Chapter 1

Lucien's POV

Right before getting out of the car, as if she just remembered something, Eira Primrose turned around to remind me, "Oh, and don't call me in the middle of the night again. The boytoy I'm seeing tonight has a bit of an ego, and he's hard to appease. I don't want anything to ruin my mood."

I forced a smile and silently indicated that I understood. Eira, however, wasn't satisfied. Cocking her brow, she asked, "What's with the face? I already kicked out the person who made a scene in front of you. I even had the latest Patek Philippe delivered to your office. Isn't that enough for you to move on? Tell me, what is it you actually want?"

I quietly handed her a transfer agreement. "I want this parcel of land. I intend to build a manor so I can go there to unwind in the future."

Eira studied me for a long while before curling her lips. "Luc, sometimes... I miss the old you."

After signing her name decisively, she slammed the car door shut with a loud thud, cutting herself off from my world.

Gripping the steering wheel, I smiled, though bitter irony welled up inside me.

Eria missed the old me? Did she miss our wedding night, when she came home covered in hickeys left by another man and watched me fly into a rage and smashed our new home to pieces? Or did she miss the pathetic state I had fallen into after catching her in bed with others time and again—how my fear drove me to harass people in the middle of the night just to find her, only to be branded a lunatic?

However, back then, my breakdowns had never earned even a shred of her sympathy. All I ever received from her was annoyance and ridicule.

Eira had always massaged her temples and asked me, "I've given you my hand in marriage and my love. What more do you want?"

Every year before this, all I wanted was her undivided devotion. All I wanted was for her to be faithful and cut ties with other men. Yet, now, none of it mattered anymore.

Beneath the transfer agreement was the divorce agreement. Moments ago, she had casually signed it without taking a look at the contents. Staring at her signature, I let out a deep, long sigh.

I started the engine and set off. When I reached a long downhill stretch, I instinctively stepped on the brakes, but they did nothing at all.

My vehicle accelerated rapidly. Realizing that I was about to crash head-on into an oncoming vehicle, I threw caution to the wind and yanked the steering wheel hard.

The moment our cars narrowly missed each other, I caught a clear glimpse of the people inside. It was Eira. Her porcelain arms were draped around the neck of the man in the driver's seat as she coyly offered her cherry-red lips to him.

The very next second, my car veered off and slammed into a tree trunk by the side of the road. The impact drove my forehead against the steering wheel, and an excruciating pain tore through my entire body as if my internal organs had been displaced.

By the time I managed to lift my head again, the taillights of that car had already disappeared from my rearview mirror. I sat there in a daze for a moment before leaning down to feel around for whatever had jammed the brakes.

It was a tangled, crumpled black tie. There were even traces of white residue on it that hadn't dried yet.

Gaping at the crumpled fabric in my hand, I abruptly flung it away as if I had been burned. Nausea hit me like a violent wave rolling in my gut.

I could no longer maintain the composure I had forced myself to maintain. Bracing myself against the tree, I threw up until the rims of my eyes turned red.

As it turned out, during the two hours it took her to pick me up from the hospital, she couldn't even stop herself from having a quickie with another man. Eira made me feel disgusted and so completely foreign; she was nothing like the woman in my memories, who had carried me on her back to one hospital after another and knelt outside their doors when I had a high fever that made me lose my sight.

Blood from the wound on my forehead trickled into my eyes. I repeatedly wiped it away, suppressing the bitterness that was rising in my chest.

After giving my statement to the traffic police who had rushed to the scene, I was about to leave when a young officer caught me as I stumbled. "Sir, you look far too pale. I think you should call a family member to pick you up."

Clutching my head, I froze for a moment. Ever since Eira took me out of the orphanage when I was eight years old, she was the only family I ever had.