Scentless Begonia, Sleepless Love

“I thought you’d run away for good back then and would never come back!”

“How could she? Sure, she ran, but didn’t her dear mother still show up at the Carter family’s door demanding justice like a mistress’s mother?”

“Now that you mention it, I’d almost forgotten—don’t you and your mother always use your bodies to clear a path?”

“So who’s the new sugar daddy this time, letting you into a charity auction like this?”

“What’s she bidding for, anyway? Or is she auctioning herself?”

…

Laughter rippled through the room, each mocking jab prickling in my ears.

I casually yanked at the dessert table beside me. Glass platters shattered on the floor, making a few timid women shriek and fling themselves into their men’s arms.

“Olivia, aren’t they just telling the truth?”

“Struck a nerve?” Ethan stepped around the shards, stopping in front of me with a crooked smile.

“Wasn’t it you who came to my bed willingly all those years ago? How’s that any different from being paid?”

“I’ve never met another woman who could let go the way you do in bed. Your mother must’ve trained you well, hands-on.”

“If your mother had run a brothel, she’d have made a fortune.”

Every word out of his mouth was a knife, meant to slice at me and my mother.

Back then, he’d been drugged, and I’d been the only antidote. With the Bennett family already in trouble, my mother used that night to force the Carter family to marry me, securing their protection.

Rumor had it my mother was the one who’d spiked his drink—and I’d believed it too.

On Ethan’s wedding day, his beloved Sophia stormed off overseas in a fit of anger. That was when our decade-long saga of love and hate began.

Only later did I learn someone else had done the drugging.

I glanced at Sophia, standing beside him, as laughter rolled through the crowd.

“Seven years, Ethan, and you still can’t forget our night together?”

“Or is it that your white moonlight hasn’t been satisfying you in bed all these years?”

Sophia’s porcelain skin flushed scarlet, and the laughter around us died in an instant.

When it came to verbal sparring, Ethan had never beaten me in our last life. In this one, he still couldn’t.

His temper flared. A sharp slap landed on my cheek.

“Olivia, watch your filthy mouth!”

I laughed at the sound of it. He hadn’t changed at all—if it involved Sophia, he lost his mind completely.

“Ethan, don’t make a scene,” Sophia said gently. “It’s just a few words. I’m not upset.”

A few sentences from her, and the roaring lion went calm. She stepped forward with composed elegance to face me.

I had to admit—Sophia had skills. From a poor college student working as a tutor to the CEO’s executive assistant, her climb had been smooth.

But I couldn’t stand how smooth it had been.

“All these years by his side, and you’re still just a secretary?” I tilted my head. “Well, that’s on you.”

I stopped mid-sentence, letting the pause hang in the air. Ethan’s brows furrowed, warning and probing in his eyes.

Sophia’s panic was plain to see.

“Miss Reed, next time don’t buy your pills from that place,” I said smoothly. “They’re too strong—made Ethan so out of it he couldn’t even tell if the person was a man or a woman.”

“Otherwise, you’d already be Mrs. Carter today.”

Those few lines were enough to whip the room into a storm. Conversations rose into a frenzy.

After all, back then, the scandal of Ethan being drugged was second only to the uproar over him and his tutor, Sophia. She’d taken the Carter family’s payout and broken up with him.