Chapter 1

When the news of my death came in, Dan Fanning was signing a contract worth eight figures.

His assistant rushed into his office with a serious expression.

“Mr. Fanning, your wife has passed away.”

The pen paused on the paper. Ink bled out and stained the page.

Dan slowly looked up. “She’s dead?”

“Yes. The police believe it was suicide.”

The room suddenly fell into a suffocating stillness.

Dan was silent for a few seconds before sinking into his chair as if all the strength had left him. He let out a long sigh.

I drifted closer. To my surprise, his eyes were a little moist.

The light of the setting sun fell across his face and cast him in that familiar light I used to love so much.

However, why was he crying? Were those happy tears?

After all, he had waited so many years for this. He had finally avenged Evelyn Wright.

Evelyn was his first love.

Back in college, they were the golden couple everyone envied.

Meanwhile, I was just the useless coward standing in the background with a silent crush on him.

I thought that secret would be buried with me, but later on, Evelyn was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

She did not want to become a burden. So, she came to me behind his back.

Evelyn said she could tell just by the way I looked at him that my love was unconditional and selfless.

She asked me to look after him and help him through the worst of it after she was gone.

She chose to disappear to a place no one knew and waited for the end alone.

On the day she left, she did not say goodbye.

I kept Evelyn’s secret, just as I promised.

However, Dan believed I was the reason they never got to say goodbye.

He believed I must have said something to her that had driven her to that desperate end.

He pretended that he had fallen in love with me and acted as though my devotion had finally won him over.

He plotted carefully and spared no effort. He professed love even as he hollowed out my power at the company and sabotaged my ties with my family.

When there was nothing left to take, he stopped pretending and told me the truth.

He even said he had never loved me.

That was really hurtful.

When I remembered the coldness in Dan’s eyes, a dull ache spread through my chest.

When my thoughts cleared, I was already in the car with him.

Judging by the direction we were heading, it could only be the crematorium.

I did not think he would bother to see me at all.

By the time we arrived, the process had already begun.

Behind the heavy iron doors of the cremation chamber, the body that had once been warm and alive was burning fiercely.

I looked at Dan, who was standing rigid before the observation window.

He was staring into the heart of the fire with an unreadable expression.

A staff member approached and asked tentatively, “Mr. Fanning, would you like to take one last look?”

“No.” His reply was emotionless. “Just burn it thoroughly.”

A self-deprecating smile made its way to my lips. I tried to touch his face, but my hand passed straight through him.

So, this was death. Even a touch had become an impossible luxury.

I did not know how long the fire burned.

When the door finally slid open again, the person who had once weighed nearly fifty kilograms had been reduced to fragments, neatly contained in a small wooden box.

The staff member cradled the wooden urn carefully and offered it to Dan with practiced solemnity.

“Mr. Fanning, please accept our condolences.”

He did not take it. Instead, he stared at the photograph affixed to the lid for a few seconds.

It was a picture of me smiling brightly.

After I learned the real reason Dan had stayed with me, I stopped taking photos.

Even this smiling picture of me had been cropped from a photo of the two of us together.

Dan’s expression was unnervingly calm. He brushed my picture with his hand. Then, suddenly, he smiled.

“Condolences? Why would I mourn a murderer? I believe someone as vile as her doesn’t deserve to be laid to rest whole.”

As Dan said those words, a blazing hatred flashed in his eyes. He raised his hand and knocked the urn to the floor.

With a sharp crash, my ashes spilled everywhere like gray snow.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Fanning! This is my fault!”

The staff scrambled in panic to clean it up. However, Dan raised his hand to stop them.

“Don’t bother. Just sweep it up and flush it down the drain.”

Then he turned and walked away decisively and coldly.

As I watched him disappear, my heart ached as if it were being carved open with a blade.

When we had just been together, he could not even bear to see me hurt. Yet he had just spoken such hurtful words without hesitation.

Hatred really could make someone cruel.