###Chapter 15
Piper never imagined I’d truly do it.
Disappear.
No farewell, no explanations-no wreckage for her to step over.
Piper thought she’d won.
With me gone, she could finally have Colin to herself, no obstacles, no shadows. Just her, that poisoned sweetness she wore like perfume and the “get-out-of-jail-free card” growing in her
stomach.
It wasn’t love, of course. It was leverage. And to her, that was better.
With a baby on the way, she’d worm her way into the Marks Family like rot in polished wood. Mr and Mrs. Marks might have hated me, but they worshipped bloodline-and Piper knew it.
The scandals online? The humiliation? The videos of her ripping my wedding dress to shreds?
Just noise to Piper.
n her eyes, time was water. And the internet… a sieve.
t would all pass. She just had to wait it out.
All that mattered was the ring. The title. The position.
And me?
Out of the picture.
She thought this was the end of the story. My retreat, her coronation.
But the story wasn’t over.
was just turning the page.
***
Colin, a storm barely contained, pacing like a caged animal. The others around him walking on glass.
Piper, coy and calculating, slinking over like she still had the right.
‘Colin,” she probably purred, voice syrupy and smug. “That sister of mine’s just like her mother. Always chasing money. She couldn’t milk you any further, so she ran to someone richer, didn’t she?”
She might’ve touched his arm. Played the part of the perfect consolation prize.
‘You’re lucky she’s gone. Now you’ve got me. Me and the baby. We’ll never leave you…”
And maybe-just maybe-she believed it.
Believed he’d forgotten me already. That men like Colin could only grieve so long before they needed a warm body to replace the cold absence.
But Colin didn’t react the way she wanted.
He shot up from the couch, fury carved into every sharp angle of his face.
“Anne isn’t like that,” he snapped. “She loved me. Not my title. Not my company. Me.”
For the first time, maybe ever, Piper saw the truth.
That no matter what she did, she would always be second-best.
Still, she tried to twist the knife.
“I saw her, Colin. Wrapped around some man in a hotel lobby. I saw them together-don’t tell me she’s innocent!”
But Colin had had enough.
“Shut up,” he hissed, fists clenched so tight the tendons popped. “You think I didn’t see through you? You think I don’t regret every second I spent believing you were something pure?”
Piper must’ve flinched-because just then, her backup arrived.
Her parents. My father.
The same man who threw me and my mother out like garbage, now groveling for the scraps left in my wake.
“Colin, please,” he said, all fake charm and oily words. “Don’t be angry. That girl-Annelise-she was never right for you. But our Piper? She’s everything. Gentle, smart, respectful-”
“Get. Out.”
Colin’s voice probably cracked like a whip. Rage, naked and unfiltered.
“If you hadn’t tossed her and her mother out a decade ago, maybe Annelise wouldn’t have grown up starving and afraid. Get your daughter, your lies and your cowardice out of my house.”
He was screaming at my father. But the words? He could’ve been screaming at a mirror. Because wasn’t he the same?
Ten years ago, my father chose another woman and left his family in the dust.
And ten years later, Colin did the same damn thing.
Different names. Same betrayal.
Same rot.
They were probably halfway down the marble hallway when Colin’s parents walked in. Mrs. Marks, all pearls and practiced concern, took Piper’s hand like it was made of spun glass. “Colin,” she said, pushing Piper’s fingers into his palm, “that girl abandoned you. Face it. She never loved you. But Piper’s carrying your child. Our grandchild. You owe them a wedding.”
His father, all sharp edges and authority, didn’t wait for permission.
“She’s the right choice. She’s suitable. Get married. Soon. We need the family name secure.”
And then the pressure built, from all sides.
The baby.
The reputation.
The public image.
Piper, blushing and bashful, playing innocence like a well-worn instrument, “I don’t care when we marry, Colin… I just want you to know, I’m not like her. I’d never leave you.”
He looked down at their joined hands.
But instead of warmth, all he felt was fire.
Burning.
Scorching.
Wrong.
“After everything that happened today,” he said coldly, “you want me to marry her tomorrow?”
7:38 pm
16
