Chapter 1

Scott Cullen, the Don of the Cullen family, had once been a beam of light in my dark life.

Five years ago, he rescued me from Mac's gang just after I turned sixteen.

My parents had died in that accident.

My grandmother had heart disease and could no longer care for me.

At the lowest point in my life, I was taken in by the Cullen family.

Madam Cullen took my hand tenderly and said I was the most innocent, beautiful girl she had ever met.

As soon as I became an adult, she handed me a contract: marry Scott.

If I produced a legitimate heir within three years, I would receive a one-hundred-million-dollar trust, and the Cullen family would pay for my grandmother's medical care for the rest of her life.

Otherwise, I could walk away with nothing.

Still so young, I married into the Cullen family and unexpectedly fell for the man who had once saved me from the darkest point in my life.

During our first year of marriage, Scott brought home my favorite tiramisu even when he returned after midnight.

After a shootout, he always came straight home to make sure I was safe.

He would wrap his arms around my waist from behind as we stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows and make me a promise.

"Once we have a child, I'm getting out. I'll take both of you to live on an island."

My eyes burned as I asked, "Can my grandmother come with us?"

He lowered his head and kissed my eyelids.

"Of course, my darling. Your family is my family."

Back then, his love burned so hot it swept me away.

It made me feel I was the luckiest person alive.

Until one day, he gripped that contract and stared at me in disbelief.

"Leah, last month, when you had a fever, I canceled negotiations with a German arms dealer and stayed by your side for three days and nights. It cost me more than twenty million dollars. Was that part of the contract too?"

I shook my head frantically as tears spilled down my face. "No. It wasn't like that. My feelings for you were real..."

"Then tell me this. If there had been no contract, would you still have slept with me?"

I opened my mouth, but no answer came.

The truth was, I had married him because of the contract.

I never imagined that one moment of hesitation would be the final straw.

He looked at me and gave a bitter laugh.

"Leah Emmons, you're such a nasty bitch."

He tore off the diamond cuff links I had given him and tossed them onto the floor.

"Since money is all you want, let me help you earn it."

That night, he was so brutal I thought he would tear me apart.

No foreplay. No kisses. Just brutal, punishing thrusts.

Cold sweat poured from me as I raked countless bloody scratches down his back.

As if he felt no pain, he yanked my wrist above my head and pinned it there. "Does it hurt? Of course selling your body for money hurts!

"This is the deal you wanted!"

A scalding drop landed on my face.

I did not know whether it was sweat or something else.

When Scott got off me, warm, sticky fluid gushed between my legs.

His face went deathly pale. His gaze snapped to the hand clamped over my lower abdomen, blood streaming between my fingers.

My first baby was gone.

Before I even knew she existed, I'd already lost her forever.

Bare-chested and bloodshot-eyed, Scott sat smoking on the front steps of the mansion.

The butler later told me that Scott had spent all night on a metal chair in the hospital corridor.

When the nurse emerged, she told him I was safe but the baby could not be saved.

He bowed his head for a long time before rasping, "Don't tell her I was here."

After that day, everything good between us was gone.

I hated him for killing our child. He saw me as a whore who would sell her soul for money.