The Price of His Youth

On the night before the wedding, my fiancé’s female best friend, Marisol Vance, sent me a set of photos.

In the photos, she wore the custom haute couture wedding gown I had commissioned, leaning into Lucian Drake’s arms, with a caption meant to provoke me: [Borrowing your groom and your dress for a moment—after all, Lucian said I look better in this than you do.]

Soon after, my social feed was flooded with their so-called wedding photos.

In the images, the two of them staged a mock kiss, the caption reading: [More than friends, not quite lovers. If we had been born ten years earlier, there would have been no place for anyone else.]

I held up the photos and confronted Lucian, yet he played his game indifferently, then tossed his phone aside, his face full of impatience.

“I told you, it was just for fun—a way to commemorate our youth. Can you stop acting like a shrew? She was just diagnosed with depression. What’s wrong with me comforting her?”

Looking at his self-righteous expression, I smiled.

“Fine. Since your bond is so unbreakable, I won’t play the villain.”

That very night, I drafted a withdrawal agreement and halted the arrangements I had been making with a top-tier overseas medical team for his mother.

“The wedding is off. Don’t expect me to keep patching up your bankrupt company, and don’t expect me to save your mother either.

“Your youth is precious—I hope you can afford to pay the price to keep it so.”

On the night before the wedding, my fiancé’s female best friend, Marisol Vance, sent me a set of photos.

In the photos, she wore the custom haute couture wedding gown I had commissioned, leaning into Lucian Darke’s arms, with the provocative caption: [Borrowing your groom and your dress for a moment—after all, Lucian said I look better in this than you do.]

Soon after, my social feed was flooded with their wedding photos.

In the images, the two of them staged a mock kiss, the caption reading: [More than friends, not quite lovers. If we had been born ten years earlier, there would have been no place for anyone else.]

My fingers tightened around my phone, turning faintly pale, and before I could reply, the comment section was already filled with their mutual childhood friends egging them on:

[Marisol and Lucian are the perfect match!]

[This is what divine friendship looks like—I’m so jealous I could cry!]

[Evangeline won’t mind, right? Everyone knows Lucian is loyal above all.]

I grabbed my car keys and drove straight to Lucian’s apartment.

Along the way, fragments of the past seven years flickered through my mind.

I was the only daughter of Cross Industries, while Lucian had been nothing more than a poor boy whose ventures failed time and again.

For him, I had fallen out with my family, used the Cross’s resources to pave his way, and even called in personal connections to bring in a top overseas medical team