Chapter 1
One week before I was supposed to pick up our marriage license, my fiancé, Ethan Lucien secretly changed his work transfer application.
His friend Ryan tried to talk some sense into him.
"Are you seriously switching your posting from Riverton City to Bellmere just because Claire Carter is there? Lydia Bennett already got an offer from Riverton City. Do you really think she'll just roll over and go along with this?
"You two went abroad together to study architecture, didn't you agree you'd move back home after graduation?"
Ethan shook his head gently.
"Lydia loves me. Once she finds out I changed the application, of course she'll come to Bellmere with me.
"Claire's all alone out there, struggling. The headquarters in Riverton City has plenty of designers, but Claire only has me."
I stopped dead in my tracks.
The office door was propped slightly open, and Ryan's voice drifted clearly through the gap.
"Ethan, if you're really dead set on doing this, the least you can do is give Lydia a heads-up first. What if she has no idea this is happening..."
Ethan cut him off.
"She won't shut up about moving back home. There's no way she won't find out I changed the application. If I tell her to her face, she'll absolutely blow a fuse."
Ryan clearly wasn't buying it.
"You know she'll get mad, and you're still hiding this from her?"
Ethan sighed. "I don't have a choice. Claire's all by herself in Bellmere. I can't just leave her high and dry over there."
He said it so matter-of-factly, as if this were the most logical decision in the world. As if there were never any other choice to begin with.
"Lydia gave up that incredibly important exchange program for me before. If I ask her to make one more sacrifice, she won't make a big deal out of it."
He brushed it off like it was nothing, as if my willingness to give things up for him had always been a given.
Ryan went quiet for a few seconds before asking, "You still carry a torch for Claire, don't you?"
Ethan didn't answer right away.
After a long pause, he finally spoke, his voice slow.
"I've never been able to let her go."
"What about Lydia, then? What is she to you?"
I was dying to hear the answer, too.
Ethan let out a long, heavy sigh. "She's the most suitable person to settle down with."
Suitable to settle down with.
Not the one who made his heart race.
Not the one he couldn't live without.
He hadn't said it outright, but it wasn't hard to figure out what he really meant.
Ryan clearly didn't agree with him.
"Ethan, you can't be that greedy. Keep this up, and you're gonna end up empty-handed."
Ethan let out a smug little laugh.
"You don't get it, Ryan. People want different things out of life. That's just how it is."
He leaned back in his chair, his tone lazy.
"Lydia's mellow and laid-back. She only cares about design. Petty jealousy doesn't even register with her. Claire's different. She's gentle and fragile. She needs someone to look out for her, like she's some delicate flower. Only when I'm with her do I feel like I'm actually needed."
He paused for a beat. "C'mon. Every guy wants both a stable life and that heart-fluttering rush. What's the conflict in that?"
"What about that promise you made back then? The one where you said you'd go back home and build the city's greatest landmarks? Does that still mean anything to you?"
Ethan's expression darkened. "If I can't even look out for the person right in front of me, what's the point of talking about landmarks? You have to make choices in life. I can't let Claire down again."
Ryan had nothing left to say.
I stood outside the door, having heard every word, and didn't bother going in.
I turned on my heel and headed back to my desk.
My mind drifted back to when I first met Ethan, at the opening ceremony for our university's architecture department.
He had been onstage as the freshman representative, with the hand-drawn city skyline he'd created displayed on the big screen behind him.
"I want to leave buildings I've designed in cities back home," he'd said.
Back then, there had been a bright, burning fire in his eyes.
That fire was what drew me to him. It was what made me work my way to his side, one small step at a time.
Later, we went to another country Westoria together and spent 5 years working at a firm there.
I'd always thought we were heading in the same direction.
Turns out, he'd changed course ages ago.
Every place he'd ever wanted to go had always been tied to Claire.
