This Isn’t Giving Up,It’s Choosing Myself

1: 1

Five years ago, someone slipped something into my drink. Russ Matthews came charging in to save me, and a pack of thugs shattered the bones in his hand.

After he left the hospital, he turned volatile, quick to rage.

Drowning in guilt, I endured every torment the Matthews family threw at me and took care of him for five years.

The day I found out I was pregnant, I pushed open the door of the racing club, my whole heart light with joy.

And then I heard him talking to his best friend.

"Russ, you're really going through with marrying Lily Henson? Everyone knows the one you've never gotten over is that ballet-dancer sister of hers."

Russ let out a low scoff, his voice thick with a bitterness and self-mockery he couldn't shake.

"I'm a cripple now, a man who can't even hold a steering wheel. How could I ever deserve someone as dazzling as Daniela?"

"Lily doesn't hold a candle to her sister. But the only way I get to watch her sister for the rest of my life is by marrying her into the family."

I clutched that ultrasound so hard my whole body shook.

But inside, the conversation kept going:

"That night the private room was too dark. I thought Daniela was the one who'd been drugged. That's why I threw myself in there like a madman."

"By the time the lights came on I realized I'd gotten the wrong person. And by then my hand was already ruined."

Russ, I've paid back what I owed you.

From this moment on, neither of us owes the other anything.

...

"How long have you been standing at the door? Eavesdropping out here, what does that look like?" Russ yanked the door open, his brow drawn tight.

He came forward, picked up the coat off the sofa without a second thought, and draped it over my trembling shoulders.

"Why didn't you put on another layer? Your hands are freezing."

He took my cold hand in his, easy and natural, but I pulled it back on reflex. His hand froze in midair, and his face darkened at once.

"Lily, what are you sulking about now?"

"So you heard all of it? Fine. If you're going to marry me, better you know exactly where you stand."

He looked at me, righteous, without a flicker of guilt.

"I charged into that room for Daniela. But this hand of mine, that really was ruined because of you."

Frederick Barnes, sensing the mood had gone wrong, cut in like a man trying to smooth things over.

"Come on, the wedding's practically here. Why hold on to all this? You're marrying the man. What's the point?"

"What young guy doesn't have a girl he wanted and couldn't have?"

I didn't look at Frederick. I only stared, without blinking, at Russ. At the face I had loved for five years.

That night five years ago, thugs had marked me and drugged me, and I'd huddled in a corner, out of hope.

It was Russ who kicked the door in like a man gone mad, rushing in with a bottle in his hand.

They brought that bottle down hard on his right hand.

Back then he was brilliant, high-spirited, with the whole world ahead of him.

And because of me, he gave up on himself.

For five years, so I could help his hand recover, I stayed up learning pressure-point massage until my own hands were rubbed raw and swollen.

I swallowed Marjorie's sneers and took on every filthy, backbreaking chore in the Matthews house.

I told myself this was gratitude. And love.

But now he'd told me to my face that the person he'd risked his life to save wasn't me at all.

"So you married me only so you'd have a proper reason to keep looking at my sister?" I heard my own voice, hoarse in a way that frightened me.

Russ frowned, as if my digging into it grated on him.

"Lily, what's the point of tying yourself in knots over this?"

"The wedding next month goes ahead as planned. I've given you the name of Mrs. Matthews. What more do you want?"

He paused, and a note of warning crept into his voice.

"Tomorrow is Daniela's lead ballet tour. You'd better behave and not go make a scene there."

"She's been under a lot of pressure lately. She can't take any provoking."

"If you dare do anything to upset her, I will not let it go."

I lowered my head and looked at my flat stomach.

A tiny life had just taken root there.

Half an hour ago, I'd still been thinking, my heart full, that this child would surely make up for the racing he could never do again.

That we could finally have a whole family.

But now this child, one who hadn't even had the chance to see the light, had become a joke from beginning to end.

I slid the ultrasound into my coat pocket. No hysterical shouting, none of the breakdown I might have expected.

I looked at Russ and spoke, calm.

"Call off the wedding, Russ. I don't owe you anything."

2: 2

The room went dead silent, quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

Russ stood frozen for a few seconds, then let out a cold little snort of a laugh.

"Lily, aren't you clever now? Learned how to play hard to get, have you?"

He took two long strides forward and clamped his hand around my wrist, gripping so hard he nearly crushed the bone.

"You don't owe me anything? What are you going to give me back for this hand?"

"Whatever your grievance is, you can say it at home!"

He ignored my struggling and dragged me out of the club by force, shoving me into the car.

The whole drive he drove fast, his face dark.

The car finally stopped in front of the Matthews mansion.

Russ hauled me into the living room, where Marjorie Matthews sat on the sofa drinking tea.

Seeing me dragged in, she set down her cup, gave me a glance, and spoke in her usual displeased tone.

"What is it this time? Moping around with that long face all day."

"Do you have any idea how much Russ has done for you?"

I lowered my eyes and didn't grovel out an apology the way I always had.

Before, I would have gone straight to the kitchen to make her the gourmet health tonic, just to buy one flicker of a kinder expression from her.

But now I only felt bone-tired.

Just then, light footsteps came down the stairs.

"Russ, Lily, what are you two fighting about?"

Daniela Baxter came down in a plain, elegant set of loungewear. Ever since Russ and I got together, she'd been free to come and go in this house as she pleased.

Her gaze landed on the display mannequin in the living room.

On it was the wedding dress I'd spent a month reworking through sleepless nights, designed stitch by stitch.

To suit Russ's taste, I'd revised the dress version after version.

Daniela walked up to it, and a flash of wonder crossed her eyes.

"What a beautiful dress. Lily, you're so gifted."

She turned her head and looked at Russ, the picture of pitiful longing.

Russ let go of my hand and walked straight to her side.

His voice softened at once.

"You like it?"

"Lily has a better figure than me. It'll look prettier on her than on me."

She paused, then added in a low murmur, almost to herself.

"I wonder if I'll ever get the chance to wear one, even once, in this life."

She bit her lower lip and glanced at me, timid.

"Lily, could I borrow it and try it on? Just for a moment. I won't ruin it."

My head snapped up, and I stared at her in disbelief.

I'd been taken in by the Kim family, and I'd walked on thin ice my whole life; she wanted to snatch everything of mine.

But a wedding dress is the most important thing a woman ever wears.

She knew that, and still chose to lift it away from me in that airy little voice.

I stepped forward and planted myself in front of the dress.

"No. This is my wedding dress."

Russ's face went cold in an instant. He came over and shoved me aside.

I stumbled back two steps, and the small of my back slammed hard into the edge of the coffee table. I cried out in pain.

His brow only creased for a second. He didn't spare me another glance, carefully sheltering Daniela instead.

"It's just a dress. Since when did you get so petty?"

I pressed a hand to my faintly aching belly and looked at the man I'd loved for five years.

He was like a blunt knife, slicing through my flesh a little at a time.

I drew a deep breath.

"Russ, if you let her put on this dress today, then we're finished. Completely."

Russ looked as though he'd heard the biggest joke in the world, his eyes full of mockery.

"Completely finished? Lily, who do you think you are?"

"Without me you wouldn't even have a place to live. What exactly do you think you're using to be finished with me?"

Daniela held the dress in her arms, a flicker of triumph in her eyes, though her face stayed soft and fragile.

"Russ, is this really okay? Lily looks so upset."

He turned, took down the dress I'd sewn through sleepless nights with his own hands, and tenderly held it out to her.

"Dani, go try it on. Don't mind her."

3: 3

Daniela nodded, took the dress in her arms, and went into the changing room.

It wasn't long before she came out wearing the gown that was supposed to be mine. The fit was uncanny, as if the dress had been made for her body from the start.

Russ looked at her, and there was no hiding the awe and infatuation in his eyes.

In that moment, I understood everything.

All those times he'd made me alter the sizing, it had never been to fit my body.

It had been adjusted, inch by inch, to Daniela's taste, and my stomach turned.

Daniela lifted the hem and took two steps toward me.

Then she cried out and pitched forward, straight into me.

Russ lunged over in long strides and caught her firmly against him, and his knee slammed hard into my stomach.

Pain tore through my belly, and I dropped to the floor.

Daniela leaned into Russ, clutching her ankle, eyes brimming with tears.

"Russ, it hurts so much. I stepped on the hem by accident."

He checked her foot anxiously, his whole face soft with worry for her.

When his gaze landed on my hand pressed to my stomach, his eyes went cold and contemptuous in an instant.

"Lily, you want his attention so badly you'll stoop to faking an illness now?"

"Because of you my hand can't drive a race car anymore, and now you want to hurt Dani's feet too, the feet she dances on?"

The pain left me unable to speak. All I could do was bite down hard on my lower lip.

A warm liquid trickled slowly down the inside of my thigh.

My eyes went wide with terror.

My baby.

"Russ, help me."

I reached toward him with everything I had, my voice so faint it was almost gone.

But Russ let out a cold laugh and kicked my outstretched hand away.

"Drop the pitiful act. Apologize to Dani right now, or you're not walking out that door today."

The cramping in my belly grew more violent, and my vision began to blur.

I looked at the disgust on his face, and at the quiet triumph in Daniela's eyes as she hid against his chest.

And all at once everything felt like it had lost its meaning.

I looked at them, my voice strangely calm.

"I'm sorry."

4: 4

He didn't spare me another glance. He turned, lifted Daniela into his arms, and carried her into the bedroom.

I stumbled out of the Matthews mansion.

The wind outside was bitter, cutting straight through my thin coat.

I hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of Downtown General Hospital.

"Please, hurry. I'm begging you."

The driver caught my ashen face and the blood on my skirt in the rearview mirror, and pressed the gas hard.

The whole way there I held my stomach with both hands, but the tears still fell, big and unstoppable.

At the hospital they rushed me straight into surgery.

The doctor examined me, then shook his head with regret.

"You came in too late. We'll have to do a D&C right away."

"Fine. Do it."

This child, never wanted to begin with, ended things in the most final way of all, severing the last thread of feeling I still had for Russ.

After the surgery I lay weak in the hospital bed, and the phone beside me suddenly buzzed like it had gone mad.

The nurse glanced at the screen. "Ms. Henson, it's someone named Russ Matthews. Do you want to take it?"

"Just hang up for me."

The phone went quiet for a few seconds, then rang again, furiously.

The nurse had no choice but to bring it over and put it on speaker.

Russ's enraged voice filled the whole room at once.

"Lily Henson! Think you've grown a spine, huh? Learned how to disappear on me."

"Where do you think you can run to? Without me, you can't even cover your mother's medical bills!"

"I'm warning you one last time. Get back to the Matthews house within half an hour and kneel down to apologize to Dani, or I cut off your mother's treatment."

"Russ," I said softly.

There was a cold snort on the other end. "What? Regret it now? Finally scared?"

"My mother died two weeks ago."

The line went silent for a moment.

"And I don't need you to cover the bills anymore." With that, I hung up.

After the surgery I was wheeled into a room.

The anesthesia hadn't worn off, and I was cold all over.

The door opened suddenly, and an old man with graying hair and a commanding presence walked to my bedside. Looking at my pale face, his eyes reddened at once.

"Miss, Chairman Henson sent us to bring you home."

I looked at him and managed a weak smile.

"Tom Fox, I can finally go home."

Years ago I was abducted and trafficked, passed from hand to hand until the Baxter family took me in.

The Baxters had their own daughter, Daniela, and for more than twenty years I lived like the family's maid.

Two weeks ago my adoptive mother died, and the Henson family finally found me.

I'd meant to wait until Russ finished his wedding, and then tell him all of it slowly.

But now there was no need.

An hour later, a private jet lifted off from Rivergate Airport, bound for Ashford City.