I woke up in a SVIP suite.

The first thing I saw was Julian. He looked like he hadn't slept in days.

He'd brought a small army of doctors and nurses. On the bedside table was a box of my favorite donuts.

It was like nothing had happened. Like we were back before Sheila, before the truth in the hallway.

Before all of it, Julian had been gentle with me, patient. That was how he'd fooled me so many times without me ever noticing.

When I didn't say anything, he picked up a chocolate one and held it to my lips, his expression almost guilty.

"Ada, sweetheart. I drove two hours to your favorite bakery. You need your strength back. Eat."

This was the eldest son of the Veil family, a celebrated musician with the entire industry hanging on his every word.

And he had driven two hours for a donut.

Maybe this was his version of an apology.

I took a bite. The chocolate hadn't even finished melting on my tongue when Julian's expression shifted.

He turned to the men standing along the wall.

"Get the hospital gown off her. Put her in performance wear."

I tried to sit up. "What are you doing? My injuries aren't —"

I might as well have argued with a wall. The two men stripped my gown off without so much as a glance at my face, zipped me into a black dress that didn't fit, and dropped me into a wheelchair.

I didn't find out where we were going until we got there.

It was the dress rehearsal for Sheila's graduation recital.

The musicians accompanying her were top-tier figures in classical music circles, and every single one of them was there as a favor to Julian.

I was a newly registered first-class violinist this year.

Julian shoved the violin into my hand and leaned close to my ear. "Ada, Sheila specifically told me she likes your accompaniment style. This is undoubtedly recognition of you. Play properly for her, and I will forgive you for hurting her in the name of the professor's wife."

Professor's wife?

Hurt her?

I laughed bitterly at myself. He had kept our relationship hidden all the time, as if acknowledging me as his fiancée was something shameful. How could I have done such a thing?

I mocked my own unrequited fondness.

Those donuts were merely a transaction to him.

Fortunately, my visa for the orchestra would arrive in a month.

My fractures still weren't fully healed. There was a bandage wrapped around my arm.

I tried my best, but I missed two notes during the accompaniment.

The second I finished, Sheila pounced. She pulled Julian aside, pointed at me across the room, and started to cry.

A minute later he came over, his face like a thundercloud.

"You know this piece backwards. How did you miss that many notes?"

"Were you doing it on purpose?"

"Is this how you repay my father for everything he's done for you? For my trust?"

The audience, the same people who had been clapping for me just minutes ago, started murmuring.

"The professor's right, you know. None of us caught it."

"So this 'world's number one violinist' title is a bit of a stretch, huh?"

Sheila pursed her lips and, in a voice just loud enough for me to hear, said: "Ada's mom used to work as the Veil family's housekeeper. They let her into the orchestra as a favor to Julian, you know…"

Heads nodded around her like the lights had just come on.

"Oh, that explains it. She got in through connections."

"A mother will do anything for her daughter."

"Honestly, you can see the bad intentions in her face."

My fingers tightened on my bow until my knuckles went white.

My mother had been a housekeeper.

But back then, if Mr. Veil hadn't seen my talent and insisted on keeping us, my mother would have been poached by royalty to run a manor. She had had better offers.

And when Mr. Veil got sick, when even Julian couldn't bring himself to risk donating a kidney to his own father, my mother walked into that operating room voluntarily. She was grateful that he had believed in me.

The night before her surgery, she had held my hand and made me promise:

[whatever happens, remember what the Veils have done for you.]

A surgical error left her in a vegetative state. She never woke up.

And now Sheila smiled brightly and added, "Ada's mom gave her body to Mr. Veil. That's how Ada ended up as first chair."

"Gave her body? What does that mean?"

Sheila giggled. "Oh, you know. The way women give their bodies."

A new wave of whispers swept through the room, this one with laughter under it.

I had let her insult me too many times. But my mother was another matter.

Rage I didn't know I had came out of my chest. I grabbed my violin and swung it at her.

"Shut your fucking mouth."

My arm gave out mid-swing. The violin never made contact. Julian caught it with a speed I hadn't expected.

The look on his face was the look you'd give a mortal enemy.

He closed the distance in two strides and slapped me across the face.

The whole room went silent. My eyes burned.

"My mother saved your father's life," I said, my voice scraping out of me. "And she's calling it whoring. How can you stand there and let her smear the woman who saved your family?"

Sheila clapped a hand to her mouth, the picture of innocence. "Ada, I said she donated her body! How can you twist my words like that?"

"I'm the professor's student. I would never, ever say anything bad about Mr. Veil."

"If you don't like me, just say so. You don't have to make things up."

Julian looked at me, my face still red from his hand, and his expression didn't soften an inch. If anything, it shifted into disgust.

"Did you hear her? She was stating a fact. You're so filthy you see filth in everything."

"I get it. You're petty. Yes, your mother saved my father. And yes, my father has supported you for years. Without us, you'd be exactly what your mother was: a housekeeper."

"And I've already agreed to marry you. Stop pushing."

Behind his back, Sheila let a small playful smile slip onto her face.

I looked at Julian, cold all the way through.

So this was what people sounded like when their hearts had changed.

If he had listened to a single word from anyone in that orchestra, he would have known what Sheila had really said.

He left me again.

They abandoned me on that wheelchair on the stage. The rehearsal ended, the musicians packed up and filed out, and nobody pushed me down off the platform.

Eventually Mr. Veil, Julian's father, noticed I hadn't come home and sent someone to find me.

The first thing I did once I could walk again was go to him.

"Mr. Veil, I want to call off the engagement."

Mr. Veil had always understood me. He had insisted Julian marry me because he respected the kind of person I was, and because of my music.

His face fell. He was quiet for a few seconds. Then he sighed.

"Will you think about it a little longer? For me?"

What I didn't know was that Julian had been at the door.

He caught me outside the study.

"Ada. What are you doing now? If you really wanted to end it, why bother telling my father? You know he'll just stop you."

"I know I've been distant the last few days. I'll fix it. But stop with the games."

I almost laughed. Games? I wasn't asking. I was informing.

He didn't give me the chance. He pulled a violin case from behind him and opened it.

My breath caught.

It was a Stradivarius. The Latin maker's label was visible through the f-hole.

"Be a good girl," he said. "Don't go after Sheila again, and everything you have stays yours. The engagement happens on schedule."

"After the engagement, I'll be the husband you deserve. I promise."

But Julian, I thought. It was already too late.

That night I went to see my mother in the hospital. I held her hand, still warm, still hers, even with the tubes, and I told her quietly:

"Mom. Even without the Veils, your daughter is going to prove she's the best violinist in the world. I'll earn enough to take care of you myself."

"Just the two of us. Like before. That's the best life there is."

When I left her room, I went to the university to collect some things I'd left in Julian's office.

I walked in on him playing a party game with his students.

Sheila had lost a round. The penalty was to kiss one of the male students.

She picked a guy at random. Just before her lips touched his, Julian pulled her away.

His possessiveness hadn't dulled at all.

When we were kids, he would get jealous if I talked to another boy for too long. Of course, watching the woman he actually loved about to kiss someone else, he couldn't take it.

What I didn't expect was to hear them, that same night, in our house.

Sheila's voice drifted through the wall in soft, hiccupping sobs.

"Julian, Professor, you're getting engaged. I love you, but I can't ruin another woman's marriage. I need to be with someone else, so I can forget you. Let me go."

I didn't hear Julian's reply.

What I did hear after that was the sound of kissing, and Sheila's breath catching.

I pressed my hands over my ears and ran to my own room. The sounds still found me through the door.

I didn't know how much time passed before the house phone rang. It was Julian, on the internal line.

"Ada. Bring up a women's robe. Don't let anyone notice."

"Julian. I don't have to clean up after the things you do behind my back."

He drew in a sharp breath. I could practically see his face going red.

"Ada. Remember your place. Until I marry you, you're still a housekeeper's daughter."

The last thread inside me snapped.

There was a time when I hadn't been able to see past the class difference between us. I hadn't been brave enough to stand next to him.

He was the one who had reached for my hand. “Who cares whose daughter you are? What we have is real. What do you care what they say?”

That man didn't exist anymore.

Lucky for me, neither did the part of me that had still been hoping.

I grabbed a robe out of the linen closet and threw it into his bedroom.

I turned to leave. He caught my wrist.

"Ada — wait. Listen to me. That was a moment of weakness. I lost control. I swear to you, after we're engaged, nothing like this will ever happen again."

His mouth was full of promises. His body had been full of betrayal.

I had run out of energy to grieve him.

I smiled at him instead. "Sounds good. As long as you're happy."

Julian, you have no idea.

There wasn't going to be an engagement. There wasn't going to be an after.

Back in my room, my phone buzzed with a message from Sheila.

“Ada, I didn't realize how loaded the professor's family was until I saw this house tonight. No wonder you won't let go of him, even though he loves me.”

I started a reply, then deleted it. I started another, and deleted that one too.

I had loved Julian because when we were small and someone took my banana, he had gotten it back for me.

Because others mocked my shabby old clothes, he wore the same outfit the next day to back me up.

Girls like Sheila would never understand. My love for him had nothing to do with his money or his name.

Another message came through.

[If you still don't believe how much the professor loves me, come to my concert tomorrow.]