Chapter 1

The day Lewis Chase came back, he didn’t even have time to change out of his coat before rushing straight to find me. He fell to his knees in front of me, just like he used to, taking my hand in his. His expression was uneasy and tense.

“Darling… are you still angry?”

I looked down at him. That face was still as striking and cold as ever. He carried the natural authority of a man born to power, the kind of presence that made everyone in Napels afraid of him; everyone except me, because there was a time when he loved me like I was the center of his world.

On my eighteenth birthday, I said I loved watching fireworks by the sea. The very next night, he shut down an entire private coastline just to set off a two-hour-long firework display for me alone.

When I had a high fever of a hundred and two degrees, he cancelled every meeting and stayed by my bedside for two full days. When someone at a banquet mocked my background, that person disappeared from Napels the next day without a trace. Everyone said Lewis valued me more than his own life, but at some point, things changed.

After Quinn Turner returned from abroad, Lewis’s attention never seemed to leave her again. She mentioned she wanted sweets from the east side of the city, and he abandoned a banquet he was supposed to attend with me. She said she was afraid of staying alone in a hotel, and he drove there at two in the morning to keep her company.

When I finally confronted him, all I got was his tired, resigned explanation.

“I promised her parents I would take care of her for life. Eve, her parents are gone. Just let her have this, could you?”

He forgot that I, too, was an orphan and never had parents to rely on either. So, when Quinn altered my wedding dress, took the main diamond from my engagement ring, and left on a cruise with Lewis, I finally gave up. I stopped fighting for his love with her, and I stopped wanting him.

I slowly pulled my hand away, my voice unusually calm. “I’m not angry anymore.”

Lewis froze for a second before quickly flashing me a smile. “Darling, that’s good. Quinn doesn’t mean any harm. She’s just spoiled. She thought the blue diamond was beautiful, so she acted on impulse… Same with the dress too. She just thought it would be fun to adjust it. She wasn’t targeting you.”

He spoke seriously, as if all of it were nothing more than harmless childish mistakes.

If this were the past, I would’ve questioned him with tears in my eyes, asking him why my wedding could be treated like a joke, or why my ring could be taken apart, and he could dismiss it as “an impulse.” Now, I simply nodded calmly.

“I know.”

The smile on Lewis’s face deepened.

“Eve, you’ve finally matured.” He sat down beside me and said with much relief, “Oh, and about Quinn… She’s run into some trouble with her family lately, and she doesn’t really have a proper place to stay. It’s not safe out there either, so I was thinking she could stay at the estate for a while.”

He glanced at me carefully, then quickly added, “Of course, if you’re uncomfortable, I’ll tell her to leave immediately.”

Even though I had expected it, my heart ached.

This estate was supposed to be our home. I had designed every room. I had even hand-selected and planted the white roses in the garden.

Lewis once told me that after we got married, our life together would belong only to us, and no one else would be allowed to interfere. Yet, before the wedding could happen, he was already bringing another woman into it.

I looked at him quietly and then nodded. “Alright.”

Lewis was stunned. Clearly, all his prepared explanations had become useless. His brows furrowed slightly as a trace of unease flashed across his face.

“Eve, you’re not angry?”

I met his gaze calmly. “Didn’t you say she’s spoiled? That I should let her have her way?”

Those were the exact words he had repeated to me countless times before.

Lewis paused for a moment, then nodded in satisfaction. “That’s right. It’s good that you understand. After we’re married, you two should be able to get along.”

He looked at me sincerely and continued, “I’ve had the wedding dress redesigned, and the ring will be custom-made again. I’ll give you the grandest wedding Napels has ever seen. Everyone will know that you are my only wife, Eve.”

I listened quietly but felt nothing at all. It was because my ticket had been confirmed earlier that afternoon. My flight would depart three days from now at ten in the morning from Napels to Switz.

I would leave this place, Lewis, this relationship that had drained everything out of me. As for the so-called wedding of the century he was promising, I would no longer be the bride.