Married at First Sight Episode 2

📖 The Story Continues

“Pick. It. Up.” Nancy separated the words with relish, pointing at the thirty thousand dollars scattered across the café floor. Summer remained motionless while every practical instinct screamed at her to take the money. It could repair the damage Vincent had done to her finances, but Nancy was no longer offering repayment. She was purchasing the right to watch Summer kneel.

Nancy leaned closer, mistaking silence for surrender. “Come on,” she coaxed with poisonous sweetness. She ordered Summer to get down like the “good little peasant” she believed her to be. Vincent stood beside her without objection, proving that whatever affection he once claimed to feel had vanished along with his conscience.

Summer looked at the bills around her shoes, then remembered all the times she had lowered herself for Vincent already. She had lied about being hungry so he could eat, hidden her dizziness so he could study, and accepted extra shifts while he promised their sacrifices would someday belong to both of them. She would not add this humiliation to the list.

“No.” The single word was calm and absolute. Nancy’s smug expression faltered, clearly unprepared for defiance from someone she considered beneath her. Summer reached for the iced coffee on the table, and Nancy’s eyes followed the movement too late.

Summer flung the cold drink across Nancy’s face and expensive clothes. Ice struck the tabletop and bounced onto the floor as Nancy gasped, drenched and speechless. “You should be thankful I got iced coffee today,” Summer told her. The satisfaction was immediate, sharp enough to cut through the pain that had followed her into the café.

Nancy shrieked an insult and lunged, but Vincent grabbed her arms. He begged them to stop because people were watching, not because Nancy had degraded Summer or because Summer had been pushed beyond endurance. His only concern was the damage to his carefully polished image. That realization made leaving him feel less like a loss.

As Vincent hurried Nancy toward the exit, she twisted back and vowed that the fight was far from over. Her threat echoed through the café, but Summer refused to show fear. Nancy had money, connections, and a vindictive streak; Summer had little left except her pride. Today, pride had been enough.

Outside, the afternoon air cooled the anger burning in Summer’s cheeks. She walked away without the scattered cash, forcing herself not to calculate what abandoning it would cost. Each step felt unsteady, yet it also carried her farther from a man who had used her devotion and a woman who believed wealth entitled her to cruelty.

Only a short distance away, Christian Norton Jr. faced a crisis of his own. His grandmother stood before him in elegant fury, demanding an explanation for the missing woman he had promised to introduce. Christian could negotiate acquisitions worth millions without blinking, but one disappointed look from Grandma Norton left him searching for an escape.

She reminded him that he had promised her a wedding, not her own funeral. Christian tried to explain that the blind date had never appeared, though he knew that was not entirely an accident. He had already sacrificed business opportunities to keep unsuitable women away, but his grandmother’s campaign to marry him off had only become more determined.

Grandma Norton pressed a hand dramatically to her chest and declared that she might drop dead immediately. Christian recognized the performance, but beneath it lay a fear he could not dismiss. She wanted to see him settled, and his endless evasions had convinced her that only extreme measures could move him.

He scanned the street, desperate for anything that might postpone the confrontation. That was when he saw Summer emerging from the café, shoulders rigid and expression stormy. She was a stranger, but she was also walking directly past him at exactly the moment he needed a miracle.

Christian acted before caution could interfere. He stepped into Summer’s path, caught her around the waist, and drew her against his side. She stiffened in shock, one hand rising as if she might strike him. He lowered his voice, silently begging her to follow his lead while maintaining a convincing smile for his grandmother.

“Baby, you came.” The intimate greeting made Summer stare at him as though he were insane. After the confrontation she had just survived, the last thing she needed was another arrogant man assuming he could touch her. Yet the desperation hidden beneath Christian’s polished composure gave her pause.

He asked whether she remembered that they were supposed to meet his grandmother that day. The elderly woman watched them with sharp, expectant eyes, and Summer understood the trap immediately. This stranger had invented a relationship and cast her in the leading role without permission.

Summer could have exposed him. A sensible woman would step away, demand an apology, and keep walking. But sensible choices had brought her five years of sacrifice and a café floor covered in money she could not bear to collect. Perhaps, for one reckless minute, she wanted to become someone Vincent would never recognize.

She relaxed against Christian’s arm and turned toward Grandma Norton. “Oh, yes,” she said, forcing warmth into her voice. Christian’s surprise lasted only a heartbeat before relief replaced it. Summer almost smiled at how quickly control shifted between them.

“Grandma,” she continued, playing the part with growing confidence, “I’m your future granddaughter-in-law.” The declaration hung in the air, astonishing Christian as much as the woman it was meant to reassure. He had asked Summer to pretend she was a girlfriend; she had escalated the lie into an engagement.

Grandma Norton’s entire face brightened. Moments earlier she had been threatening to plan a funeral, and now she regarded Summer as an answered prayer. Christian held Summer a little more securely, perhaps afraid she would escape before he could understand how far their deception had gone.

Summer met his questioning gaze and felt the reckless force of her own choice. That morning, she had expected to end a five-year relationship and recover a debt. Instead, she had walked away penniless, poured coffee over her rival, and introduced herself as the future wife of a man whose name she did not even know.