Chapter 1

The words of my son, Shane Lewis, hit me like bullets, piercing right through my skull. I stared at him as he played with his limited-edition toy robot. I'd spent three sleepless nights doing freelance design work just to get that for him.

His face, which looked just like Naomi Sullivan's, held a frosty indifference that should never have been found on a five-year-old.

"S-Shane, what are you talking about?"

My throat had tightened. Every word was torture to get out.

"Mommy told me everything," Shane said flatly. "Mommy said that a truly capable man wouldn't constantly talk about money.

"You spend all your time calculating all those expenses. You'd even run two blocks on foot just because of a supermarket discount. And you even got mad at me because I broke a toy."

"I wasn't mad. I was just—"

"Mommy said that's what a petty, low-class man does," Shane interrupted as he coolly repeated Naomi's words. "She said you're fixated on trivial, short-term gains. Your love is both too worthless and too burdensome."

It felt as though something was squeezing my heart, the pain suffocating me.

Every single dollar I scrimped and saved had only been for this family. I gave up all my dignity just to pay off Naomi's massive debts. I'd scalded my arm while working the night shift at the convenience store. I'd even almost collapsed on the road after working dozens of hours straight at the design studio.

But now, Naomi and Shane had reduced all the sacrifices I'd made to me being a petty, low-class man who cared too much about money.

I crouched down to take Shane's hand, but he shoved me away in disgust. "Don't touch my robot. You can't even afford it."

I couldn't afford it? The receipt for that robot was still in my wallet.

My lips parted, but no word came out.

Feeling numb, I straightened up and stumbled backward, my back hitting the cold wall behind me. My gaze swept over the living room before landing on the coffee table. On it was a check and a document—a divorce agreement.

Naomi had already signed it, her signature as refined and polished as she'd looked when she was featured in the financial news.

The check beside it was my "severance pay" for the multiple jobs I had worked and countless sleepless nights that had consumed five years of my youth.

It was so ironic to think that, just last week, Naomi and I had hugged in celebration right here in this living room. She'd said, "We've made it through the tough times, Ian. From now on, we'll be the happiest family alive!"

Looking back now, that was probably just the last line of her script to mark the end of her adversity trial.

My phone started ringing. The word "Darling" flashed on the screen. I woodenly took the call.

"You saw it, right?" Naomi's curt voice rang out. "Our adversity trial has ended, Ian. Congratulations on having completed this process with me, but unfortunately, you have been eliminated."

"A trial?" I croaked. My voice had returned, but my throat was dry.

"That's right. It was just a trial," she confirmed with a scornful laugh. "I needed to prove to the board of directors that, even in the most desperate circumstances, I can still attract a loyal partner and build up everything from scratch.

"Jared is my investor and my real fiance. You're just some guy I picked at random to fulfill the role of my husband in this social experiment. It just so happened that you and Jared have the same last name, Lewis."

"So that ten-million-dollar debt…"

"Oh. That was just another way of referring to the startup capital I needed. After all, how else could I gauge a person's true character under adverse circumstances if I hadn't framed it as a debt?"

"Naomi!" I snapped, my nails digging into my palm. "You vile, contemptible woman!"

"Am I? But this so-called vile, contemptible woman is now the heir to a multi-billion-dollar fortune. Take the check and leave with your dignity, Ian. Don't make me lose all respect for you in the end."

After a pause, she said something even crueler to me.

"By the way, Shane isn't your son. His parents are Jared and me. I was never pregnant with your child. You were just playing the role of a proxy parent in Shane's part of this social experiment.

"Now that the real man of the house will be returning, you need to move out of the house at once. It belongs to my real family with Jared and Shane."

It felt as though I'd been plunged into an icy lake.

"Jared and the legal team from Sullivan Group will be arriving in 30 minutes. They'll handle the rest with you. Remember to at least act in a dignified manner."

The call ended, but I continued clutching my phone. It felt like I was holding a burning coal.

A proxy parent in a social experiment?

It turned out that they were the ones who allowed me to be a father in the first place. And they were now taking that privilege back.