Chapter 1

Damienne's POV

By the time I regained consciousness, I had returned to the James family villa.

I looked around. This was my home with Frank, but right now, it looked unfamiliar. Our wedding picture hung in the middle of the living room. Frank was looking at me tenderly in the picture, and I remembered how he made me feel like I was the one he loved most in this world.

However, that look on his face now stood out like a sore thumb to me.

When Frank came home, the wedding gown in the closet was cut into pieces. The wedding picture was smashed on the ground and pieces of the glass were all over the floor. I did all that.

Frank stood at the door, silently waiting for the cigarette between his fingers to burn out. After that, he came to my side and held my hand. "Are you hurt?"

I yanked my hand out of his, and the anger in me exploded in his face. Tears streamed down my face as I questioned him, "Why?"

Frank was taken aback. He reached out to wipe the tears from my face. "Are you asking why I married you?" He did not even pause as he took the answer for granted.

"You're mature, calm, and willing to sacrifice helping your family to help me instead. You're the most suitable woman to be the Donna of the James family. It's different with Jessica. She's used to being a pampered upper-class socialite, and has always been spoilt. She can't even complete the simplest mission handed out by the family."

The more honest Frank was, the more my heart ached. I could not stop trembling, and Frank came up to hug me. "All right. Stop overthinking this," he tried to comfort me in a low voice. "It's not possible between me and her, and we'll only be in contact because of the baby."

I struggled out of his arms and screamed uncontrollably, "Did you even think about me when you decided to have a baby with her?" I was bent over, hardly able to breathe from the pressure of the cruel truth.

Frank took a step forward, and I instinctively stepped away from him. He was silent for a moment, convinced that I was not able to accept any of this because of the succession rights. "Don't worry. Our child will always be the rightful heir to the James family."

I stared back at him. "Do you see me only as a woman who has eyes for only your fortune and succession rights?"

Frank's face fell. "Stop it, Damienne."

He sighed and held my hand again as if nothing unsalvageable had happened between us. "You'll still be the baby's Godmother, and Jessica will still be your best friend. We should just maintain our current positions, and we can still live life as we did before.

"Isn't it better that everything returns to normal? Jessica is still very weak right now and I need to prepare nutritious food for her. You should rest, and we'll prepare for our honeymoon tomorrow."

The man busied himself around the kitchen while I stared blankly at him. I watched as he boiled water expertly and checked every ingredient in case it was unhealthy for Jessica.

I was reminded how he had never done anything like this for me in the past three years, even when I got hurt while on a mission. I always assumed he was busy, but it turned out the leader of the James family was willing to find time in his busy schedule to take care of another woman.

A conversation I once had with Jessica suddenly flashed in my mind.

She told me that her health had not been great since young, and her ex-boyfriend went around Novak to find the best doctors to help nurse her back to health.

Jessica once told me a story about how she was once seriously sick in the middle of the night, and her ex-boyfriend sped to another city just to get a private doctor back to give her a checkup.

I had never thought much of the details of her story, but now, everything she said resurfaced in my mind. All of these years, I had lied to myself by purposely ignoring certain details.

Whenever I was out on a mission, Jessica would always be the one to put a gun in Frank's hand before I did. Whenever there was a family gathering, Jessica would be the one to blurt, "He's allergic to lemons."

Frank would always be the one to go to Jessica's rescue whenever she was discovered by the enemy during gunfights and, when she was sick, he would walk out of a meeting room full of people to speed toward the hospital.

During many of those moments, I had been holding documents I had organized through the night that required some of his time to look at.

It was only now that I realized I was not imagining things. I had lied to myself for too long.

Frank had expressed his love, but it was love that never belonged to me, and the last of the dignity I was keeping together by deceiving myself finally fell apart.

I was silent for a long time before finally saying, "Let's get divorced, Frank."