I stood motionless.

Thousands of versions of my face surrounded us.

Some were photographs published with interviews over the last few years.

He had collected them all.

Kept them in this room nobody knew about.

“Stella. I dreamed about you last night.”

His fingers hovered over my face in a picture.

His voice began to shake.

“You were covered in blood. You told me it hurt.”

I thought I had long since grown used to the memory of dying.

But being cared about made me weak.

“Lucian.”

I choked on his name.

“It hurt. It hurt so much.”

His pale mouth moved.

He looked at the photograph with a tenderness I had never seen.

And a little resentment.

“You asked me to avenge you. I did. Why are you unhappy?”

His nails dug into his palm.

“Heartless woman. You still protect him after dying. What makes him worth it?”

I shook my head, crying.

“I wasn’t protecting him.”

He couldn’t hear me.

Cold moonlight covered half his body.

He tipped back his head.

A tear slipped from his eye.

“What was I to you? A lunatic you couldn’t stand?”

He smiled.

His face was so beautiful it hurt.

“You said only marrying Julian would make you happy. I regret it. I should never have softened.”

His tone was gentle.

His eyes held a wild, lost obsession.

“I should have locked you up the night you came to me. Kept you beside me. Every day.”

He closed his eyes and leaned against my cold photograph.

“You think dying means I’ll let you go?”

His phone vibrated.

An overseas call.

“Mr. Blackwood. Forgive the interruption. It concerns the wedding settlement you prepared for Miss Whitmore.”

I looked up.

“Twenty-seven properties worldwide. Seven shopping centers. Cash and funds. The total value exceeds fourteen billion dollars.”

The voice continued.

“As instructed, these were established as her separate premarital assets. However, we discovered that before registering her marriage, she signed an agreement granting her husband access to all assets, acquired before or during the marriage.”

My spirit went cold.

“Julian Whitmore has just transferred part of the settlement into his own name.”

The caller kept speaking.

I couldn’t hear anything else.

Lucian had prepared a wedding settlement for me.

Fourteen billion dollars.

I stumbled backward.

Forced myself to think.

Scattered memories began fitting together.

A truth I had never suspected.

The week before Julian proposed, I attended a society wedding.

I sat in a far corner, turning a wineglass and watching the couple kiss and exchange vows.

The bride threw her bouquet.

After a scramble, it landed squarely in my lap.

Silence.

I was the ruthless young CEO everyone loved to fear.

And everyone knew I loved Julian.

The adopted girl in love with the son of the family that raised her.

Ungrateful.

Shameless.

Someone muttered, “How unlucky. Of all people. She’s never going to marry him.”

“Of course not. The Whitmores won’t invite that kind of scandal. And what does he get from marrying her? Marriages like this join fortunes. Today’s bride brings seventy million dollars in assets alone.”

Another voice.

“Everything Stella has already belongs to the Whitmores. Marrying her gets him nothing but ridicule.”

I listened without expression.

Raised my glass to the bride and groom.

Finished my wine.

And left with the flowers.

I walked for a long time with no destination.

Eventually, I bought a bag of beer at a convenience store.

Then I went to the abandoned orphanage.

The place Julian had taken me from.

I sat there and drank.

Bottle after bottle.

I never allowed myself to get drunk.

That night, I felt bad enough to make an exception.

I had already messaged my driver to collect me in two hours.

I remembered talking.

So much talking.

Only pieces remained.

“Please. I want to marry Julian. I want it so badly. Let me marry him. I’ll be happy. So happy.”

Then what?

Darkness.

Only the vague memory of falling into warm arms.

I struggled to open my eyes.

I thought I saw Julian.

But he wasn’t smiling.

His eyes were cold.

He seemed like a stranger.

“Julian. I know I’m dreaming.”

I reached for his face.

It felt so real.

“If it’s a dream, I can be a little braver. Can’t I?”

I put my arms around his neck, lifted myself, and kissed him.

He went still.

Then his hand cupped the back of my head.

He took control of the kiss and deepened it.

As though he meant to consume me.

I pressed against his chest, overwhelmed, trying weakly to push back.

At last, I whispered his name.

“Julian…”

Only then did he release me.

I collapsed against him, too drunk to open my eyes.

A hand stroked my hair.

“You love Julian that much?”

I smiled.

“Of course. I love you most. I don’t want to be your sister. I want to be your wife. Mrs. Whitmore.”

My voice grew smaller.

“But I have nothing to bring to the marriage. I can’t marry you.”

Tears fell.

“They say I’ll embarrass you. But I love you. I love you so much.”

The memory loosened its grip.

The man I had mistaken for Julian in that supposed dream became the man standing in front of me.

It hadn’t been a dream.

It hadn’t been Julian.

Lucian.

He had saved me.

Prepared the fortune that would fulfill my wish.

Loved me.

It had always been him.

“You idiot.”

I cried harder, sick with guilt and tenderness.

Other things became clear.

Julian’s sudden proposal.

Before registering the marriage, he had complained that Richard wanted him to sign a prenuptial agreement and insisted he would never agree.

Everything his was mine, he had said.

He even prepared a shared-property agreement for me to sign.

I had been so moved.

He had known about Lucian’s wedding gift.

Since dying, I had wondered why he bothered marrying me if he intended to kill me.

Now I understood.