Two Years Later
National Taiwan University (NTU) was buzzing. At the center of the buzz was Nicole Tan.
She wasn't the shy, quiet girl from Malaysia anymore. She walked with a regal confidence, usually dressed in oversized designer blazers or loose, elegant knits. She was known as the "Ice Beauty." Men tried to approach her, but she turned them all down with a polite, frozen smile.
But Nicole had a secret routine.
Between her Marketing and Economics lectures, she didn't hang out at the student lounge. She vanished into the private nursing rooms of the campus library.
"Ugh," she winced, ducking into a stall and locking the door. The familiar ache in her chest was throbbing. Little Aria was thirteen months old now, a spitting image of Kenneth, and Nicole's body was still a loyal machine. She pulled her portable pump from her Chanel tote, the rhythmic thump-thump of the machine the only sound in the small room.
She looked at a photo of Aria on her phone. "Just two more classes, baby," she whispered. "Then Mommy is home."
She didn't know that across the campus, a group of exchange students from Malaysia was just stepping off a bus. And among them, taller and more muscular than two years ago, was Kenneth.