Chapter 1

"Elroy isn't doing well. I have to check on him. Just explain things to the organizers for me regarding the performance."

On the highway, Madison Fulmer abandoned Zachary Suffold for her first love for the third time, all because of a single phone call from him.

As soon as she finished speaking, she ignored Zachary's protests and shoved him out of the car. Rain was pouring down in sheets, but Madison drove away without looking back.

Barren hills surrounded the area, with nowhere to shelter from the rain. The nearest toll station was at least 30 miles away. To make matters worse, Zachary's phone had been left in the car.

In the end, he spent the entire night walking through the rain. By the time he collapsed from exhaustion on the roadside, a kind stranger found him and took him to the hospital.

After buying a new phone, he opened his social media feed. The very first post he saw was a photo of Madison cooking for Elroy Pearson herself.

Those were the same hands Zachary had taken out an outrageously expensive insurance policy on, the hands he had pampered and protected every single day as if they were more precious than his own life.

Now, she had burned them while cooking for Elroy, leaving several blisters on her fingers. She had even covered them with two cartoon bandages.

Suddenly, Zachary found it all pointless.

Madelyn Lockhart would never use cartoon bandages. Neither would she leave him alone in the rain. Madison simply wasn't his Maddie.

He called a private investigator. "I need you to find someone."

When he collapsed in the rain, he could've sworn he saw someone who resembled Madelyn even more than Madison.

Everyone said Zachary was hopelessly in love with Madison.

At her poorest, he stuck by her side and worked three jobs a day to support her piano career. To secure performance opportunities for her, he even drank so heavily that he suffered gastrointestinal bleeding and had to be hospitalized.

It would be an understatement to say that Zachary poured his heart and soul into making her a star pianist. And those hands of hers were almost sacred to him.

Once, a rival threw boiling water at Madison's hands. He leaped in front of her and shielded her from the scalding water without a moment's hesitation.

Naturally, she walked away unscathed, but he suffered third-degree burns. An ugly scar still marked his arm.

Someone from the orchestra once asked her, "When do you plan to marry Zachary?"

Madison frowned at the sheer thought of that. "When did I ever say I'd marry him? He's not even my boyfriend. He's just a loyal little simp who does whatever I tell him. He's not good enough to marry me."

Zachary was standing just outside the door, with only a thin curtain separating him from the room, when he heard those words. He merely curled his lips into a mocking smile.

Not good enough for her? Well, neither was she for him. She was just a stand-in.

The truth was, from the start, Zachary had only ever cared about Madison's hands. They just looked too much like Madelyn's.

No one knew that the woman he loved had died long ago, in the very year when his love had been the most intense. Her death had driven him to the brink of a breakdown.

More than once, he lost the will to power through.

But things changed when he met Madison. Her hands resembled Madelyn's, and just like Madelyn, she loved playing the piano.

To stay by Madison's side, he willingly became her lapdog, obeying her every command without question.

No matter how she humiliated him in front of others or how badly she hurt him, he put up with it all without complaint.

That was until Madison's first love, Elroy, returned from abroad.

For his sake, she took one dangerous risk after another, adding more injuries to her hands. She even started changing the way she dressed to suit his tastes.

Day by day, the traces of Madelyn that Zachary had once seen in her faded. Suddenly, he found himself sick of it all.

Not long afterward, his phone rang again. It was Madison.

"All I asked was for you to explain things to the organizers! Why couldn't you handle something so simple? What the hell do I even keep you around for?"

Out of habit, Zachary replied, "Sorry."

She paused for a few seconds before adding, "Elroy's having stomach pain. Buy him some painkillers and bring them over. You have ten minutes."