Chapter 1: Retribution

The passionate affair came to an end.

The room still lingered with a heart-pounding, blushing atmosphere.

In the darkness, the man embraced her from behind. "Satisfied?" he asked, his voice lazy and deep, sending a shiver down Selena Patrick's neck as it brushed against her ear.

Suddenly, a phone rang. The man released his arms, wrapped a towel around his waist, and took the call in the next room.

Half-awake and half-drunk, the woman sat up and rubbed her sore waist.

She didn't care about the man's prowess.

Nor did she care who he was or where he came from.

In fact, she had kept her eyes closed throughout the entire encounter.

He was nothing more than a gigolo she had picked up.

Her urgency to give herself away stemmed from her fiancé, Steven Austin, who had brought his pregnant cousin, Sharon Patrick, to her birthday party, humiliating her to the extreme.

After a year of love and a two-week engagement, he had given her this great gift of betrayal. How could she possibly accept it?

The satisfying feeling of revenge made her feel especially relieved, even though she had given herself to a gigolo.

But that didn't matter.

Selena Patrick picked up her bag, took out a stack of red bills, and placed them on the nightstand.

She got up, dressed, and left without any hesitation.

Before leaving the hotel, she deliberately called the most gossipy media outlet in J city. The bloodthirsty reporters captured her every move, focusing their lenses on the red hickey on her snow-white neck.

Everyone in J city knew she was Steven Austin's fiancée. Since he had humiliated her, she had no choice but to retaliate.

The man, who had re-entered the room after hanging up the phone, casually pulled back the curtains.

Turning around, he found the bed empty, with only a stack of red bills that instantly cooled the curve of his lips.

So, he was treated like a gigolo, and she had run off after sleeping with him. Wasn't his 'service' satisfactory?

With his finely chiseled features, deep, dark eyes, and especially those seductive thin lips, which were particularly captivating when he was angry, such a noble and handsome man had been dismissed with money.

"Selena Patrick, you think you can sleep with me and then just run away? Think again."

His slender fingers tapped on the phone screen, dialing a number...

The speed at which the gossip magazines reported the story was far faster than Selena Patrick had anticipated.

Before she even stepped into the Patrick family home, she heard Darren Patrick's furious voice.

"What is she trying to do? Is she trampling on the Patrick family's reputation? Where will I put my old face now? How did the Patrick family produce such a shameless creature?"

"Don't get so angry, be careful of your health. Calm down," said Judy Patrick, Darren Patrick's wife, soothingly.

Standing at the door, Selena Patrick curled her lips in disdain. These words had little impact on her.

They certainly wouldn't make her feel ashamed or embarrassed.

She found it amusing.

Before entering, she deliberately lowered her neckline and walked in with the proud, haughty steps of the Patrick family's eldest daughter, ignoring Darren Patrick's scolding.

The marks on her neck, a reminder of what she had just done, only fueled Darren Patrick's anger.

He picked up a blue-and-white porcelain teacup and hurled it at Selena Patrick. "What are you trying to do? Do you want to make the Patrick family a laughingstock in J city?"

Selena Patrick slightly moved her head, dodging the incoming danger. Her gaze swept from Darren Patrick's twisted face to Sharon Patrick's half-red, half-pale one, and she suddenly smiled.

Her smile only made Darren Patrick's face turn green.

"What are you laughing at? If it weren't for your father's request, I wouldn't have raised you to twenty. You don't know gratitude, and you've done such despicable things. You may not have any shame, but we do."

"Face?" Selena Patrick's sharp gaze fell on Sharon Patrick. "If you cared about face, you wouldn't have let your daughter climb into my fiancé's bed and get pregnant."

"Love is between them, why can't you just accept it?"

It wasn't surprising for Darren Patrick to say such things; after all, he barely counted as a person in Selena Patrick's eyes.

Love for them, and a joke for her?

"I'm not just going to accept it, I'm going to congratulate them. After all, it's not often that a bitch and a playboy come together," Selena Patrick said, starting to walk upstairs.

Darren Patrick's fingers trembled with rage. Seeing Sharon Patrick on the verge of tears, he wanted to tear Selena Patrick apart.

"Stop right there."

Selena Patrick paused, turning around nonchalantly. "What else do you have to say?"

"Can you show no remorse for doing something so shameful? Even if you don't care about us or the Patrick family's reputation, don't you care about your father's face?"

Darren Patrick brought up Edgar Patrick to suppress Selena Patrick's rebellious spirit.

Since she was six, she had mostly been submissive and compliant. In recent years, however, she had become increasingly defiant, and he had to indulge her whims to secure the land she held.

"Since you've done this, the Austin family will surely take the opportunity to make things difficult for the Patrick family. The best way to quell their anger is for you to beg for Steven Austin's forgiveness. Only then can we save face."

"Beg for his forgiveness? He betrayed me first. Why should I beg for his forgiveness? Uncle, are you getting senile?"

"The gossip media is saying that Selena Patrick met a gigolo and cheated on Steven Austin. Should the Austin family apologize to you instead?" Darren Patrick barked, trying to assert his dominance.

"An eye for an eye. If Uncle doesn't mind, I can hold a press conference and reveal that Sharon Patrick and Steven Austin had an illegitimate child. What do you think?"

Selena Patrick's attitude and threat made Darren Patrick grit his teeth in hatred. "You dare? If you do, I'll release photos of your mother before she died and cut off your father's treatment."

The death of Selena Patrick's mother, Wanda Patrick, was a forbidden topic.

Though she was young at the time, the image of Wanda Patrick's naked, charred body had haunted her ever since.

After Wanda Patrick's death, Edgar Patrick fell ill and never recovered.

She had to live under someone else's roof.

Darren Patrick was using this to threaten her.

The last bit of kindness in the girl's eyes vanished with Darren Patrick's words.

Her clenched fists, white-knuckled, hinted at her next move: to strangle this man to death.

Judy Patrick quickly intervened. "Selena, your uncle didn't mean it that way. He was..."