I took out a loan to open a restaurant, and to my surprise, business exploded overnight.

Once I had a steady livelihood, my boyfriend proposed. But before the ring even slid onto my finger, a fire burned my restaurant to the ground.

I wasn't just left with nothing. I owed the bank a million dollars.

The double blow was too much. Grief pulled me under, and I lost consciousness.

When I opened my eyes again, everyone who should have been at my side was gone.

Carrying that grief, I went alone to find my fiancé, only to end up outside his private room, listening through the door as he talked with his friends. "Holy crap. Celine Henson's restaurant was burned down by her own father?"

"Yeah. But the idea was mine."

"Cecily's business tanked while Celine was doing great for herself. I was worried Celine's success would crush her, so I suggested her father torch the place."

"What? Why would Celine's father listen to you?"

"You all only know Cecily's the family's adopted daughter. What you don't know is that she's actually the daughter of Celine's father's first love. Love the man, love his child, I guess."

"Damn, Celine really got the worst of it. Last night you were sleeping with Cecily behind her back, and her father was out setting fire to her restaurant."

"You people are ruthless."

...

1

Standing outside the door, I felt the blood in my veins go solid, my mind a blank sheet.

The conversation inside blurred until I couldn't make it out, nothing left in my ears but a roaring.

So it was my father who set fire to my restaurant. A thing I could not have imagined even on my deathbed.

Just because Cecily was his first love's daughter, he'd let that fondness spill over onto her and destroyed my life's work.

But I was the one who was good to him. When he was sick and in the hospital, I was the one who nursed him through the whole thing.

My money was his money. If I went broke, he'd have nothing to spend either.

And still he'd rather be poor than watch my restaurant keep thriving. Was he that afraid of bruising Cecily's pride?

My hands clenched into fists, a surge of blood rising and jamming in my throat.

Before I could cough it out, another bombshell landed.

"I'm starting to regret it a little. Wasn't this too cruel to Celine?"

His friend shot him a look. "You mean because Cecily's carrying your kid?"

The words set the whole room buzzing with confusion again.

"What? I thought you two only slept together last night. She got pregnant that fast?"

"Damn, maybe they'd already been at it for a while. You've got some nerve."

"But I think there's something wrong with you. Why would you do all this?"

Guy Gilbert took out his wallet, opened it, and looked at the photo of the two of us.

The next second, he slid another photo out from behind ours.

It was him and Cecily. In the picture, they were still in college.

"I didn't even like Cecily at first. But one afternoon, out of nowhere, she just walked right into my heart."

"She fought off some thugs for me. Saved me a few times."

"Seeing her covered in cuts and bruises, I ached for her, and I ached even more for the kind of life she'd had."

"From then on, whenever I said I was going to see Celine, the truth was I just wanted to see her."

"I never thought she'd become my one regret. But I couldn't just abandon Celine either. So the two of us started a relationship in secret, one that could never see the light of day."

The whole room went quiet in an instant. No one said a word.

"Her father knew too. He never stopped us. Sometimes he'd even quietly help cover for us."

Hearing that, my heart felt like it was being carved apart, sliced away one thin strip at a time by the sharpest knife.

Only my back pressed hard against the wall kept me from crumpling.

I'd always sensed my father favored Cecily a little more, but because of what she'd been through, I gave way at every turn.

Because I honestly believed I was the luckier one. I had a boyfriend as good as Guy, and I had family who cared.

I never imagined that overhearing his secret would show me it was all fake, the happiness I'd been so proud of.

If that was how it was, then I wanted none of it.

"Are you people trying to drive Celine to her death?"

"Exactly! Burning down her restaurant is like cutting off every last way out for her."

Guy tried to say something, but nothing came out.

I fled in a mess. The moment I got out the door, my manager called.

"Boss, the restaurant's burned down. What do we do now?"

"A few of the staff want their wages and want to leave..."

Whatever came after that was probably cruel, and the manager stopped there, sparing me the rest.

Something bleak spread through my chest, and even my voice came out rough.

"You— tell them."

I fought to keep the sob down, refusing to let myself cry out loud.

"I'll get their wages into their hands soon. Tell them not to worry."

"Okay! And don't overthink this."

"Try to take it easy. You've got a long road ahead. You can build it all back up again."

I hung up and went to the burned-out restaurant.

A tear slid from my eye and struck the cold floor.

For that thriving place, I'd gone countless nights without sleep, reworking the design, studying the menu, refining the service.

Because I'm not rich. That one restaurant was all I had to make something of myself.

I never imagined a single fire set by my own father would burn away every hope I had.

That was when the phone rang.

"Celine, I heard you opened a seafood restaurant?"

"I'll come by and try it sometime..."

Hearing my childhood friend's voice, I couldn't hold the sob back.

"Celine, what's wrong? Is someone giving you trouble?"

Amos Sanchez tensed up at once.

"My restaurant— it's gone."

"There was a fire last night. It burned everything to the ground."

The man who was always calm and clear-headed came undone in a moment and wept along with me.

Just then my father walked over, and the instant I saw him, my heart went cold.

I slowly hung up and turned a chill stare straight at him.

Guilty conscience, maybe, because he couldn't meet my eyes. He only spoke in that concerned tone.

"Ah. The restaurant's gone now, so try to let it go."

"Listen to me. Don't run a restaurant anymore. Just go find a job somewhere."

I looked coldly at my father's kind, gentle face. The words sounded like concern, but really they were for Cecily's sake.

Afraid that if I opened another restaurant it would make Cecily jealous, so he wanted me working a regular job.

Did he not know how hard it is for someone without a good degree to find work?

I'd swallowed so much hardship, worked myself half to death to save money, taken the risk of a loan to open that restaurant.

And I never thought he would, for the sake of an outsider, set fire to his own daughter's restaurant.

Leaving me trapped with no way forward, and no way to go to the police over it either.

I wanted so badly to ask him to his face why he'd done this to me. Then I remembered what Guy had said in that private room, and it stopped being strange at all.

So Cecily was his first love's daughter, and he loved her enough to give up on his own flesh and blood.

No wonder he'd treated the two of us so differently since we were children, and used the same cold cruelty on my mother too.

My mother left this world carrying that regret to the end, because he'd said he had no time to see her one last time. He had to go bring Cecily home.

I should have hated him back then.

"Why won't you look at me?"

Now that I knew what he really was, I had no patience left to spare him.

Faced with my sudden coldness, my father lost his composure.

His eyes darted and hid, that same old panic of his.

"Celine, why are you asking me that? It wasn't— it wasn't me who set the fire at your restaurant."

I said nothing. I just closed in on him, cold and steady, backing him toward the restaurant door.

"You set that fire. Don't think I don't know."

It came out of me almost as a shout. No one alive could feel what I felt right then.

Because the person who'd destroyed me wasn't an enemy. It was my own father.

I couldn't accept it. I truly couldn't.

He froze, then lifted his head and looked at me with disbelief in his eyes, as though he'd never imagined I could know his secret.

My fists clenched hard, and the fury in my chest wouldn't let go.

"Dad, why would you do this to me?"

"I never understood your favoritism, not since I was little. I'm the one who's actually your daughter, but your heart always leaned toward her. You made me give in to her at every turn, forbade me from ever refusing her anything."

"She wanted my room, and you swapped it without so much as asking me. She ruined my homework, and before I could even scold her you'd jump in about how she had no parents, how pitiful she was, using my soft heart to help her dodge every consequence."

"I was naive enough to think you just felt sorry for where she came from. I never dreamed she was the daughter of your first love. The daughter of the woman who drove my mother to her grave."

"She's useless and helpless, so you burned down my restaurant to keep me from ever getting ahead. That's the only way she could feel at ease."

It came out of me almost as a shout, and the tears came down with every word.

His mouth opened. He wanted to explain something, but not one word would come.

I turned and walked toward the restaurant that had been burned to ash, my heart cut to pieces.

I thought of opening day, all of them standing at the door clapping and praising it, smiling as they wished my restaurant nothing but success.

I never imagined that inside they'd already been cursing it to die, praying it would never take off.

The human heart is the most sinister, treacherous thing in this world.

He came up behind me, looking at my back, and let out a sigh.

"Since you already know, can Dad just apologize to you?"

"If I hadn't burned your restaurant down, Cecily Finch would have been so jealous she'd have fallen into depression."

"She gets depressed, so you burn down my restaurant. Did you ever once think about me, losing everything? Did it cross your mind I might be crushed enough to kill myself?"

"You know I took out a loan to open that place!"

If he weren't my father, there was no way I'd let him off.

"Go. I don't want to see you."

But he didn't move to leave. There wasn't a trace of guilt on his face, only that torn look of a man with something more he wanted to say.

Looking at that face, I gave a cold laugh inside.

"Celine, there's something Dad wants to talk to you about."

I turned back and looked at him without a shred of feeling.

He hesitated, then chose to speak anyway.

"Cecily's leased a storefront to buy into one of those bubble-tea chains that's blowing up right now, but she's a little short on cash…"

"So…"

"So you came here to squeeze the last drop of blood out of me to help her?"

I cut him off and finished it for her.

No one knew how fiercely the anger was burning inside me.

"You destroyed my restaurant, you bankrupted me, and now I can't even pay my staff their wages. How favored does she have to be for you to stand here and ask me to help her?"

"I don't want to push this to the point of cutting family ties. Just go."

But right then, a voice reached our ears, disbelieving and guilt-stricken.

"Dad, is what my sister said true?"

"Did you really set fire to her restaurant when it was doing the best it ever had?"

The moment he saw Cecily, it was as if he were seeing his dead lover again, and he hurried over to stand at her side.

Guy glanced at me. Then he came over to comfort me.

"Celine, let it go, all right?"

"What's burned is burned. You can only accept it. He's your father, after all. Surely you're not going to cut him off over this."

"Why not?"

I turned my head and looked at him, and for reasons I couldn't name, I was so sick of that hypocritical face of his right now.

Cecily suddenly dropped to her knees in front of me with a thud.

"Sister, I'm sorry. I truly never thought Dad would do something like this for me!"