Chapter 1

Charis' POV

The rain kept pouring, and my daughter, Joy Harrell, burned with a high fever. Her consciousness was slowly fading away.

I no longer cared about my husband, Brian Harrell, or his affair with the family doctor, Aurora Bradley. I ran out into the rain, grabbed Joy, and tried to bring her back into the villa.

The bodyguard, Paul Dugan, saw what I was doing and immediately tried to stop me.

"Mrs. Harrell, Mr. Harrell has given orders that Ms. Harrell must kneel in the rain for a full ten hours before she's allowed inside again. Another three hours remain. You cannot remove her from her post now."

However, Joy's condition was gradually worsening in my arms.

I was frantic and ran past Paul without a second thought. I yelled at him, "But Joy is having an extremely high fever, and it won't go away if she continues staying in the rain! If you make her stay out for another three more hours, she will collapse!

"Are you trying to tell me that Mr. Harrell also gave out his orders to drive us to our deaths?"

When Paul saw that Joy had already passed out in my arms, he simply let us through and didn't dare to stop us anymore. However, he called Brian, his face stern, to keep him updated on the situation.

I didn't care about him anymore and ran into the villa, pulling a thick blanket around Joy's shivering body. Then I ran to find a first-aid kit and grabbed a fever patch for her burning forehead.

Just as I was about to give her some fever meds, Brian wheeled himself into the room and said in dissatisfaction, "Joy is still young. How dare you simply administer meds to her? Are you trying to kill her?"

He then beckoned for Aurora and pointed at the unconscious Joy. "Aurora. Have a look at the kid instead."

I was skeptical, but since Aurora was indeed the family doctor and Joy was in terrible condition, I figured it wouldn't hurt for her to take a closer look.

Aurora nodded and approached Joy gently with a thermometer. After taking her temperature for six minutes and pulling out the thermometer, the reading showed a whopping 104 degrees. It was a dangerously high bout of fever.

However, Aurora simply shook the thermometer a few times before chuckling lightly. "Her body temperature is very normal. Ms. Harrell is not having a fever at all.

"Really, Mrs. Harrell, you shouldn't be indulging such a young child in her play-pretenses."

Brian had been quite worried about Joy at first, but after hearing what Aurora had to say, he was immediately consumed by rage.

"I was just teaching Joy a lesson for eating dirty food off the ground because I was worried that she would get an upset stomach, but you went and taught her how to lie to me instead to get my pity?

"Fine! Since you're oh-so-worried about her like this, Charis Olsen, you can go out and kneel in the rain for ten hours instead!"

So if Joy eating off the floor was dirty, what about Joy and me rummaging through the trash every day for food?

He kept coming up with all these stupid excuses to punish us simply because he still harbored a grudge against us for causing him to miss meeting his first love, Dorothy Tucker, for the last time.

When I first started dating Brian, I knew he still hadn't quite gotten over his first love. But when we eventually got married, he repeatedly told me that he had already severed all ties with her and would never meet her again.

We'd been very happy since our marriage, and we even had Joy together not long after.

But three years ago, Joy insisted Brian take her to the amusement park one day and made a huge fuss about it. Brian had no choice but to agree to appease her, but that choice ultimately made him break his seven-year promise to Dorothy by missing her for the last time.