Chapter 3

I had just gotten into a cab when a new message appeared on my phone.

Vivian had sent me a video.

A group of people were crowded around a table in a dim private bar, playing a card-passing game.

Each person had to hold the playing card against their lips with suction and pass it to the next person without using their hands.

By the time it reached Vivian, the card was damp and barely clinging to her mouth.

She leaned slowly toward Ryan.

The card slipped.

He could have pulled away.

He didn’t.

Their lips brushed.

The room erupted in whistles and suggestive cheers.

“Vivian wins again,” someone laughed. “Look at the way Ryan’s looking at her. You’d think those two were the ones getting married.”

The speaker was one of Ryan’s closest college friends.

Just last week, he had raised a glass at dinner and wished me a lifetime of happiness as the bride.

“They do look good together,” Ryan’s cousin chimed in.

“Honestly, when we were kids, I always thought Vivian would end up marrying him.”

Six months ago, when her own fiancé cheated on her, I had helped her gather evidence, find a lawyer, and sat beside her through an entire night while she fell apart.

Back then, she had hugged me and said I was the only woman she ever wanted to see Ryan marry.

“Ryan, are you seriously going through with this?” another man asked from the couch, his voice loose with alcohol.

“Amelia’s smart, sure, but she’s not from your world. She doesn’t have family connections, she doesn’t have money behind her, and she hates half the social events you people live for.”

The room gradually fell quiet.

Everyone looked at Ryan.

And from the other side of the screen, so did I.

He lazily swirled the whiskey in his glass and was silent for several seconds before saying,

“Marriage is marriage. At this point, does it really matter who I marry?”

The video ended there.

But his voice kept playing in my head.

Ryan and I had met at a national college programming competition.

I beat him in the finals and took first place.

After that, he pursued me relentlessly.

At first, I couldn’t believe the heir to the Prescott family would be interested in a girl who survived on scholarships and worked after class to pay her bills.

Then one night, a group of drunk men harassed me off campus.

Ryan stepped in and was shoved down a flight of stairs. He broke two ribs protecting me.

Sitting outside the ER, I had looked at him and asked,

“Was that really worth it?”

“It’s just dating. Wouldn’t it be the same with someone else?”

He had been pale with pain, but he still smiled.

“No.”

“I only want you. I only want a life with you.”

“No one else would be the same.”

Those words had felt heavy enough to last forever.

I carried them with me for ten years.

Ten years later, he was the one saying it didn’t matter who he married.

I calmly saved the video.

A second later, Vivian’s clumsy little test appeared.

“Oops, wrong chat. You didn’t see that, did you?”

My fingers had gone cold.

“What did you send?” I typed back.

The message box showed that she was typing for what felt like forever.

I didn’t get her reply until the cab stopped.

“Nothing.”

“Ryan’s drunk. I’m not bringing him back to the apartment tonight. No point waking you up.”

I stared at the message for a long time.

Then I replied with one word.

“Whatever.”

After that, I opened the Dublin transfer offer my company had sent six months ago.

It was a three-year assignment.

If I completed the systems overhaul for the European division, I would return home as Director of Technology.

Six months earlier, I had almost accepted.

But Ryan had wrapped his arms around me and said he didn’t want us living an ocean apart. He said he hated the idea of me carrying all the pressure of a promotion alone in another country.

He told me he would support my career.

He told me he could take care of me forever.

I had never planned to depend on him, but his reluctance to let me go had still moved me.

Originally, I had planned to visit the Dublin office while we were in Ireland for the wedding, just to see the opportunity I had given up.

Now there was no reason to leave that regret behind.

I tapped Accept Transfer.