Chapter 1

I knew the woman in white. Her name was Vera Fontaine.

Three months ago, she was the one who had brought a drunk Damian home.

I confronted him about it.

Damian pulled me into a tight embrace and laughed, brash as ever.

"My darling Velia, are you jealous?"

I stared at him coldly and said nothing.

His warm kisses trailed along the corner of my mouth as he explained, earnest and innocent.

"She was just a waitress at the party. She only came to return the jacket I left behind.

"You know I've never been attracted to a delicate, helpless girl. Only a fierce lioness like you could ever be my equal."

And now, Damian held a blushing Vera in his arms and made his announcement to the room.

"Vera is the purest, kindest woman I've ever known, and she will be the mother of my future heir."

They kissed again amid cheers and applause.

Damian had insisted that, for my safety, we keep our relationship secret until he became the Don.

So no one in the room could have guessed that just this morning, he had been telling me he loved me.

A sharp pain stabbed through my chest. Before the tears could fall, I turned and walked away without looking back.

Before Damian became the Don, being pure and kind was nothing more than another way of calling someone a fool.

Now that he was the Don, those same traits had become virtues.

What a joke.

I walked out of the estate. Before I could open my car door, hurried footsteps pounded behind me.

Damian rushed out and seized my wrist.

"Velia, we were supposed to go see the ocean after the party. Why are you leaving now?"

I wrenched my hand free, my voice cold.

"What gives you the right to question me, Damian?

"You promised you'd propose to me. Instead, you announced another woman as your wife. You're nothing but a liar! I'm done keeping any promises to you!"

His sapphire-blue eyes filled with weary exasperation.

"Silly girl. Yes, I named Vera my wife, but you're still the woman I love."

Those shameless words snapped the last thread of my restraint.

The fury I'd been holding down ignited in an instant, and I laughed in his face.

"And then what? Spend the rest of my life as the other woman, just like your mother did? Be mocked till the day I die, and have 'The Perfect Mistress' carved on my tombstone?"

Damian's mother had been a tragic woman.

Her father had handed her over to the previous Don to settle his gambling debts, and she became his mistress.

She went to her grave still longing for an ordinary marriage.

Damian had once sworn through gritted teeth that he would make sure no one would ever dare insult his mother again.

He had also sworn that once we were married, there would never be another woman.

And now, he expected me to become the other woman.

I had struck a nerve. The warmth vanished from Damian's face, replaced by a cold, unreadable stare.

"Then what do you want?" he asked icily. "Should I go back in there and announce that you've been the woman by my side all these years?

"I'd lose my reputation. People would stop respecting me."

I shook my head.

Relief flashed across Damian's face. "I knew you'd understand—"

"I'm breaking up with you."

The words cut him off cold.

Damian froze.