Chapter 1

“Zara, this is really important to me. I have to go. Be good and wait for me to come back. Love you.”

Samuel Xenos ran out into the wind and snow after saying that.

I waited for him all night, but he never came back. Instead, Stella Jameson sent me a video to provoke me.

In the video, two people were tangled up in bed.

I saw the red mole on the guy’s lower back clearly. I knew right away it was Samuel.

Stella, who should have looked worn out after just getting out of prison, did not look like she had spent three years locked up at all.

She curled up in his arms and lifted his chin with her fingertip. She was sweet and flirty. Every word she said teased him.

“What’s wrong? Feeling bad now? I told you to have a fake marriage, not to fall for her for real.”

“Babe, I didn’t fall for her. You’re the only one who can make me feel anything.”

He quickly reassured Stella. I had never seen him look at anyone with so much desire and tenderness.

Stella let out a soft huff that grated my nerves.

My mind went blank.

So this “important thing” he talked about was picking Stella up from prison and sleeping with her?

[Zara, the man you love most is just my dog. He comes whenever I call and does whatever I want. He’s no different from Victor three years ago.]

My vision turned blurry.

Three years ago, Stella killed my mother in a drunk driving accident. When my fiance, Victor Jordan, dumped me, Samuel appeared out of nowhere like an angel.

I still remember how I knelt in the rain and tried desperately to gather the broken pieces of the dashcam that Victor smashed. The cold rain soaked my wounds, and all I felt was pain.

I also remember how Samuel stood over me with an umbrella. He said, “I’ll use my life to win you the right to sue her. Will you marry me?”

He knew how hard my life was after my father died. I was an orphan bullied by the Jordan family.

He understood how wronged and helpless I felt when the Jordan family turned public opinion against me and painted me as some evil woman.

When everyone else was too scared of the Jordan family’s power to stand up for me, Samuel worked day and night to gather evidence.

When he gave me the documents, he smiled and said, “This is proof that the Jordan family laundered money. You can use it to take them down and send Stella to prison. The price is that you need to become my contract wife.”

At that time, he was my only savior.

On the day everything ended, Samuel and I got married.

He had a good temper. Even at the beginning of our marriage, when I did not want to sleep with him, he never forced me.

But when Victor stormed into my house and said he would kill me, Samuel stood in front of me and beat him up.

That day, he looked into my eyes. His words were harsh but filled with deep emotion.

“Remember this. She’s everything to me now. If you want to hurt her, you’ll have to kill me first!”

That night, we were wild. I offered myself entirely to him.

In three years of marriage, he cooked for me every day. He wanted everyone to know how much he loved me.

But all of it turned out to be one big setup.

I wiped the tears from my face.

If this was all part of his plan, then there had to be something I did not see.

People did not just change for no reason.