Chapter 3

OLIVIA

“I feel very ashamed of myself right now standing before you,” the bald young man said, looking down at his coffee mug.

“What exactly do you mean? I don’t think I have seen you before.”

I squinted my eyes properly at him, but I could not match his face to anyone I knew.

“My name is Marcus, and I am Mr. Stone’s special advisor. I am a sinner.” His words started to charge my bones with fear.

“Ethan? What have I done this time?”

“Not at all. I worked with his father, Mark.”

I started to entertain thoughts about what Ethan’s father would want from me. However, the man’s actions depicted guilt.

“What does he want from me?” I started to panic and ran out of breath. I looked around the coffee shop to see if anyone suspicious was lurking around.

“Listen to me, please,” he said, locking eyes with me. Tears started to trickle down his face. “Your father is a good man. All he ever desired was to see you happy, and he still desires it.”

“I know.”

I was sure of it more than anything else.

“Your father previously refused Mark’s offer to buy his startup some years back. But Mark was stubborn. He wouldn’t stop disturbing your father, and by that time, your father’s company was starting to become a threat to the Stone empire—” he paused, leaned forward to me, and rubbed his hand on his head, buried in shame.

“What happened next?”

I remained frozen where I was seated, wishing none of what I heard was true, but I could not deny the facts.

“—your father’s failed investment became an opportunity for Mark to finally gain control of your father’s company. Mark sent me to propose a relief package to your father, which he declined time after time. Ethan bought out all the potential investors in your father’s company and connived with loan banks to decline your father’s loan proposal. I was sent one more time to convince your father. He was such a strong and innocent man. He agreed this time when his company was on the verge of going bankrupt.”

“Ethan’s father did all this to my father?”

I could no longer control my tears as every word flowed out of my mouth. Bitterness filled my heart immediately.

“Mark was too cunning. He manipulated the documents to increase your father’s debt every month. Your father, having no means of meeting up, proposed you get married to Ethan as a proxy till he could repay his debt. But Mark knew your father was never going to meet up, so he planned to make a final proposition for your father’s company, to settle the debt once and for all. I don’t know if this will help you in regaining your father’s honor. I don’t know if this will ever make up for the sins I have committed as an accomplice to Mark, but I hope it brings comfort to your soul.”

I became shattered and devastated, trying to process everything Marcus had just said.

“Thank you, Marcus.”

Marcus was about to leave, and something clicked in my mind.

“Marcus,” I stopped him as he stood from his seat, “is my father aware of what you just told me?”

Marcus sucked in his lip and sighed. “I don’t know for sure, but he was fully aware of the kind of person your husband and his family are beforehand.”

I lost myself after everything I had heard, and I needed an explanation from my father. I wanted to hear it from him: why he would keep such a thing from me and keep me in the shadows like that. I needed an explanation for pushing me into the mouth of a beast without telling me everything.

I bet he had the slightest idea of what I went through at the hands of Ethan. I bet he knew how much time I spent soaking my pillows with tears. No, he did not, which was why I needed an explanation. He had to tell me why.

It was Saturday morning, and there was no better place my father would be than playing golf.

“Hey, Olivia,” he said with a grin, stretching out his arms wide to receive me in a hug.

I did not respond.

“What brings you here, baby girl?” He handed over his golf stick to one of his attendants as we strolled. “I have a surprise for you. I have been able to finally perfect my strikes. Quite an improvement, isn’t it?”

I remained silent still.

“Why is your face gloomy?” he asked as we stopped our stroll. He cupped my cheeks in his hands.

“Father, you knew about Ethan all along.”

He lowered his gaze from my eyes and retracted backward.

“I’m sorry. It was the only way to save you, to save us—”

“Don’t tell me the US! It was the only way to save yourself.”

“No, Olivia. Since your mother passed away, everything I have ever done was for you and you alone. Never for once have I thought of myself without thinking of what will become of you.”

“What will become of me? Father! Do you have the slightest idea of what I have been through in that prison you sent me? Do you even care if I was going to survive in there? You knew of Ethan’s cruelty, and yet the best way to save us was to send me in there.”

“Olivia, it is nothing like that. I have always loved you, and I still do—”

“Don’t tell me you love me. You love nobody but yourself. I sacrificed my dreams, my peace, my convenience just so you could be happy and fulfill yours, Father.”

I fell to my knees, weeping uncontrollably. My father knelt beside me and rested my head on his chest as I wept.

He patted my head with a trembling voice, and he said, “You are strong, my dear. Just hang in there till I make it better.”

In our broken moments, Julian, my father’s assistant, hurried to us, panting heavily.

“Sir, the investors have all pulled out of the company!”