After Giving Me Away In Marriage, My Brother Regretted It

When her adoptive parents die, Violet Greer's brother Harlan learns of her feelings for him and calls her disgusting. Facing ruin, he marries her off to Rhett Sinclair, the family's simpleton, in exchange for the Sinclairs' help. Three years on, Harlan's business thrives, and he has the whole Sinclair family jailed. He sends his assistant, then his sister Lila, to bring Violet home, but she refuses to leave, waiting for Rhett, who vanished after she hid him from the District Attorney's Office.

Lila delivers a divorce certificate bearing Violet's name and a signature she never wrote. Harlan forged it, cutting her last tie to Rhett. As the shock overwhelms her, she collapses, and the past returns: the winter she was twenty-two, bound and forced into the marriage, and Harlan's parting words that she need not come back.

Violet wakes to a family that wants her erased and a husband still missing. She clings to his photo and to the house, refusing to sign herself out of the only bond she chose.