Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Paul
Oahu.
Twenty-second floor of the Hawaii International Business Hotel. I stood at the window, but couldn't feel an ounce of tropical warmth.
I clutched a file—one the private investigator had delivered to my hands just half an hour ago.
The paper's edge crumpled under my grip. The words stared back at me, crystal clear.
"Target confirmed as Casey White. Current alias: Ella. Current occupation: nurse at Oahu Community Hospital. Current status: unmarried, one son, approximately five years old."
This was the sixth year I'd been searching for her.
Six years. I'd combed every inch of Boston where she might have lingered, hired investigation teams across three countries, and even leveraged the family's gray connections to access immigration records nationwide.
Leads died in nameless towns more times than I could count.
I'd chased false hope after false hope, staring at reports of people who shared nothing but her name.
Until this sun-scorched island. Until I finally saw the name "Ella."
I stared at her photo. She'd pulled her long hair into a no-nonsense ponytail. The sun had bronzed her skin to a warm honey shade.
She wasn't the Casey from the library anymore, the one who'd cradle translation texts with soft eyes. In this photo, she pushed a heavy medical cart, her gaze carrying a toughness I'd never seen before.
My finger traced the last line of the report. "One son." My chest seized. Couldn't breathe.
I collapsed onto the couch, my mind spiraling backward, out of control.
Six years ago, Diana and I had only been engaged. That so-called elite alliance had been a performance from day one. We lived at opposite ends of the manor, separated by endless corridors and countless empty guest rooms. We only linked arms for camera lenses or family galas, playing at devotion.
One night, I sat alone in the third-floor study, gripping a photo of Casey and me.
We'd taken it under an old oak behind Boston University. She'd looked so goofy, leaning against my shoulder, still holding half-eaten takeout.
"Still thinking about that girl?"
The study door swung open. Elizabeth walked in wearing a silk robe. She glanced at the photo on the desk, lips curling into a mocking smile.
"Paul, how long are you going to wallow?" She approached me. "You're the head of the Vincent Family now. Your marriage isn't just a contract—it's the foundation. Moping over some ordinary girl isn't just weakness. It's an insult to who you are."
I looked at her. My throat worked, but no words came.
"She's just a translator, Paul." Elizabeth's finger landed on Casey's face in the photo.
"She doesn't even deserve to set foot in this study.
You're from different worlds. The social capital and business support Diana brings you—that girl could never offer you anything like that in her entire life. Forget her. It's for your own good."
Back then, I'd agreed with my stepmother. I loved Casey, but she wasn't suitable as my wife. I'd used that twisted logic to mask my betrayal, told myself abandoning her served the greater good.
Until the charity gala a year into the engagement. Some fundraiser for an arts foundation. Every big name in Boston showed up. Amid the hollow small talk, I noticed an unusual couple.
The husband was an ordinary public school teacher. The wife came from some old-money California financial dynasty. Word was she'd given up a multimillion-dollar trust fund to marry him—even cut ties with her entire family.
They were the most out-of-place people in that ballroom. But what struck me most was the moment when the man gently tucked a loose strand of hair behind his wife's ear. The sweetness and contentment in their eyes, impossible to hide—it stood out like warmth in a room that reeked of money.
I stood at a distance, suddenly drowning in shame.
I'd always told myself I had to give up Casey because I had to shoulder family responsibility. But in that moment, I realized—it was all because I was too weak.
That woman had fought her entire family to follow her heart.
And me? I didn't even have the courage to choose the girl I loved.
I'd abandoned her because I cared too much about the vanity this status gave me, because deep down, I thought Casey—someone "common"—wasn't worth sacrificing my position for.
I'd thought I was the victim. Turned out I was just a selfish bastard.
Predictably, my marriage to Diana, built on lies and calculation, collapsed after just three years.
The Vincent Family secured new financing, no longer needed the Rossi family's help.
Diana and I had never had feelings for each other, and I refused to keep suffocating under that facade of respectability.
The day we signed the divorce papers, Diana sat across from me, heavily made-up face full of mockery.
"Paul, have you been looking for that Boston girl all these years?" Her voice dripped with scorn. "Too bad you'll never find her. And even if you do, what then? Could you really give up everything for her?"
I stared at her coldly. Said nothing.
She suddenly laughed, as if remembering something amusing.
"Oh, right, forgot to tell you. The night of our engagement, I went to see her.
I told her that you and I... had done everything in that lounge, everything we should and shouldn't have.
And I told her you said she was just a distraction when you were bored. "
She paused deliberately, watching my face turn ashen, her laughter growing more unhinged.
"Nothing actually happened that night. You were too drunk.
But she believed it. Paul, you'll never know how hopeless she looked when she stared at me.
She must have left Boston carrying the deepest disappointment in you. "
"Shut up!" I shot to my feet, grabbing Diana's arm. "Why would you lie to her like that? What gave you the right to humiliate her?!"
Diana yanked her arm free, sneering. "Stop pretending, Paul. You abandoned her too back then. Isn't that what you really thought?"
I watched Diana's retreating figure, collapsing back into the chair, drained.
The truth was even crueler than I'd imagined. When she left, she didn't just carry the pain of abandonment—she carried the disgust of betrayal. And I, her supposed "lover," only learned the truth six years later.
In that moment, I made up my mind. No matter the cost, no matter the effort, I would find Casey. I would tell her the truth about that night myself. I would show her how I'd changed over these years. I would do anything to make it up to her.
The search became an endless act of penance.
I started cutting those meaningless social obligations, delegating most authority to professional managers.
My close friend Marcus once looked at my haggard state and asked helplessly, "Paul, you're torturing yourself. For a girl who's been gone six years—is it worth destroying yourself like this?"
"Marcus, because I owe her. Six years ago, I hurt her with the cruelest words. I said she wasn't good enough for me. But now I understand—I'm the one who was never good enough."
I picked up the report again. My eyes locked on that final line.
"One son, approximately five years old."
The report included a candid shot of her riding a secondhand bicycle, a boy on the back seat waving his little hand.
That little boy in the photo—he looked up at her, smiling. That head of curly dark brown hair. Those sapphire-blue eyes, so clear—everything was identical to mine.
A terrifying thought crashed over me, nearly suffocating.
I couldn't imagine how she'd survived these six years.
While I'd been in Boston, still squandering the family fortune, occasionally wallowing in so-called "lost love," she'd been enduring morning sickness alone.
In Oahu, a place where she knew no one, she'd worked alone, raised a child alone in some cramped apartment.
To survive, she'd abandoned the language skills she'd once taken pride in to learn the grueling work of nursing. To hide from me, she'd even changed her name.
I closed my eyes. Paul Vincent, you absolute bastard.