Chapter 1

“I got bored of sleeping with you. Let’s break up.”

Six years earlier, Avery Walters, the pampered heiress of the Walters family, tossed out those words and decisively dumped Lucien Holmes, who was penniless at the time.

She then turned around and entered a marriage of convenience with Henry Hunt, the mayor’s son.

Six years later, the Walters family went bankrupt. Trapped in an abusive marriage with Henry, Avery decided to file for divorce.

At her lowest and most humiliating point, she crossed paths with Lucien once again.

The café.

Avery sat by the floor-to-ceiling window, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, glancing at her watch again and again.

She had arranged to meet her divorce attorney today, yet the agreed time had passed, and the lawyer still had not shown up.

Just as she was about to make a call to check in, the café door was pushed open and a tall man walked in.

He wore a gray three-piece suit, a black shirt, and a striped tie, his bearing restrained and aristocratic.

From the moment he entered, several female baristas kept stealing glances at him.

With features that sharp and perfectly sculpted, a face like that was rare outside the entertainment industry.

Others might have been stunned by how handsome he was.

However, Avery was startled for an entirely different reason.

Because the man who had just walked in was none other than Lucien—her first love, the one she had dumped six years ago with a single line, “I got bored.”

After parting for six years, Lucien seemed like a completely different person.

The Lucien she remembered often wore a white linen shirt, gentle and clean-cut, like the boy next door.

The man standing before her now no longer carried that youthful softness. His features were sharper and more striking, his gaze cold and aggressive, like a dangerous predator.

Avery’s heart slammed wildly against her ribs. She hurriedly pressed down the brim of her cap, silently praying that Lucien would not notice her.

Henry had beaten her just yesterday. Her face was still covered in bruises. She did not want Lucien to see her like this.

She would rather his final memory of her remain the arrogant, unreasonable woman from their breakup than let him witness how completely she had been crushed by her marriage.

But fate did not grant her that mercy.

Lucien walked straight to her table, pulled out the chair across from her, and calmly sat down.

“Sorry. Traffic was bad,” Lucien said.

Avery froze.

Who was Lucien meeting? Had he taken the wrong seat?

“Sir,” Avery said with her head lowered, the brim of her cap and her sunglasses hiding most of her face.

She deliberately tightened her throat and altered her voice. “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. This seat isn’t yours.”

“Lady Walters, stop pretending. I’d recognize you even if you turned to ash.”

Lady Walters?

Avery froze.

Since the Walters family fell from grace, no one had addressed her with respect under the Walters name anymore.

It used to be Lucien’s favorite way to address her.

He loved holding her tightly when they were close, his voice hoarse and blurred with desire as he murmured “Lady Walters” over and over again by her ear.

“Lady Walters, may I come in now?”

“Lady Walters, do you still want it?”

“Lady Walters, say you love me.”

Those intimate moments, heavy with closeness and possessive desire, surged back all at once.

Yet today, when the words “Lady Walters” left Lucien’s lips, there was none of their former sensuality—only naked, unmistakable hatred.

“Sir, I’m not the person you’re looking for. Please leave this seat. The person I’m meeting will arrive shortly,” Avery insisted, pretending not to know him.

“Fabien Carr won’t be coming.”

Lucien ordered a coffee and spoke unhurriedly.

“Your divorce case will be handled by me.”

Avery snapped her head up. “Why? I clearly arranged to meet Mr. Carr.”

“So you finally decided to look at me.”

Avery froze.

Through the dark lenses, Lucien’s gaze was calm and unreadable, carrying the unmistakable authority of someone in control.

She ignored everything else and pressed on. “Why isn’t Mr. Carr coming?”

“During his practice, Fabien committed multiple professional violations. He was disbarred and dismissed by the firm today.”

“He was still in contact with me last night, and today he’s stripped of his license? That kind of coincidence doesn’t exist. Lucien Holmes, you did this on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Why would I?” Lucien gave a cold laugh. “To see you? Avery Walters, do you really think I still have feelings for you?”

Avery was not delusional enough to believe that. She knew Lucien hated her. No man would cling to affection for a woman who once crushed his pride beneath her heel.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I meant that you probably came here just to watch me make a fool of myself.”

“At least you realize this.”

He admitted it. He really had come to see her humiliation.

Even though Avery had expected it, hearing him say it outright still sent a dull ache spreading through her chest.

During the six years she was married into the Hunt family, the marriage was cold, her in-laws despised her, and after the Walters family went bankrupt, the Hunts treated her with even greater contempt.

Her days were like enduring a dull blade carving into flesh, slow and relentless.

The pride that once belonged to the Walters family’s heiress had long been ground down to nothing by reality.

There were plenty of people who wanted to see her humiliated, but if anyone truly had the right to watch her fall, it was Lucien.

“Since you want to see me make a fool of myself, then I’ll let you see it properly.”

Avery took off her sunglasses and baseball cap.

She was not wearing any makeup that day. Her fair skin looked like a pristine canvas, making the redness at her temple and the dark bruising near her eye painfully conspicuous.

When Lucien saw the injuries on her face, his gaze darkened instantly. His fingers tightened around the coffee cup, veins standing out sharply on the back of his hand.

Henry was a beast.

“Are you satisfied now?” Avery’s voice trembled.

“If it’s not enough, I can explain it in detail. This scar on my forehead was from an ashtray. And this bruise by my eye was from…”

“Enough! Shut up!”

Lucien felt as if something sharp had struck his chest, the pain spreading uncontrollably. “This was your own choice! You brought this on yourself!”

“Yes, it was my choice. I deserve all of it. And now that you’ve seen how badly I’m living, you can finally let it go.”

Avery’s eyes burned as she looked at him. “What happened back then was my fault. I apologize to you. From now on, we’re even.”

After saying that, she picked up her sunglasses and cap and left in a hurry, almost fleeing.

Lucien remained seated, his gaze following her retreating figure, emotions surging like a tide, threatening to swallow him whole at any second.

His phone suddenly rang.

“Lucien, where are you?”

“Meeting a client.”

“You just got back to the country. What client could you possibly have?”

The person on the other end paused, then reacted. “Don’t tell me you actually took over Fabien’s divorce case? Come on, you’re the founding partner of the firm. Since when do you personally handle something this trivial?”

Lucien ignored the remark and said instead, “Do me a favor.”

“What is it?”

“Look into Henry Hunt.”