The Boy Who Had Loved Me First

The next afternoon, I stopped by my office.

Funds were normal.

Accounts stable.

No unexplained transfers.

Good.

I gave my assistant temporary authority over several operational matters and told him I might be unavailable for a few days.

He did not ask why.

Smart boy.

Outside the building, I saw Ryan Sterling sitting on a stone bench, white earbuds in, phone in hand.

For a second, I was back in high school.

Ryan had been my only real academic rival.

Top of the year when I was second.

Second when I was top.

Clean handwriting. Quiet eyes. Too pretty for the debate team, too shy for the girls who chased him.

He looked up.

Our eyes met.

Then, unbelievably, he blushed.

“Clara,” he said.

“Ryan Sterling.”

He stood too quickly, almost dropping his phone.

“Do you want hot pot?”

I blinked.

That was his hello?

Then I laughed.

“Sure.”

We ended up at a small restaurant two blocks away.

For a while, we talked about school.

Teachers.

Exams.

The year he beat me in mathematics by two points and I refused to speak to him for a week.

“You were terrifying,” he said.

“You deserved it.”

“I did.”

He smiled into his water glass.

I mentioned an old rumor.

“I always thought you liked that girl from the next class. My friend had such a crush on you.”

Ryan’s ears turned red.

“She was my cousin.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t like her.”

Something in his tone made me pause.

Before I could ask, he looked straight at me.

“I liked you.”

The restaurant noise faded for half a second.

“What?”

“In high school,” he said, face fully red now. “For two years.”

I stared.

Ryan Sterling, the cool academic prince of our year, looked like he wanted to crawl under the table.

I should have found it funny.

Instead, some bruised part of me softened.

“What about now?” I asked lightly.

His fingers tightened around his cup.

“Now too.”

Four words.

No performance.

No practiced seduction.

No calculation.

Just an honest confession from a man whose eyes could barely stay on mine.

I looked away first.

“I have a fiancé.”

“I know.”

That surprised me.

Ryan took out his phone and showed me a blurry photo.

Ethan, arm around a woman outside a restaurant.

“Is this him?”

I studied the picture.

“Yes. How do you know him?”

Ryan’s expression cooled.

“He’s my sister’s boyfriend.”

Silence.

Not Jenna.

Not me.

Someone else.

“How long?” I asked.

“About six months.”

Six months.

Six months ago, Ethan’s profile picture was still us.

His phone password was still my birthday.

He still posted me—probably only visible to me, I realized now—and called me his future wife in captions.

Six months ago, I had been happiest.

I took a breath.

“Ryan, can you send me that photo?”

He did.

Then he hesitated.

“Are you safe?”

I laughed before I could stop myself.

“What a strange question.”

His eyes did not move from my face.

“Are you?”

I thought of Ethan’s dream-murmured Jenna.

The diamond necklace.

The apartment footage.

The list of $6.19 million.

“I will be,” I said.

Ryan did not look convinced.

We exchanged numbers before parting.

That evening, he texted.

Your fiancé changed targets again.

A photo followed.

Ethan at an outdoor barbecue restaurant, one arm around a young woman I did not know.

Then a location pin.

I drove there.

By the time I arrived, the sky had gone purple.

Ryan stood near the entrance, tall and still in a dark jacket.

He pointed discreetly.

Ethan sat at a corner table with the girl.

She was young.

Maybe a junior employee.

Her cheeks were flushed, but not with happiness.

Ethan kept pushing a glass toward her.

She shook her head.

He smiled.

Then gripped her wrist and made her drink.

My stomach turned.

Cheating was one thing.

This was uglier.

I recorded five minutes.

The girl tried to leave.

Ethan dragged her toward the parking lot.

She shoved him weakly.

He slapped her.

The sound vanished under the restaurant noise, but the red marks on her cheek appeared immediately.

No one else noticed.

Or no one wanted to.

I lowered my phone.

“Ryan,” I said.

He was already moving.

“Let her go,” Ryan said, voice low.

Ethan turned.

Ryan stood over him by several inches.

“She’s my sister.”

A lie.

A useful one.

Ethan’s face darkened, but he released her.

The girl stumbled back, crying, whispering thank you.

Ryan walked her to a taxi and made sure she left.

I sat at a nearby table, cap low, eating a skewer I did not taste.

My phone buzzed.

Ethan.

Still at work. Boss just let us out. What do you want for dinner, wife?

I stared at the word.

Wife.

Then I looked at the man who had just struck a drunk girl in a parking lot.

Some masks do not crack.

They rot from the inside.