Chapter 1

It took Jasmine Chetney ten years to finally end up at Niall Shepherd's side. She'd gone from a nobody with a crush to the fiancée he was willing to say out loud. But two weeks before the wedding, she decided she was done. "Shawn, I'm volunteering for the Northwestern branch research institute. Put me on the list." Jasmine laid the signed application on the desk, her voice steady. Shawn Brown looked up from his computer, stunned. "Jasmine, I thought you and Niall were getting married next month. Everybody knows you came to this institute because of him. "You're finally about to get your happy ending, and now you want to transfer to the Northwestern branch?" Jasmine forced down the burn in her throat and stopped his well-meaning speech short. "Shawn, please just approve it." Everybody knew how much she'd put in over the last few years just to get to Niall's side. She gave up a promotion just to be his assistant. He hated having people in his space, but her patience was something else. She spent ten years getting him used to her being there, handling every little thing in his life, and running interference on any socializing he didn't want to deal with. To everyone else, Niall already treated Jasmine like she was special. This loner of a genius chief researcher actually remembered her birthday. When she got sick, he even broke his own rules and let her crash in the break room. What no one knew was that his "birthday gift" was just a hefty transfer into her account, picked solely so he wouldn't have to think about presents. And while she spent that night in the break room, sick and coughing with a fever, he stayed up working without checking on her. What no one knew, too, was that when Niall proposed to Jasmine, it wasn't because she'd finally won his heart. It was because of the kidnapping two months earlier. When the thugs took him, she went into the abandoned factory alone. To protect him, she made herself their new target. They kicked her to the ground, then brought their clubs down on her back, the blows landing with dull, heavy cracks. She didn't make a sound. Furious, they slammed her head into the cold concrete. Jasmine bought Niall time until the police finally arrived, but her injuries were so bad that she nearly didn't make it. When she finally woke up, Niall was sitting at her bedside, even though he was the kind of man who practically lived in his laboratory. Red veins webbed his eyes, and his voice was hoarse. "We should meet each other's parents and talk about setting a wedding date." Jasmine had been with him long enough to understand that look the moment she saw it. He wasn't marrying her out of love. He was marrying her out of guilt. And she accepted it anyway, hating herself for it. She let his guilt bind them together, selling herself for a chance to stay at his side. If Kendra Leavitt had never shown up, Jasmine could've kept lying to herself forever. When she stepped out of Shawn's office and through the administration building's doors, Jasmine noticed the massive outdoor screen streaming an international summit live. A small crowd had gathered beneath it, craning their necks and whispering excitedly. "Look! That's Mr. Shepherd with Ms. Leavitt!" "They look perfect together. I heard Mr. Shepherd personally supervised her paper this time." "Mr. Shepherd never gets close to anyone, and he still worked with her alone? Looks like even he melts when it comes to Ms. Leavitt." The chatter around Jasmine made her lightheaded. The whole research institute was buzzing about how perfect Kendra and Niall looked together. And yet, after all that time with him, hardly anyone even knew Jasmine was his fiancée. She pushed down the nausea and made herself look up anyway. In the close-up, Kendra leaned toward Niall and murmured something, and he bent his head to listen. There was almost no space between them, and he looked completely at ease. This was the same man who insisted on a ten-foot buffer zone even when Jasmine was just giving a report. And now he was letting Kendra stand close enough that her breath brushed his ear. Jasmine used to think no one could ever cross the line Niall had drawn. Then Kendra stepped in, and she finally saw a different side of him. She remembered the first time Niall mentioned Kendra. He'd been staring at a mess of tangled data, but there was the faintest smile on his face. "Kendra messed up the sample order again," he'd said. He didn't sound annoyed at all. If anything, he sounded helplessly fond. Kendra was the daughter of Niall's advisor, which basically made her "one of their own". That was the reason she'd ended up on his team. She was summer in human form, bright and wild. She'd pluck the pencil straight out of Niall's fingers and scribble formulas over his draft. She'd lift her drink to his mouth, even smack his shoulder when he was thinking, laughing without holding back. Niall went from tensing whenever Kendra got too close to letting her mess up his desk. He started drinking whatever she handed him, the kind he'd never touch otherwise. Sometimes when she joked, he'd watch her, and a small smile would spread across his face. Once in the laboratory, Kendra rose onto her tiptoes and kissed Niall on the cheek. Niall, who usually flinched from even Jasmine's accidental touch, just stood there with his ears burning and let her stay close. If Jasmine hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she never would've known. When Niall actually fell for someone, he turned into just another shy, fumbling guy, his heart tripping over itself and all his principles flying out the window. Jasmine went back to the place that was supposed to be their home, the one she'd decorated for their married life, a place Niall had never even set foot in. She opened the walk-in closet and took her clothes down one by one, folding each piece with careful, steady hands. All the home goods she'd picked out so carefully and all the simple, cozy days she'd imagined with him now felt like a joke at her expense. Jasmine gathered everything that was hers, packed it into shipping boxes with deliberate care, and scheduled a courier to pick them up at the door. As soon as she finished, her phone lit up. Her transfer to the Northwestern branch's research institute had been officially approved. Almost at the same moment, a text from Niall popped up. "Flight CA1837. We'll be landing in Jerrington City tomorrow at 8:00 pm. Come pick us up." Jasmine stared at the message for a long time, then calmly typed back, "I can't make it."