was buzzing with a scandalous new romance:
“Word is, every morning, Adrian Whitmore sends a handpicked bouquet of roses to his lover Lilian’s private penthouse on the Upper East Side.”
“At the MoMA charity gala the other night, he bid seven figures on a painting she liked–paid on the spot without blinking.”
“And this morning, a paparazzi shot caught him carrying Lilian–sprained ankle and all–across the entire Central Park promenade. Said he didn’t let her take a single step.”
Amy was red with anger. “Miss, listen to this nonsense! Adrian was the one the old chairman personally chose to marry you! And now he’s flaunting his love for another woman? Isn’t this just a public slap in the face?!”
I stared out the window, watching white pear blossoms drift down in the breeze.
And then I laughed.
Yes, it was a slap in the face.
“Bring me the box from my bedroom.”
The one filled with everything I had ever kept about Adrian.
A handwritten card he had written that I still clip to the pages of my books.
The cufflinks he left in my apartment that have been lying in the bottom drawer.
A photo he took with an old camera and never sent me, which I secretly washed and pasted on the back cover of my journal.
An entire box full of love–quiet, desperate, one–sided.
“Have the car ready. I’m going to the Whitmore estate.”
But when I arrived, the butler greeted me with a bow.
12:18
Faked His Death. Married His Enemy. Now He’s Begging
0.7%
Chapter 2
Young
Master is but viewing
flowers in the countryside. with
Miss Lilian.”
I had the
hox brought into his
study. I WAS About to leave
When I heard
footsteps outside the door.
“Adrian.” came Lilian’s soft, sticky voice, “You’ve been SU sweet lately,
IEN
f Miss Evelyn
Finds out,
won’t she be upset?”
Adrian’s s low voice followed, gentle and cold.
“I made sure those stories got
out. I w
want her to
give up.”
“But
she
likes you
so much. She won’t let go
that easily.”
she “Even if insists choosing
red
on
me, I’ll
find a
I felt
like I’d been struck
by
lightning.
arrangement. way to cancel dress, I fell for you. You’re the only one I’ll ever marry.”
the
Lilian… the
night of t
I that
gala,
when
you
played
Liszt’s
Liebestraum
in that
Red dress… piano… Liebestraum?
That
night–it wasn’t
Lilian.
It
was me.
Iv
I had
just
was
I wore that red dress for
learned that piece and
already walking
my father’s
Birthday
Charity Dinner.
off. He
only
it on performed saw the
edge of
my
stage. Adrian dress
late–he must‘ arrived as I disappeared.
‘ve heard
the music
from outside,
, but by
the time
he came
in, I
He… mistook
me for
her?
I stumbled back
and knocked
over a glass
vase. It shattered on the
floor.
“Who’s
there?“.
Adrian pushed
the door
open.
When he
saw me, his
face
shifted, emotions.
flickering. “Why are
you here?”
A
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
