Chapter 1

In the tenth year of our mission to win over Adrian Sinclair and Vincent Kane, the system informed us that their favorability had stalled at 99 percent. All we had to do was legally marry them to complete the mission.

Rain poured relentlessly.

Lily Shaw and I stood outside the courthouse in our thin white dresses for four whole hours.

Even after the staff left for the day, those two familiar Rolls-Royces never appeared.

Then my phone lit up with a notification from my VIP alerts.

It was a new post from Belle White.

The picture showed two pairs of hands preparing orange segments for her.

The caption read sentimentally: “I may be sick, but I have two handsome men taking care of me. Even oranges taste sweeter.”

I recognized those hands.

The hands on the left belonged to Adrian, the aloof golden boy of high society who had once sworn to peel shrimp for me forever.

The ones on the right belonged to Vincent, the powerful city tycoon who had once threatened to make the entire world pay if Lily ever suffered so much as a scratch.

A deep chill traveled from my ankles through the rest of my body.

I suddenly remembered that this was already the hundredth time Adrian had broken his promise because of Belle.

“Clara, maybe… we should just give up.”

Lily’s voice trembled in the rain. She covered her swollen, reddened forehead, her face deathly pale.

Before leaving that morning, she had tried to stop Vincent from accompanying Belle to the doctor.

Vincent refused to stop. He only found her annoying, pressed down on the accelerator, and knocked her to the ground. Her head slammed hard against the car door.

He had not even glanced at her in the rearview mirror.

“There won’t be any punishment if we fail the mission anyway.”

I spoke softly as I tore the prenuptial agreement I had prepared long ago into pieces and threw them into the muddy water.

“We’ll lose the reward, but we’ll still be the heiresses of the Lowe and Shaw families.”

“Let’s consider these ten years of youth wasted on them. From now on, we’ll enjoy ourselves.”

The last spark of hope in Lily’s eyes finally faded.

She stared at the message Vincent sent her: “Stop throwing a tantrum. Belle is afraid of thunder, so I’m staying with her tonight.”

With a bitter smile, she threw her phone into the drain.

“Fine. I’ll do whatever you say. To hell with winning them over. To hell with love.”

The next day, Lily and I—two high-society heiresses who had spent ten years lowering ourselves to cook and care for those men—drove our limited-edition supercars straight to the city’s most exclusive club, the White Horse.

Without hesitation, we ordered ten rounds of Ace of Spades bottle service.

We hired twelve handsome male escorts, each standing six feet two with a perfectly sculpted physique.

Inside the private room, Lily and I lounged on a leather sofa, swirling five-figure bottles of wine in our hands.

A line of young, handsome men stood before us. Every one of them had gentle eyes and wore an eager, flattering smile.

“Darling, have a drink.”

“Precious, have some fruit.”

Hearing those sweet calls made the resentment I had bottled up for ten years disappear in an instant.

“All twelve of them are staying tonight.”

Lily outdid me completely, slamming her black credit card onto the table.

“Whoever makes me happy gets the five million on this card.”

The entire room erupted.

The male escorts rushed over, some massaging our shoulders while others rubbed our legs.

Being treated like queens made Lily and me realize how ridiculous our lives had been for the past ten years.

Why had we tried so hard to please those two men who always favored someone else?

Was it because we lacked money, or because we weren’t beautiful enough?

I was slightly drunk and had just reached out to touch one of the younger men’s abs when someone violently kicked open the private room’s heavy soundproof door.

Adrian stood outside in a custom-tailored black suit. His usually cold, restrained face had darkened with fury.

His icy gaze cut through the crowd and locked onto my hand.

“Clara, it seems I’ve indulged you far too much. Yesterday, I only took Belle to the ER. Did you really have to come to a filthy place like this and humiliate yourself?”

Vincent strode straight over the bottles scattered across the floor.

He grabbed the collar of the male escort beside Lily and slammed his fist into his face.

The escort was sent flying before he could even cry out, his face covered in blood.

Screams filled the room.

Vincent looked like a madman, his eyes bloodshot as he glared at Lily.

“You dared to find another man? Lily, didn’t I tell you? In this life, you belong to me, alive or dead!”

My chest constricted, sobering me up considerably.

Lily simply laughed. She staggered to her feet and pointed at Vincent’s face.

“So what if I found another man? You knocked your fiancée to the ground and left her bleeding by the roadside for another woman!

“You knew I was afraid of pain, yet you didn’t even ask if I was all right. Why are you pretending to care now?”

The despair in her eyes was impossible to hide.

Vincent’s brows drew together impatiently. Then he slapped Lily across the face.

“Belle’s heart condition flared up! It was a matter of life and death, and you’re making a fuss over a few superficial injuries?

“You clearly need to be taught a lesson!”

The slap left blood trickling from the corner of Lily’s mouth, and she swayed unsteadily on her feet.

“You dared to hit her!”

I trembled with rage, grabbing a bottle from the table and rushing toward him.

But Adrian clamped a hand around my wrist.

“Have you had enough? Since you like places like this so much, I’ll take you home and make sure you scrub every trace of this sleaze off yourselves.”

Before I could fight back, a sharp pain struck the back of my neck.

Just before I lost consciousness, I saw Adrian’s cold, emotionless eyes and Belle hurrying over from the corner with an innocent look on her face.