“I offered you more than enough money. Why are you turning me down?”
“More than enough money.”
Those words again.
Just like back then,
when Clark Sanchez wasn't yet Harbor City's richest man, just a fisherman's son.
He was so poor his clothes had faded white, and he knelt in front of me to propose.
“Vera, I love you. Say yes?”
“I'll marry you twice in this lifetime.”
“The first time as Clark Sanchez with nothing to his name. And the second time, as the richest man in Harbor City.”
His words hadn't been what moved me.
Back then, I wasn't Harbor City's most successful, most talked-about lawyer.
I was just an ordinary girl visiting family back home.
But I had never seen a man with eyes as beautiful as Clark Sanchez's.
Never seen a man look at me with that kind of searing love.
I nodded, softly, and married him.
Then, the second year after he became the richest man in Harbor City, he pinned the girl we'd been sponsoring beneath him.
The next day, he told me like it was nothing.
“That wedding I was planning for you? I'm doing it with Rachel instead.”
“She's been throwing fits. Hard to manage.”
“Relax—I'm not filing any paperwork with her. It's just a ceremony. You're still my wife.”
He talked about cheating and marrying his mistress the way someone might mention grabbing dinner with friends.
Completely ignoring my bloodshot eyes, the tears I couldn't hold back.
“Don't talk to me about promises.”
“The richest man's wedding—that just means I've got money now, right? I already gave you more than enough!”
But Clark never understood. I had never cared about his money.
The memory broke off. I didn't speak.
Instead, I wrote on the paper:
“In the past three years, you've held a wedding with Miss Summers every single year, and every single year you've jilted her at the altar.”
“You're too much trouble. It would damage my reputation. I'm not taking your case.”
Clark's brows knotted into a hard line, as if he'd noticed something, and he stared straight at me.
I didn't flinch. I met his gaze and held it.
Before he could say anything, a wail came from behind us.
“Clark!”
A woman in a wedding dress stood in the doorway.
Rachel Summers.
She had long since shed the shy, awkward look she'd worn when she first came into our home, when Clark and I were still sponsoring her.
What had grown back in its place was something sharper—seductive, striking.
The moment she saw Clark, she broke down, voice thick with grievance.
“You promised you'd go through with the ceremony this time! Why did you run again?”
Clark sat across from me, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose in slow, rhythmic irritation, too impatient to explain.
“Rachel, how many times do I have to tell you?”
“Every wedding I held with you was bait. To make Vera come back.”
Rachel's expression cracked.
“You're still hung up on her? You told me you loved me!”
“You've held three weddings with me, and she hasn't shown up once!”
“She doesn't care who you marry anymore. Why can't you just be with me?!”
Clark was quiet. When he finally spoke, it sounded less like an answer to Rachel than something he was telling himself.
“She cares. She's just being stubborn.”
I almost laughed.
Back when he was so certain I'd come crawling back within three days,
Clark hadn't worn this silence. He'd worn a smirk, the expression of a man with a winning hand, amused to see what little splash I could make.
He'd been so sure—I'd followed him since I was eighteen, and I would never dare leave.
So even later, when Rachel destroyed my grandmother's bracelet right in front of him and accused me of framing her,
and I had no choice but to go back to Clark within three days,
he didn't even ask me what had happened.
