CHAPTER 1

Three years into my marriage, my husband, Vercel, forced me to watch as he and his mistress had s*x in front of me.

His eyes never left mine as he seduced the woman in his arms, reducing her to a willing captive in the world of lust he had created. 

He was like an incubus—so strikingly handsome that he almost made the immorality of the act seem justified, even artistic.

I knew exactly why he kept staring at me. He was waiting for my reaction—my disgust, my pain. He expected rage. He wanted me to lash out, to tear them apart and throw the woman out of our marital home. 

But I refused to give him that satisfaction.

I watched them with a blank expression. I did not see two people sharing intimacy; I saw only two animals driven by heat.

Once, I had wished—countless times—to be the object of his adoration, for him to kiss every part of my body as though he were worshipping me. But my condition did not allow it.

No matter how much I loved him, the knowledge that his body bore the traces of others had already burned itself into my subconscious. He’s tainted. He was no longer clean. And he willingly do that. 

He was no longer the innocent, mischievous boy I once protected. He no longer looked at me as though he depended on me, as I had depended on him. 

Of course, he was no longer a boy—he was a man now. A man unclean and corrupted by lust.

Vercel and I had grown up in a remote orphanage.

I was eight, and he was seven when I first met him and rescued him from bullies. 

I was new to the orphanage, and the first time I saw him, he was being tormented. He was thin and small, his eyes bright and innocent as he struggled to hold back tears while trying to fight the bigger children.

I was fifteen, and he was fourteen, when a luxurious car pulled up in front of the orphanage and a wealthy woman stepped out. 

She claimed to be Vercel’s mother. The auntie at the orphanage explained that Vercel’s mother had once been a poor girl who had married into a wealthy family. 

Now, the master and only heir of that family was dead, leaving a massive fortune to the stepmother—Vercel’s mother.

When I met him again, I was twenty and he was nineteen. He had become a rich heir, about to inherit millions.

He had changed so much that I barely recognized him. He was no longer the clumsy boy who once gave me silly smiles.

The young man standing in front of me that day carried the rebellious air and arrogance of the wealthy, yet I could still sense his insecurities when he looked at me in our reunion. 

We became best friends, as we used to be, but I knew we were no longer the same.

When I was 21, about to graduate from college, he proposed in front of a large crowd.

We were still best friends at the time, though I had secretly been in love with him. We didn’t have a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.

So I was completely surprised when he suddenly got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Not wanting to embarrass him, I said yes.

Hearing my answer, he pulled me into his car. I thought he would explain what was happening, but the next thing I knew, we were already in front of the Civil Affairs Bureau, and he was pulling me inside the Marriage Registry Office. 

Trusting Vercel, I kept silent. Yet deep inside, as we stood in the photo booth to take pictures, I secretly felt giddy about the sudden situation—the thought that I was marrying my first love made my heart race.

By the time we left the Bureau, the small red book in our hands, Vercel finally explained why he had arranged the sudden marriage in the car.

It turned out his mother was forcing him to marry. But he didn’t want to. She had threatened that if he refused, she wouldn’t give him control of the Salvatore Corporation.

He didn’t want to marry the woman his mother had chosen, so, left with no choice, he turned to his best friend—the one he knew would help him no matter what.

That day, he said to me, “Protect me from other women, okay, wifey?”

Hearing that, I was happy. So happy—because even though he didn’t love me yet, he didn’t want anyone else. At least he trusted me.

So I promised him. And I did protect him.

But how could I truly protect a man, the one who lures women into his embrace effortlessly?

After living with him, I suddenly realized that he was no longer the innocent boy I had loved.

He was not the pure, clean youth I had imagined.

And so, during the first year of our marriage, I stopped loving him.