"This is a major event for both our families. Making a scene only hurts you. People will just see a shrew."

"Charlotte. However jealous you are of your sister, have some dignity."

Connor's voice carried a faint threat.

His family stood behind him, frowning at me. Their disapproval was obvious.

All he wanted was to protect Sophia. He wanted everyone in this room to believe I was a jealous, unhinged woman.

I opened my mouth. Sophia's wounded eyes swept across the crowd, soft and pitiful.

The next second, her knees gave out. She dropped to the floor in front of me.

"Charlotte, it's all my fault. Hit me. Scream at me. Do whatever you want. Just don't say you don't want me anymore."

She was sobbing so hard her whole body shook.

Her hand was clamped tight around the hem of my dress. I couldn't step back. I couldn't pull away.

Connor tried to lift her up. She just kept shaking her head.

My mother walked toward Sophia, disbelief on her face.

"Sophia. Did you really do this to Charlotte?"

"I wasn't trying to take anything from her, Aunt Eleanor. You know I wouldn't dare. But things have gone this far now. And no one is more torn up about it than I am."

Sophia's eyes were red and swollen. Tears still streaked her face. She looked like a frightened doe.

My mother couldn't take it. She grabbed Sophia's shoulders.

"Why, Sophia?"

"Haven't we been good to you?"

Sophia's mother was my mother's sister. She'd married badly, lived miserably, and died young.

Sophia came to live with us when she was eight. From that day on, she had everything I had.

When she was thirteen, she got sick. My mother donated her own bone marrow.

Watching my mother's face, I couldn't hold it in.

"You weren't trying to take anything? Name one thing you haven't taken from me over the years."

Her private school tuition. Her allowance. Her summer in Paris. The rent on her Cambridge apartment.

"Enough!"

Connor half-pulled Sophia behind him, glaring at us both.

"How can you do this to her in front of all these people."

He'd dropped any pretense of respect. He looked my mother in the eye, cold.

"Mrs. Ashford. I understand you favor your own daughter. But don't take it this far."

"If I hadn't felt sorry for her, none of this would have—"

My mother stood there, trembling, her finger swinging back and forth between them.

"You... you two." She couldn't finish.

She swayed and crumpled to the floor.

"Mom? Mom. Someone call an ambulance."

I dropped to my knees beside her. My hands shook as I grabbed her wrist.

The crowd erupted into noise. Someone was calling 911.

Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

Her mouth was shaping the words I'm sorry.

Tears blurred my vision.

I'd been so wrong about everyone. How could she be the one apologizing.

I wiped my eyes and looked toward the door.

Please. Please hurry.

But there was no stretcher. There was Connor, holding Sophia in his arms, his face soft with concern as he whispered to her. "It's okay. None of this is your fault."

Once my mother was admitted, I drove back to the Back Bay townhouse alone.

I'd picked the dining table out myself. Connor had wanted something big. Easier for entertaining, he'd said.

In the closet was the nightgown for our wedding night. Tags still on it.

I looked away and headed upstairs. My suitcase was open on the bedroom floor. I started throwing things in. I moved fast. I couldn't slow down. The second I slowed down, every memory we'd made in this house would come flooding back.

Connor walked in.

"Charlotte."

I didn't stop.

He set a folder down in front of me.

"Equity transfer. Take a look."

"My family talked it over. This is what we're offering you. As compensation."

I glanced up at him.

"It's worth a billion."

He winced slightly, like the number physically hurt him to say.

"For Sophia. For your mother. I think this should cover it."

"And we're going to be husband and wife soon anyway. It makes sense to tie the two families together financially."

That stopped my hands.

He sighed.

"Sophia is not going to threaten your position. You're my wife. The only wife. Sophia, from now on, is just my sister-in-law."

"So stop coming at her."

When he said sister-in-law, his face twisted as if the word itself cost him.

Like treating Sophia as family was some great sacrifice on his part.

Honestly, I wasn't blind. I'd sensed something.

I pulled my phone out from under the pillow. I scrolled through my photos and opened one.

The Boston Symphony charity gala. Sophia in the Harris family's private box. A Cartier diamond necklace on her throat.

Connor had given me the exact same one.

"Five years. You gave me six gifts." I held his eyes. "Connor. Did she get every single one too?"

Connor glanced at the photo. He shrugged.

"Charlotte. It's our world. You know how it works. This kind of thing is normal."

He stood up. His voice was sharper now.

"Plenty of wives know how to handle this with grace. The fact that I'm offering you this much is more than most men in my position would."

I gave him a thin smile.

"Too bad. I'm not that kind of wife."

I remembered the day Connor came to ask my father for my hand. I'd snuck halfway down the staircase to listen.

He'd said, "I'll be good to Charlotte for the rest of her life."

I'd buried my face in my hands, spinning around my room.

But my father was gone.

And Connor wasn't the same guy either.

He watched me, and seemed surprised that my face hadn't softened.

"You really want to call it off?"

He let out a small laugh, like the idea was absurd.

"Come on. This marriage was arranged by your father before he died."

"He put your hand in mine. He wouldn't want you to call it off."

How dare he. How dare he bring up my father. How dare he use my father's name to force me into this disgusting marriage.

My fists clenched. My nails dug into my palms.

Something in me snapped. I grabbed a glass of water off the nightstand and threw it in his face.

"Get out."

"You don't get to say his name. You didn't do a single thing you promised him."

Connor's pupils contracted. He slowly wiped the water off his face.

"Charlotte." His voice softened.

"I said get out. Are you deaf?"

"You... fine."

"I'm not giving up."

Connor sighed like I was a child throwing a tantrum. But there was a calm certainty in his voice.

"You're upset right now. Take some time. You'll come around."

"I won't argue with you over such trivial matters."

I almost laughed in his face.

I grabbed the agreement and blocked his path. "Trivial matters You mean fucking my sister so well she couldn't get out of bed counts as trivial matters?"

I slapped the folder against his chest.

"Take your dirty money and get out."

The words were barely out of my mouth when Sophia burst in. Her voice cut the air like broken glass.

"I never meant for any of this to happen. Do you have to say it like that?"

I looked at her without expression. "There's no room in this house for an ungrateful slut."

The tears were already falling. Reflex, at this point.

She lunged forward and grabbed my arm. Her nails bit into my skin.

"Charlotte, please. I was wrong, I was wrong, please don't throw me out—"

The old me would have forgiven her. No matter what she'd done.

Not this time. I shook her off in disgust.

"Don't touch me. You're disgusting."

Connor's voice sharpened. "Charlotte. Enough."

Then I noticed something on Sophia's collar.

A fountain pen, clipped there.

My father's fountain pen.

He'd used that pen for over twenty years. The lacquer was worn down in places. He'd refused to replace it.

After he died, I'd wanted to keep it.

But I couldn't find it.

I'd thought I'd lost it during the move. I'd blamed myself for months.

Sophia had even helped me tear the whole house apart looking for it. She'd told me, "Let it go, Charlotte. Uncle wouldn't want you this upset over a pen."

She'd had it the whole time.

"Who said you could take that." My voice cracked. I pointed at the pen.

The tears were still on her face. But her hand had let go of my sleeve.

Her lips started to shake.

"I just wanted something to remember Dad by..." Her voice wavered.

Dad.

She'd lived in our house for fifteen years. Fifteen years, she'd called him "Mr. Ashford." Not once anything else.

People had whispered about it. They'd assumed my father must have been hard on her.

Now he was gone.

And here she was. Calling him Dad.

Connor stepped between us, blocking me from her.

"She grew up without a father." His voice softened again. "Charlotte. Can you ease up a little?"

I didn't have the energy to fight him. I just reached out. I just wanted the pen back.

Sophia flinched back.

But Connor was faster. He caught my wrist.

"I told you to stop."

Something inside me broke.

I screamed at him. "She wasn't even at the hospital the night he had the heart attack! She never called him Dad while he was alive. Where the hell does she get off taking what he left for me?"

The color drained from Sophia's face.

Connor threw my wrist away.

"She was with me that night. The entire night."

"Connor." Sophia's voice cracked.

She tried to clap a hand over his mouth.

She was too slow.