Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Two days before the wedding, my chosen-sister best friend asked me to test my fiancé.
She didn’t believe a wealthy heir as notoriously unfaithful as Ethan Sterling could ever truly change his ways.
Her instincts had always been frighteningly accurate. So that night, I created an anonymous social media account, played the sweet innocent, and flirted with Ethan.
He crushed me without mercy.
Just when I was caught between laughter and tears, his reply took an unexpected turn:
[That’s enough of this boring little game. I’ll play along this far.]
[Other than you two, I don’t mess around with anyone else.]
[Little Mochi, next time you want to flirt with me, use your main account.]
Little Mochi was Sophie’s nickname.
I ran through those three messages in my head, and all the blood seemed to drain from my body.
Terrified, I closed my eyes and pinched myself.
Only after listening to my frantic heartbeat did I finally accept that this wasn’t a dream.
Ethan Sterling had cheated on me with Sophie Cross.
But…
How was that possible?
Hadn’t they always hated each other?
Sophie thought Ethan was beneath me—that he had nothing going for him except his money.
Ethan thought Sophie was an unbearable nuisance. Every time we argued, she was the one urging me to break up with him.
A video call dragged me out of my memories.
I stared blankly at the screen and declined it.
[Why didn’t you answer?]
Ethan asked.
[Don’t tell me you’re crying.]
[Come to Ravensmere Estate. I’ll make you feel better.]
[Don’t worry. Even after I get married, I’ll still treat you well.]
[Whatever Claire Bennett has, you can have.]
[Including me.]
I stared blankly at my phone, a high-pitched ringing in my ears that seemed to wrench my soul from my body.
Huge tears rolled down my cheeks.
Through the blur of them, I found myself remembering every detail from the first time I brought Sophie to the estate.
Without me telling her, she somehow knew exactly where my bedroom was—and where the dressing room was.
When I took her phone away, I discovered it had already connected to the Wi-Fi. She claimed she must have entered my social media password by accident.
Ethan Sterling’s Oriental Shorthair was strangely affectionate toward her. Sophie said it was probably because she carried my scent.
That cat was always cold toward me. Even with toys and treats, I could barely tempt it into coming near.
Yet the moment it met Sophie, it rolled over and exposed its belly.
Then there were the matching designer clothes, handbags, lipstick, and cosmetics at Sophie’s house.
Some of them had been given to her by Ethan, passed through me under the excuse that he was trying to win over his future mother-in-law.
The rest, Sophie claimed, had come from admirers.
I had excitedly demanded all the gossip, while she stammered and refused to say much.
I thought she was embarrassed.
Now I knew she’d simply been guilty.
Chapter 2
I also remembered the times we went shopping together and Sophie and Ethan had argued right in front of me over who got more of my attention.
A few times, their hostility had collapsed into awkward laughter before either of them could keep up the act.
And back then, I had been stupidly delighted, convinced their relationship was finally improving.
Those two had been using me as a prop for their flirting while fooling me into thinking I was an idiot.
My eyes were swollen from crying, and my head felt dizzy.
I grabbed my car keys and floored it to Ravensmere Estate.
Ravensmere was one of Ethan Sterling’s other residences, where he kept his groomsmen. They were throwing a party there tonight.
Ethan was there.
Sophie Cross had come too.
Through the iron fence, I saw them by the pool.
Ethan looked drunk. A faint flush colored his striking, sharp-featured face. His eyes were unfocused as he hooked an arm around Sophie’s neck and breathed into her ear.
Sophie pouted, then shoved him into the pool with an imperious little push.
The groomsmen surrounding them broke into knowing cheers.
Ethan surfaced, flung his wet hair back, and revealed a wicked grin. He caught Sophie by the ankle and dragged her into the water.
As she shrieked, he hauled her up and pinned her against the pool wall, kissing her with brutal possessiveness.
The crowd erupted.
Someone opened champagne. Someone else set off party poppers.
And someone joked about me.
“Ethan, you’re marrying Claire Bennett the day after tomorrow, and you’re already kissing her best friend tonight. Isn’t that a little much?”
“Haha! As long as you don’t tell and I don’t tell, Ethan could sleep with little Sophie right here tonight, and Claire would never find out.”
“There’s the Ethan Sterling I know again! You chased Claire like a kicked puppy before this, acting as if you couldn’t live without her. So it was all an act? I really thought you’d gone through that whole ‘a reformed playboy is worth his weight in gold’ routine from the movies!”
At last, Ethan ended the long kiss.
His voice was husky and magnetic, carrying a lazy, roguish edge.
“I do love Claire. She’s the only woman I want to marry. I can spoil her, love her, and grow old with her. But staying faithful for her at an age this young…”
Ethan laughed, loud and unrestrained, then planted an emphatic kiss on Sophie, who was draped over his shoulder and trying to catch her breath.
“I can’t do that.”
He carried Sophie out of the pool and set her down on a lounge chair.
Chapter 3
Someone hurried over and draped a bath towel around his shoulders. Ethan pulled it off and spread it over Sophie instead.
“Ethan, are you going back tonight?” someone asked.
Sophie lifted her reddened eyes to him.
Ethan crouched in front of her and affectionately pinched her cheek.
“The person Claire cares about most is little Sophie. I only come second. Now that Sophie’s upset, of course I’m staying to keep her company.”
He waved toward the people behind him. “Julian, message your sister-in-law. Tell her I’m drunk and sleeping here tonight. I’ll pick her up for the rehearsal tomorrow.”
Just as my tears finally broke free, my phone buzzed.
Julian had sent a message:
“Sis-in-law, Ethan’s drunk, so he won’t be coming home to keep you company tonight. Get some sleep. He’ll pick you up for the rehearsal tomorrow.”
I stood there for a long time.
I thought about everything.
My parents died when I was very young, and I was sent to live with my uncle’s family.
My cousin bullied me constantly, while my aunt pretended not to notice. Whenever I was too afraid to report him, Sophie did it for me. Whenever I was too afraid to fight back, Sophie stepped in and did that for me, too.
I was the clever one when it came to school.
Whenever I won prize money, I split it with her.
She was an only child and had never cared much for studying. During our senior year, I dragged her through every night’s lessons, chewing up the material and feeding it to her piece by piece.
I drilled it into her head. I painted her a future worth working toward.
In the end, we both got into college in Bellhaven.
During our sophomore year, I discovered that the boyfriend I was dating had been cheating on me.
The moment Sophie heard, she stormed straight to the hotel where the two of them were staying. She beat the cheating bastard and tore into the other woman.
The year we graduated, we rented a single room together, both of us lost and uncertain about the future.
Every night, sharing one blanket, we tirelessly brainwashed each other with promises that once one of us got rich, we’d support the other for life.
“Once we make it, we don’t forget each other.”
“First, we’ll split the bed. Later, we’ll keep a room for each other.”
We had grown up together. I had long since come to think of Sophie as family.
Maybe family wouldn’t love me unconditionally.
But I believed she would.
That was why, when I came face-to-face with her betrayal, I couldn’t even summon the strength to question her.
The girl who had once stood up for me and torn another woman apart had become my fiancé’s mistress.
All the trust I had given her had been repaid with merciless betrayal.
When I left Ravensmere Estate, the moon hung high overhead, and cold had seeped through my entire body.
I thought about my history with Ethan Sterling.
When I was twenty-five, after years of grinding myself down, I became the chief designer at Bellhaven’s leading wedding-design company.