I watched them walk away hand in hand. I didn't try to stop them.
I was seventeen that year.
Grandfather passed over my uncles, each of them circling like wolves, and chose me as the one to be tested as heir.
But the very first project I landed was publicly exposed as plagiarized.
Claude, as the partnering party, mobilized his people and uncovered that someone had deliberately copied and leaked my proposal.
A knight in shining armor.
Cliché, but it worked.
I fell for him without a second thought. This composed, exacting, impossibly serious man.
We were cut from the same cloth. Both held to impossible standards, both shouldering the weight of an entire family's expectations. Everyone called us the golden couple.
When Claude's mother was driven to her death by his father's mistress, I weaponized public opinion to keep that woman from taking her place.
When his illegitimate half-siblings clawed away his shares, I helped him lock down impossible overseas clients and steady his footing.
When he was diagnosed with cancer and moved into the ICU, I handwrote him a letter every single day and found ways to smuggle each one inside.
I had always been stiff and reserved, but I scoured the internet for jokes, testing every one on myself first, only writing it into a letter once I was sure it could make me laugh out loud. All for one smile from him.
Three years of fighting cancer. A thousand letters.
Over a thousand times I stood outside his ICU room, stealing glimpses of him through the glass.
The day the cancer was declared fully eradicated, Claude wrote me back for the first time：
“My life has been still water. The only extraordinary thing in it is you.”
Side by side through life and death.
That certainly counted as extraordinary.
I believed that what we had needed no words. We were each other's chosen companion on the same road.
But then Isabel forced her way between us in the most brazen way imaginable.
The day he was discharged, Isabel crashed into his arms carrying a blaze of red roses, laughing as she said：“Hey, handsome. You ruined my flowers. You owe me.”
“These roses were meant for the love of my life. Now that they're in your hands, I guess that makes you the love of my life!”
He frowned, but he didn't push her away.
I didn't know then that when Isabel crashed into him, she crashed straight into his heart.
If I had, I would have thrown myself in front of him no matter what.
After that day, Isabel latched onto Claude and never let go.
Grand public confessions with poster boards. Extravagant displays of roses begging for his love.
At first Claude frowned and turned away.
Then, gradually, he started smiling whenever he saw her.
The last time, Isabel stood before the entire school and pulled out an enormous box.
Claude pressed his fingers to his brow, laughing in reluctant surrender：“Fine, fine. I give in. Just stop making a scene.”
But Isabel opened the box：“Give in to what? I'm just delivering your lunch. Pay up.”
Claude's face went red. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her：“Stop playing with me.”
Three months.
It took Isabel three months to accomplish what I couldn't in three years.
After that, she made a habit of flaunting their love right in front of me：“I heard you two go way back. Don't tell me you've been treating him like some cool, untouchable big brother this whole time?”
“Let me tell you something. That untouchable man you put on a pedestal? To me, he's just a toy.”
Claude didn't feel humiliated in the slightest. He just ruffled her hair, indulgent and adoring：
“Then you'd better play with me for the rest of your life.”
Isabel lifted her hand and slapped it against Claude's cheek, her eyes gleaming with triumph：“Do they know that their untouchable ice prince is nothing but a dog begging for scraps at my feet?”
Claude stared at the hickey on Isabel's neck, his grin wolfish and unchecked：“Then you'd better tell them this dog bites.”
Isabel swatted at Claude in mock outrage, and the two of them tangled together, kissing without the slightest regard for the fact that I was standing right there.
She lifted her gaze to me：“And what about you, his dear little sister? Word is you two fought side by side for years. Everyone in the circle thought you were a couple.”
