1.

There was a strange energy in the courtyard of Radford House today. A beautiful, formal setup had been arranged in the mansion’s sprawling open-air space. The suitor's family had arrived to meet the daughter of the house.

They were being treated with the utmost hospitality, but all the color had drained from the young man’s face. Kian, 28, sat with his head bowed, a cup of spiced tea held loosely in his hand.

The girl’s mother, Chloe, looked at him with concern. “Kian, dear, you haven’t touched your tea. Should I have them make you some coffee? Or perhaps something cold?”

Kian managed a tight, artificial smile and shook his head without looking at her.

Beside him, his grandmother, Susan, let out a soft laugh. “Please forgive him,” she said. “My grandson is a little on the shy side.”

Chloe smiled back warmly. “Oh, that won’t do! Our Astell is quite shy herself, but I’m sure she’s more talkative than her future son-in-law.”

Laughter echoed through the courtyard from both families, and Kian’s expression soured. He leaned in and whispered harshly into his grandmother’s ear. “You’d better be listening to me, old woman. If you try to force my hand here, I swear I’ll drive my car off a bridge.”

Susan grabbed his face, turning it forward as she whispered back, her voice like steel. “And if you refuse, I will donate the entire estate to charity. Choose wisely, my darling boy.”

Staring at a fly floating on the surface of his tea, Kian muttered, “If I didn’t need the money, I’d never have agreed to be the clown in this circus.”

As he set the cup down on the table, Kian’s gaze drifted toward the house. Chloe was walking out, leading her only daughter, Astell. Kian was about to scowl and look away, the same way he’d dismissed a dozen other girls before. But then he saw her face, and his world tilted on its axis. He felt as though he were caught in a dream—whether it was good or bad, he couldn’t tell.

That girl, that face… it pulled him somewhere far away. So far that the ground beneath his feet felt unsteady. He was thrown back five years, to a single night when his life had been on the verge of complete annihilation. He remembered every detail of that night, and he remembered that face. Kian had never been able to forget that face. The reason why? He had no idea.

***

Five years earlier

It must have been around eleven o’clock at night. A black car tore down the road, sending up walls of rainwater that had collected along the curbs.

The crack of lightning had ceased, but the torrential downpour was relentless. Raindrops hammered against the windshield like bullets, yet the man inside seemed immune to the storm’s fury. That man was Kian. Kian S. Radford. And at that moment, he was the definition of reckless.

The reason was the bottle of liquor pressed against his chest, from which he took long, periodic swigs. The corners of his eyes were bloodshot, as if from a deep, invisible wound. At 23, Kian was devastatingly handsome, but he had ignored the buzzing of the phone on the passenger seat a dozen times.

He lifted the bottle for another drink, his intoxicated gaze fixed on the road ahead. The car was still flying, as if he’d set out tonight with the intention of spilling blood. The windshield wiper swept across the glass, and in that brief, clear moment, his drunken, dancing eyes froze.

A girl. No, not a girl—a madwoman, standing in the middle of the road in this deluge, waving her arms in the air, trying to flag down a ride.

Kian lowered the bottle, squinting at the figure in the bright red suit. “Is she trying to get herself killed, too?” he muttered. “Should I just run her over?”

Even as he said it, he was already turning the steering wheel to change course. He was just starting to veer left onto a side street when the girl in red sprinted directly in front of his car. His hands yanked the wheel hard. He swore viciously and slammed on the brakes.

The car skidded to a halt inches from the divider, the near-miss shocking the alcohol right out of his system. Before he could even process what had happened, the girl’s hands were on his window, her fists beating against the glass in a desperate frenzy.

Without a second thought, Kian lowered the window an inch. Drenched from head to toe, the girl was sobbing. “Please… please help me! I have to get somewhere. You… you have to please, help me.”

In his drunken state, his eyes could have wandered anywhere, especially when the girl’s red tunic with its intricate white embroidery was soaked through, clinging to her body. But Kian’s gaze went straight to her eyes, which were swollen and bloodshot from crying.

He gestured to the other side of the car. She ran around and collapsed into the passenger seat. Water streamed from her body, ruining the upholstery, but only Kian seemed to notice or care.

Starting the engine, Kian asked, “Where are you going?”

Her teeth chattering from the cold, her lips blue, she said, “Left from here! The highway is two kilometers away, then cross the flyover and take the exit on the left.”

Hearing the clicking of her teeth, Kian said, “There’s a jacket on the back seat. Put it on.”

He turned the heater on full blast and accelerated. Curled into a ball in her seat, the girl’s eyes never left the road. In her panic, she didn’t seem to have even heard him.

Kian gripped his head with one hand, driving fast, a wave of regret washing over him. He’d set out tonight to do one thing, and here he was doing something else entirely. Why does this always happen to me? It was a question he often asked himself.

Throughout the drive, the girl never took a proper look at Kian, and he never looked at her. He had a good reason. Her tears and her presence in this godforsaken storm were proof enough of how desperate she was. He’d been drinking, and the last thing he wanted was to make her feel the slightest bit more uncomfortable.

He closed his eyes for a second, offering a silent, desperate prayer for strength.