Seven years together. When they first met, Jasper Fairmont had been the golden boy gone wild, his name a permanent fixture on the school's disciplinary board for cutting class, fighting, smoking, and drinking.
Then Hilda transferred in, and everything changed. He quit smoking, quit drinking, gave up street racing. He became almost docile, reining in his temper, content to follow at her heels.
Everyone joked that the untamable Jasper Fairmont had been brought to heel by a quiet, well-behaved girl like Hilda.
And Hilda had believed it. She'd believed she was truly different to him.
She'd poured herself into planning their future together. Knowing her line of work would put him in an awkward position, she'd been ready to walk away from a career she'd built from the ground up.
She knew the Fairmont family looked down on her, so she'd hired an etiquette coach and painstakingly learned how to be a proper society wife.
The cuts on her fingers from flower-arranging lessons hadn't even healed. Under the running water they turned white and puckered, stinging so badly that tears streamed down her face.