Page 15 of From Angel to Rogue (Four Foxes #6)

KATY

I was smoothing my hand over the skirt of my yellow Emilia Wickstead Elvita dress when Lan entered the room later that evening.

Instead of his usual dark jeans and low-effort T-shirt, Lan was dressed in long, tailored black slacks and a white button-down shirt with the top three buttons undone showing off his muscular chest.

He looked sexy.

More than sexy.

The smile on his lips and the glint in his brown eyes that lit upon seeing me only made him all the more handsome.

Gorgeous.

He was mine.

Mine.

Or was he hers?

The girl with perfect hair, perfect skin, and perfect body that stared at me in the mirror.

He was hers, right?

He belonged to her.

As long as she stayed this way, he would be hers.

Because the real girl inside couldn’t give him everything… all she would bring to the table was disappointment and resentment down the line.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered.

I knew. I’d spent hours trying to perfect my appearance. I needed to look perfect. Perfect.

I had no choice but to look perfect.

His calloused thumb glided softly along my cheek. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

Lan took my hand softly but not before giving me a sweet kiss as he led me out. I couldn’t even feel the warmth of his hold seep into my body because that was how cold I felt.

Instead of going through the main door like I had expected, Lan guided me out the back door, which led to acres of sprawling backyard with a pool and expansive garden shrouded in trees, shrubs, and modern plants.

I didn’t voice my question; instead, I followed him quietly, my eyes pinned on his tanned hand holding mine, wondering if they could just do something. I wondered if any second now his touch could caress my cold bones and make me feel warm again.

The halt of his footsteps snapped my eyes to the sight in front of me.

We were far down the path in a closed area between a beautiful patch of lawn surrounded by neatly kept shrubs and sycamore trees.

The entire area was lit up with hundreds and hundreds of tiny fairy lights like the stars had fallen upon them from the sky.

“Lan?” I forced a smile, adding lightness to my tone. “What’s all this?”

“A surprise for you,” he said, smiling at me over his shoulder. “Can you believe this little paradise exists in this stupid property? I stumbled upon it on a random Monday afternoon. Reminded me of the tree at the park we used to hang out all the time.”

He was right, it did look like that.

“And the lights?”

“Like I said, a surprise for you.” He tugged me closer, pulling me into his arms. “You’ve been working hard lately—I thought you could use a break.”

I nodded, leaning my head on his shoulder as a gentle breeze washed over our skin.

His lips brushed a soft kiss on my forehead. “Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, and his eyes flitted away. “So there’s one more thing,” he said in a shaky tone before a swallow worked down the length of his throat.

A furrow creased between my brows when his arms left mine, and Lan stepped in front of me.

“Katy,” he started, his eyes melting as they met mine.

“I love you, fuck. I more than love you. Love everything about you,” he huffed, running a hand through his hair.

“Fuck, I’m not really good at things like this.

Not that I’ve done this before, but here I go.

” He gracefully folded himself down on his one knee and suddenly, my heart hammered inside my rib cage.

He can’t be…he couldn’t possibly be, right?

“I don’t know how to say pretty words, angel,” Lan said softly. “I just know I love you more than anything in this world and want to make you mine. Please, do me the honor of marrying me, Katy Evans, and making me the happiest man on the planet?”

He poked around his pocket and dug out a red box and pulled out a sparkling ring.

His gaze bore into me with so much love as he held it up.

“I know it’s quite small.” A slight quiver laced his tone, which was brimming with hope.

“But I wanted to buy you something with my own money rather than using my family’s.

We can of course trade for a bigger one when I make more. ”

There he was, the man of my dreams, on his knee for me.

Making a proposal that I would’ve said yes a thousand times.

I watched as he slipped the ring carefully on my cold ring finger.

A ring that fit me perfectly.

The diamond, like a drop of sparkle in a clear midnight lake. The gold band wrapping around it was so thin that you could hardly see it like a dainty strand of lace.

It was so delicate and soft, like the girl I once was.

It was so breathtakingly beautiful that I wanted to wear it for the rest of my life and proudly show it off as his woman.

But now? Right now? I couldn’t possibly marry him right now even though it was what I wanted to do. Because marriage was different.

Marriage meant I couldn’t escape.

Marriage meant Lan would see right through me.

Marriage meant he would know… he would know that I can’t give him what any other girl could.

Children.

I needed time—time to bide.

Time to solidify us.

Time to make him see that I could fill every single one of his other needs.

Time to make him see I was a worthy woman for him despite my weakness.

“Lan.” A wide smile faked my lips. “You can’t possibly be serious, right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because…” I laughed dryly. “Because we can’t get married now, Lan.”

“You’re…” He paused like he couldn’t believe it. “You’re saying no?”

“Not exactly,” I reply in a much brighter tone, given the thick tension swirling between us. “I’m just saying not now. We are still so young, Lan. I just turned twenty, and we have an album coming out in weeks and a world tour after that. We don’t have the time right now.”

Lan frowned. “Katy, when have our jobs ever come between us?”

“It hasn’t, and it’s not. That’s not what I’m trying to say,” I firmed with an air of ignorance. “I’m just saying I don’t want to get married now.”

His face fell as he rose to his feet. “You don’t want to marry me?”

“Hmm,” I mumbled, tugging the ring off my finger. “I can’t have this. Not now. Maybe after we are actually settled in our jobs. Get a home and make enough money. Like in five, six years. Maybe then you can buy me a big enough ring that I can wear. Not something small like this.”

My throat soured from saying those words as I dropped it into his palm.

Lan gave me the stiffest nod, distraught clear in his eyes. Like I had taken his heart out and stomped it with the heel of my spiky shoes over and over again. But what if I told him that doing this made me feel the same way? If not worse.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked in a voice I didn’t recognize.

My eyes landed on the ring he held, and I gave a nonchalant shrug.

He choked out an empty laugh, his eyes on the ring he was spinning between his fingers. “Guess I’ll just throw it. It’s useless anyway.”

He spun around and hurled it across the sky.

My eyes followed the trajectory, and somehow, it felt like that ring was my heart instead. Flung away, landing nowhere—lost in deep soil.

“I think I’m going to the party the guys are at. Might be home late. Don’t wait up,” Lan muttered, not even meeting my eyes as he stormed away.

I knew he was too sad, too broken to even lash out at me.

But I was more than broken, though. I was just pieces stuck together with practiced smiles and a curated self-manifesto.

I didn’t know how long I stood there. It must have been minutes or maybe even hours since his back disappeared down the path. But my feet stayed rooted.

Frozen like someone clicked pause on my life.

My legs didn’t hurt, my muscles didn’t throb, my bones didn’t ache so I just stood there.

A fat drop of rain landed right on my cheek, cold like my insides. Soon, the world around me was a blur as the rain raged faster and faster and broke the clouds in the sky, accompanied by lightning and thunder that wrecked the sky.

I didn’t know when it happened, but it did. The first tear rolled out my cheek, burning the path in its wake, but then another followed, and then another and then another, and soon it was too much to keep count. The burn intensified, lacing with the cold rain droplets. But my tears never stopped.

Suddenly, I felt them blazing and warming my cold insides. Not the kind of warmth you want to feel by the fireplace but like an incinerating inferno burning you alive.

It hurt, the more it burned, the more it hurt.

Everywhere.

It hurt everywhere.

A sob ripped through my throat, muffling the sound of the pelting rain.

It was loud and cathartic.

Like a wounded wolf crying on a moonless midnight.

The pain, the pain, it was just too much. It was clawing my heart alive.

I was never… never going to have a baby.

My body was so useless that it couldn’t even carry the one thing I’d always wanted my entire life.

The one feeling I always wanted to experience.

To be a mother.

Now it was something that could never be mine.

It wasn’t the only reason that was breaking my heart. It was the look on my boy’s face. The unthinkable pain I caused to the last person I wanted to hurt in this world.

All because of me.

Me. Me. Me.

The worthless Katy Evans.

I felt everything in me shatter and I just couldn’t breathe anymore.

My blurry eyes roamed around me as I took my first step forward and then another till I reached the bushes where Lan threw away the ring. I wanted it. I wanted it with me for as long as I shall live.

I scavenged through the mud and drenched lawn like a lunatic through my cloudy vision as I sobbed and gasped for air.

My knees scraped from the tiny stones as I crawled, digging my fingers in the soil in the hopes that I would find the ring.

The rain slapped my back as I rounded off to the area near the tree.

My fingers were caked with mud, and I could hardly see a thing, but I kept searching and searching.

I wiped the hair falling over my face with the back of my arm as I dug out roots and dirt and cigarette stubs.

I didn’t know how long I kept going, but it was nowhere to be found, and it felt like my heart was giving up, and my limbs grew numb. Suddenly, at the base of the tree, something shiny gleamed in the dark night.

A relieved sob left my lips when I lifted the familiar ring and held it to my chest.

I was never, ever letting it go.

It was mine, forever.

My dress was a riddled mess of mud. I was a riddled mess of mud and dirt and tears when I dragged my feet back to the house. I was grateful for the large vacant hallways and the emptiness of this house.

The fears faded, but the pain and the sorrow didn’t.

I felt lost, and I didn’t know how to be anymore.

I headed straight into the shower, turning up the water to a boiling high, the ring still clutched to my chest like it was the only thing that was keeping me alive at this very moment.

An hour later, I wore one of Lan’s soft sweaters and curled up in the sheets that smelled like him.

I lay there just like that, unmoving with the ring cradled in my fist.

Only at around four forty-four a.m. did Lan walk in, with a bit of a stagger to his step. His weight shook the bed when he went crashing on his back, and not even a second later, his soft snores filled the room.

Sighing, I removed his boots and carefully tucked the sheets over him.

I watched his sleeping face, pinched in tension like he had aged years since last night, but I just couldn’t drag my eyes away from the face I loved more than anything in this world.

I’m sorry.

Since that day, it was how our new normal began.

It wasn’t always stiff and cold. There were a few tender moments and soft heart-to-hearts between us.

Some fleeting moments that made my facade fall, the moments when I just couldn’t take the pretending anymore, and crawled back into his arms like the lost teenage girl who just didn’t have the chance to grow up right.

It was ebb and flow and back and forth and push and pull.

It was a miracle that Lan tolerated me.

I told myself I was doing this for him.

For us.

But somewhere along the way, I had no clue why I was even doing it anymore.

Maybe the biggest reason was to hide the big, big ache inside me.

A hole that just kept getting bigger and bigger.

I didn’t know how to grieve over something that could never be mine.

My facade became my lifeline that I just couldn’t let go of because honestly, I didn’t know how.

But even that crumbled after that night, six years later.

The night when I didn’t know what had happened to me.

But something did, something enough to derail my existence and shatter everything I built.