Chapter 1

“Miss Sutton, the Don says he’s tied up again today. He says you should get an early night and not wait up for him.”

“He also wants you to keep up with your recovery. The wedding can’t be pushed back any further.”

The maid chattered on beside me, but I just stared out the window, my eyes empty.

Ever since the kidnapping, Adrian had kept me in a private hospital for half a month.

And in that half a month, he’d come to see me barely two or three times.

Once, I couldn’t stop myself from asking. “Why did you save Nina?”

Adrian was very calm. “Because the family behind her is powerful. If she’d died because of me, the fallout would have been ugly.”

I looked at him. “So you weren’t afraid I’d actually die?”

He gave a soft laugh at that. “You’re my fiancée. That fact alone is enough. They’d never let you die.”

He said it with such certainty, as if all of it had already been figured into his plans.

But the day he came for me, he’d been the one who fell apart.

The night they took me, I truly thought I was going to die in that abandoned warehouse.

Adrian burst in covered in blood, and when he saw the state of me, the wounds all over my body, his bloodshot eyes were filled with rage.

He raised his gun and shot every last one of the kidnappers dead.

Then that man, who always stood so far above everyone, said he was sorry, again and again, in front of every person there. He begged me not to die.

If I hadn’t heard it with my own ears, heard him give the order to let Nina go.

I might really have believed him.

But now, I didn’t even have the strength to ask.

Seeing me stay quiet, Adrian didn’t think much of it. Every few days he just had the maid bring me jewelry, telling me to pick whatever I liked to wear at the wedding.

I pointed at two pieces without looking and sent the maid away.

My attitude must have been too indifferent, because word of it reached Adrian fast.

That night, he finally came to see me.

Except Nina was right behind him.

Eyes red, she walked to my bedside and took my hand.

“Claire, I’m so sorry. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have been hurt this badly.”

Watching her play the innocent, I suddenly remembered a night long ago, when she’d cried on my shoulder, drunk.

Back then she’d said the man she’d loved for years was about to marry someone else.

“I really don’t get it. Why does he have to marry her? She’s a nobody, ordinary in every way. What makes her worth his favor? And me? I slept with him more times than I can count, and I’m the one who has to be kept hidden like some dirty secret!”

Back then I’d held her and comforted her, told her softly that she was wonderful, that the man didn’t deserve her.

But Nina had suddenly shoved me away, cursing at me through red eyes.

“What would you know? He’s wonderful! The one in the wrong is that cheap little bitch! She’s the one who schemed and seduced him!”

Back then I didn’t understand why she’d suddenly turned her anger on me.

Now, I understood all of it.

It turned out that cheap little bitch was me.

What made it even funnier was that I’d told Adrian about it that same day. He’d ruffled my hair.

“Don’t pay her any attention. Women who’ve just been dumped can never tell right from wrong.”

Then he’d hurried out of the estate, saying he had an urgent meeting.

At the same time, Nina posted a photo of two hands with fingers laced together, captioned: A love lost and found again.

Back then I never once connected that hand to Adrian.

But thinking about it now, that black band on the little finger, that old scar across the base of the thumb, I’d seen them countless times.

I’d just never dared let my mind land on him.

All those details I’d once brushed aside finally slotted together, one by one, in that single moment.

The man I loved had cheated on me with my “best” friend.

At the thought, I slowly drew my hand back.

Nina’s hand hung in the air, and her eyes went red at once.

Adrian glanced at me, his brow drawing together.

But I smiled quickly.

“Sorry. The wound hurts a little.”

The displeasure on Adrian’s face eased at that.

Nina gave me a long, unreadable look, but she still said,

“It’s fine, Claire. As long as you’re okay.”

Adrian probably thought I’d finally come to my senses, because he walked Nina out himself.

The instant the door shut, the wound on my stomach throbbed like it had been torn open again, and I finally couldn’t hold on. I braced myself against the wall, gasping.

I made it to the window, lowered my head, and saw the two of them down below.

Nina, eyes red, threw herself into Adrian’s arms, and the next second he bent his head and kissed her.

In that moment, my heart hurt a thousand times more than my ribs did.

I turned my face away and tried to press down everything inside me, but the tears came anyway.

Holding the wall, I made it back to the bed and pulled the spare phone I’d prepared out from under the pillow.

When the call connected, I asked through trembling lips, “How much longer... until my identity is completely wiped?”