Chapter 1

Ethan Turner paused on the other end of the line. When he spoke again, the anger in his voice was unmistakable.

"How many times do I have to explain this to you? I already told you that getting the marriage certificate with Sara was just for show. It was nothing more than a formality to get her parents off her back. Do you really have to be this petty about it?

"I already promised I'd marry you eventually, so what else do you want from me? There's a limit to how long you can keep throwing tantrums. Do you really think you can just toss around the word 'breakup' whenever you're upset?"

Hannah Robbins said nothing. She simply tightened her grip on her phone, looked around the empty City Hall lobby, and gave a bitter smile.

For the past ten years, marrying Ethan had been the ultimate pursuit of her life. She had spent years imagining the happy life they would have together after finally tying the knot.

In fact, she had started preparing long ago. The wedding favors and invitations had been ordered months in advance, and she had already chosen the photography studio, designed their wedding outfits, and scouted the perfect venue.

The moment he gave the word, she would have walked down the aisle without hesitation. Yet every time she brought up setting a wedding date, he found another excuse.

There was always some urgent business matter, some critical stage of the company's growth, some reason they needed to wait until things stabilized.

To help him get the company through those difficult years, she took on all the dirty work, pulling late nights and working herself to the bone alongside him.

When the company finally stabilized, he simply changed his excuse, saying that he wasn't ready yet and asking her to wait a bit longer.

And so, she waited, and she waited for ten full years.

It wasn't until yesterday, after she successfully closed a massive cross-border acquisition for the company, that Ethan finally relented.

He agreed to go to City Hall and get the marriage certificate with her, calling it a reward for all her hard work.

Overjoyed, Hannah believed her years of patient waiting had finally paid off. She was so excited that she barely slept a wink.

She even took the entire day off and arrived at City Hall early that morning. She waited until dark, but Ethan never came.

When she finally checked her social media feed, she found Sara Russell showing off her marriage certificate with Ethan.

To avoid running into her, they had even driven to a neighboring city to make it official. The certificate in the photo seemed to stab straight through her heart.

So, it wasn't about being ready. He simply hadn't wanted to marry her.

Hannah took a deep breath. For once, instead of swallowing her hurt and pretending everything was fine, she snapped back.

"Right. It's just a formality. From getting the registration forms to walking out with a marriage certificate, it takes less than ten minutes. Yet after ten years together, you refused to do that simple thing with me, but you went and did it with Sara.

"And let's not forget, you were the one who brought up getting married today in the first place, only to stand me up for an entire day. Don't I have the right to be angry?"

Ethan fell silent, clearly caught off guard by her fierce response. But it didn't take long for his tone to turn bossy and condescending again.

"Can you stop making a big deal out of nothing? Didn't I already tell you there was a reason for this? I couldn't just stand by and watch Sara get pushed into an arranged marriage and sent off to a miserable life.

"Do you have any idea how much money the company has invested in training her? I did this to keep a valuable employee from leaving. Are you seriously saying I was wrong for doing my job?"

Listening to Ethan dress up his selfishness as some noble sacrifice, Hannah found the whole thing laughable.

Plenty of employees at the company faced pressure from their families to get married. So, why hadn't Ethan rushed to rescue any of them?

Why was Sara the only one he cared so desperately about keeping? And what exactly made Sara so special?

Her performance was practically nonexistent. She couldn't even handle basic Excel tasks, routinely ranked at the bottom of her department, and hadn't closed a single deal in the six months she'd worked there.

With any other employee, Ethan would have torn them apart over a poor performance review. If they failed to bring in even a dollar of revenue or asked too many questions, he would have chewed them out and had HR put them on the chopping block.

But when it came to Sara, he always found an excuse.

He would claim she was deliberately letting other employees take credit so they could earn a living, or insist that when the company faced a genuine crisis, she would somehow step up and save the day.

Hannah knew exactly what was happening. If Ethan hadn't been taking her projects and handing them to Sara to inflate her performance numbers, Sara would have been fired months ago.

Ethan might not even have realized it himself, but his favoritism toward Sara had already seeped into every corner of his life. It was subconscious protectiveness, an instinctive and unconditional bias toward her that he couldn't hide.

A wave of exhaustion washed over Hannah. She sighed under her breath. "You're right. You didn't do anything wrong. I did."

Ethan immediately relaxed, smug satisfaction creeping into his voice. "In that case, go delete that comment right now and apologize to Sara. How is anyone in the office supposed to look at her when you're constantly making scenes like this..."

"No." Hannah cut him off. "My biggest mistake was not dumping you sooner."

"Seriously? You're being completely unreasonable!" Ethan snapped. "Fine. If you're determined to be this stubborn, then just wait and see."

The call ended abruptly.

Moments later, Hannah's phone started buzzing with notifications. Ethan had unlinked all their shared couple accounts across various apps.

He had even changed their matching profile picture, but Hannah didn't even blink. She had seen this routine too many times before.

Whenever he got angry, Ethan pulled the same stunt, cutting off their little signs of intimacy in the hope that Hannah would realize she'd gone too far, swallow her pride, and come crawling back to apologize.

But this time, she was genuinely exhausted. She had no desire to coax him, placate him, or soothe his ego anymore.

Just as she was about to turn off her screen, Sara suddenly tagged her in the company's main Slack channel.

Sara: [Ethan and I getting the marriage certificate was just a special situation. He was only being kind and helping me deal with my parents. Good, caring bosses like him are so rare these days, so please don't misunderstand.

[If I'd known you'd mind this much, I never would have posted about it on social media. It's all my fault. I'm really sorry.]

Ethan immediately replied to her message.

[Sara, you didn't do anything wrong, so don't apologize. The only person who owes anyone an apology is the one making passive-aggressive remarks and jumping to malicious conclusions.]

The rest of the office quickly picked up on the subtext and rushed to flatter him.

[Exactly. Sara, this isn't your fault at all. Hannah is just unbelievably petty. She's obviously jealous because you're young, gorgeous, and so highly regarded by Mr. Turner. That's why she's spreading false rumors.]

[Mr. Turner is incredibly compassionate, but as his girlfriend, Hannah is cold-hearted and lacks empathy. She deserved to get stood up today. Well done, Mr. Turner! Someone needed to knock her off her high horse anyway.]

Hannah stared at the flood of venomous replies without a change in expression.

Ever since Sara joined the company and Ethan began favoring her, these sycophantic coworkers had routinely sucked up to Ethan, thrown Hannah under the bus, and talked trash about her behind her back.

She had long since become numb to it. Their petty chatter couldn't hurt her anymore.

Tired of the entire farce, she locked her phone. The clerk at the City Hall counter gave her a sympathetic look.

"Hey, you've been waiting here all day. Has the person you were waiting for still not shown up? We're closing soon. Maybe you'd like to try again tomorrow?"

Hannah shook her head and lowered her eyes. "He already got married to someone else. He won't be coming. And I won't be back tomorrow either."

She looked down at the crumpled form in her hand, a bitter smile touching her lips. She had been the first person to arrive that morning, yet she was the last to leave.

With one swift tear, she ripped the form to pieces and dropped the scraps into the trash. She was done waiting for a man who would never come and for a wedding that would never happen.

She no longer wanted a one-sided relationship that demanded everything from her while giving her nothing in return.

Without hesitation, she turned and strode toward the glass doors. Just as she reached the exit, her phone began to ring with a call from Ethan.

The very man who had blocked her just moments ago was now calling her back.