Chapter 1

"I want you to fake a private jet air crash for me so that I can leave Joachim Davidson."

As soon as Scarlett Meyer made her request, her best friend, Vicky Redfield, was in so much shock that her jaw practically hit the ground. She wondered if she was hearing things.

The reaction was somewhat similar to when she first heard that Scarlett would be marrying Joachim back then.

Scarlett had come from one of the poorer neighborhoods in the mountains, and Joachim came from the richest and most affluent family in Zittoria. Their circles were worlds apart, and nobody would have ever thought that they would end up together.

People had discussed it among themselves back then. Some of them figured that Joachim was just dating Scarlett for the novelty of it, while some others guessed that Joachim had a secret first love whom he wasn't allowed to be with, and Scarlett was just a stand-in for her.

Even more absurdly, some others thought that Joachim only married Scarlett because of a bet.

However, for the next three years after their marriage, Joachim proved to the world with his actions that he had no ulterior motives for marrying Scarlett, other than the fact that he loved her very much.

In fact, he was so deeply and hopelessly in love with her.

It was love at first sight for him. He hadn't stopped aggressively pursuing Scarlett ever since.

He kept showering her with gifts and presents of all sorts. Besides that, he also donated to multiple charities, in the sum of tens of billions of dollars, under Scarlett's name. He even built schools for the poor and needy all over the world and named them all, "Scarlet Jr. High."

He hoped that everyone in the world would know of Scarlet and be grateful toward her. So, in the event that she got into trouble in any part of the world, the people there would be more than willing to lend her a helping hand.

Joachim also did all he could to be able to spend more time with her. He worked at the same part-time job as she did, such as waiting tables, distributing flyers, and even sorting parcels at the post office.

He had never worked a day in his life at home, not even washing his own clothes, and yet, he had managed to work with Scarlett at all of her odd-jobs for two whole years.

His fingers, which used to allow him to play beautiful melodies on the violin, were now covered in thick calluses.

His sincerity in pursuing her finally touched Scarlett, convincing her to give their relationship a chance. However, since they came from vastly different family backgrounds, his family refused to acknowledge their relationship at all.

Joachim tried his best to get his parents' approval. He went through all of his family's punishments, some of them even involving physical punishments where he got badly injured and still had the scars to show on his back till now.

However, after realizing that even that wasn't enough to change his parents' minds about Scarlett, he forwent his right to his inheritance and decided to start his own business from scratch. This way, nobody would be able to have a say in his married life, and he could marry whoever he wanted.

His elite friends all thought that Joachim had gone out of his mind. He was normally a very bright and intelligent person, and yet, he had given up his generational wealth just to be with a woman he liked.

Joachim's parents had no other choice but to agree to his and Scarlett's marriage after that.

After their wedding, Joachim immediately got rid of every female employee in close proximity to him and replaced them with male employees.

Even if Scarlett never asked him to do it, he would still report his daily schedule to her in detail. He even installed a GPS tracker on himself so that she would always know where he was and could check in on him whenever she wanted.

The netizens branded their relationship dynamic as the epitome of romanticism, and Joachim was the ambassador of it all.

Within no time at all, suddenly everyone online was rooting for his and Scarlett's relationship. They were shipped together so hard that their mundane news even accidentally overshadowed some celebrity gossip.

However, nobody else but Scarlett knew that this seemingly perfect man and perfect husband was cheating on her. He even had twins with another woman, forming another family altogether behind her back.

When Scarlett first found out about this, her heart had hurt so much that she fainted from the pain.

When Joachim heard about this, he immediately postponed his overseas business meeting that could have brought in billions of dollars and hurried back home. He then cared for her at the hospital for two days without leaving her side.

When Scarlett woke up, Joachim stayed next to her bed with a worried expression on his face. He was holding the tube feeding into her IV drip, trying to warm up the liquid before it went into her bloodstream.

"You're finally awake? You gave me such a fright!" Joachim said, holding her hand close to his face. His eyes were shimmering with tears.

He never blinked an eye when he'd been threatened and held at gunpoint when he was in business. Yet, the moment he heard that Scarlett had passed out, his legs had turned to jelly.

Scarlett felt like her heart was being shredded when she saw the worry and anxiety in Joachim's eyes.

The love-struck eyes couldn't be faked. Joachim truly loved her. But somehow, she couldn't help wondering if this man, who truly loved her so deeply, also looked at Katrina Greene with the same lovestruck eyes and told her the same romantic pick-up lines too.

Katrina, the person he was cheating on her with, was his childhood friend.

When word spread at college that Joachim was pursuing Scarlett, Katrina had led a gang of people to bully Scarlett on campus. They even went to Scarlett's part-time jobs to cause trouble for her and humiliate her on purpose, getting her fired from many of them.

Katrina had even managed to get actual gang members to humiliate and degrade Scarlett, but Joachim had crashed the scene unintentionally when he was simply planning to confess his feelings for Scarlett.

Joachim hadn't held back then. He made sure that the Greenes went bankrupt right after that. Had his mother, Amanda Finch, not intervened, Joachim would have probably also ended Katrina's life then and there with his own bare hands.

So, if Scarlett hadn't personally seen the names on the DNA tests themselves, she would never have believed that Joachim had cheated on her, and that his bastard children were already well over 12 months old.

Scarlett just closed her eyes and turned her head to the side. Her tears fell onto her pillow and made a wet stain.

Joachim didn't see her tears and thought that she was simply exhausted. "Scarlett, the doctor just did a check-up on you, and they found out that you're two months pregnant. We're going to have our own baby!"

He was always the cold and aloof person to everyone else, but now, Joachim was so happy he looked like a child who'd just been given a lollipop. "It's going to be our wedding anniversary in days, and we also just found out that you're pregnant! This calls for a double celebration!"

Scarlett immediately opened her eyes.

When she was young, her father, Doug Campbell, once nearly drowned her in the lake, which eventually led to the doctors telling her that she would probably never be able to bear children for the rest of her life.

It was also because of this issue that Joachim's parents were immensely dissatisfied with her.

Scarlett put up with them because they were her in-laws. However, Joachim hated to see her sad and refused to let his family hurt her. So, he said coldly, "Scarlett is my beloved wife, and I'm forever thankful and consider myself lucky that she's willing to be with me.

"But, if both of you continue treating her badly just because she can't give you grandchildren, then I'm going to denounce my relationship with you both. You'll no longer be my parents, and I'll no longer be your son. I'll sever ties with you all!"

Scarlett gently stroked her belly and couldn't hold it in anymore. She began sobbing out loud. Why did the baby have to come at such a time?

Joachim pulled her into his arms and comforted her gently. "Aww, Lettie, why are you crying? Who did this to you? I'll make sure you get revenge!"

However, Scarlett picked up a faint scent of a foreign perfume smell on him, mixed slightly with the smell of baby formula.

She immediately pushed him away and turned to the side to throw up.

Joachim thought that Scarlett was suffering from morning sickness. He instinctively put his hands together and formed a makeshift bowl with them, catching her vomit, not worrying at all that he would get dirty from it.

He just kept glancing worriedly at her. Of course, he was happy that Scarlett was pregnant, but he had been with Katrina throughout her pregnancy too, and he knew how hard it was for a woman to go through pregnancy, childbirth, and the side effects of postpartum afterward.

Scarlett stared at Joachim in shock. She knew that he was a severe clean freak, and yet, he was willing to do so much for her. In fact, Joachim always delicately hand-washed every single item of clothing that she wore.

Joachim had showered her with all of his love for three years after they got married, and so had Scarlett. She couldn't bear to leave him anymore.

At that moment, Scarlett had a fleeting thought—if Joachim was willing to sever ties with Katrina, then she didn't mind going back to how they used to be.

However, a split second later, Joachim got a text message on his phone. After reading it, he got up in a haste and left, citing that there was something urgent at the office.

Half an hour later, Scarlett received a photo from Katrina. The photo showed Joachim lovingly kissing the twins on their foreheads.

That photo completely shattered all of Scarlett's hopeful imaginings.

After getting discharged from the hospital, Scarlett went straight to Vicky and asked her to fake the private jet air crash for her.

Scarlett knew Joachim like the back of her hand. He would never agree to a divorce. He would also never agree to let her go. He would just go berserk like a lunatic.