Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2 — Five Years Earlier
Ethan had met Hannah Parker at a university fundraiser in Chicago.
He was the son of one of the richest families in the city.
She was working the event with a catering tray in one hand and a scholarship textbook hidden under the service table.
He noticed the book before he noticed her face.
“Organic chemistry?” he asked.
She looked up.
“You sound surprised.”
“I’m impressed.”
“You should be. I’m passing.”
That was the first time she made him laugh without trying.
Hannah was everything Ethan’s world was not.
Warm.
Honest.
Unimpressed by money.
She worked two jobs, studied at night, sent money to a younger cousin, and still somehow remembered the names of every janitor, nurse, and cafeteria worker on campus.
Ethan fell in love with her before he was brave enough to admit it.
His mother hated her immediately.
Vivian Harrison had built her life around one rule: no one entered the Harrison family unless they could improve the family image.
Hannah did not come from money.
That made her dangerous.
“She wants access,” Vivian said.
“She wants nothing from us,” Ethan replied.
“That is what clever girls make men believe.”
His father was colder.
“She will ruin you.”
But Ethan stayed with Hannah.
For two years, he chose her.
Then the evidence appeared.
Messages.
Photos.
Bank transfers.
A hotel receipt.
Everything arranged neatly inside a folder on his father’s desk.
“She took money,” his father said. “She sold information about your family’s company. She has been seeing another man.”
Ethan remembered feeling the world narrow.
When Hannah came to the mansion that night, she was crying before he opened the door.
“They’re lying,” she said. “Ethan, please. I need to tell you something.”
He did not let her.
Pride did the talking.
Pain did the listening.
He told her he never wanted to see her again.
She whispered, “You know me.”
He answered, “No. I guess I never did.”
Then he closed the door.
The next morning, her number was disconnected.
Her apartment was empty.
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His parents told him she had taken a settlement and disappeared.
He believed them because believing them was easier than accepting that he had destroyed the only woman who ever truly loved him.
