Chapter 3
Yes, he had always wanted Katherine to stop clinging to every matter involving him and Samantha. He had wanted her to stop looking jealous, stop getting hurt, stop making him feel trapped between two women under the same roof.
When he married Katherine, he had not loved her.
He had proposed to her only to protect Samantha’s reputation.
Back then, Samantha had rejected him and accepted another man’s proposal. The whole city talked about it. People said she had been heartless, that she had thrown away the devotion of a man everyone envied. To preserve her image, Samantha had come to Nicholas in tears and said, “You’re a wonderful man, and I know I’ll never meet anyone who would love me the way you did. But gratitude isn’t love. I can’t marry you. Please, just help me this one last time.”
So he had.
He had turned around and proposed to Katherine, the one woman who had loved him openly and faithfully for years. To the world, it would look as though he and Samantha had simply each found different happiness. No betrayal. No scandal.
Katherine knew why he was marrying her.
She still said yes.
On their wedding night, she drank until she was barely conscious, and when he held her in his arms, he murmured another woman’s name.
Even so, she stayed.
Over the years, she gave him all the tenderness in her heart. Winter coats sewn by hand. Warm meals prepared with care. Lamps left burning late into the night. Gentle hands by his bedside when he was sick. A smile whenever he returned, no matter how late. Bit by bit, even the ice in a man’s heart would begin to soften under that kind of warmth.
And his had.