Chapter 1
A full year after the divorce, Phoebe Hamilton finally dared to leave the cramped apartment where she had been hiding and head for the airport.
She had barely taken a breath of freedom before she saw him—Xander Sampson—already waiting. Beside him stood a man so badly tortured that he was almost unrecognizable.
He said, "Phoebe, it's been a year. I finally found you."
The bloodied man had once been her guard—the one who took her money and secretly let her escape.
Phoebe closed her eyes in resignation. "Let him go. I'll come with you."
Xander had her bound. What he pressed to her face, however, was a jagged shard of emerald.
Xander said, "A year ago, you shattered the bracelet my mother left Alena, and you scarred her face. I can't take you back unless your face is ruined too."
Phoebe's eyes flew open. "She poured gasoline on me. If I hadn't fought back, I would've been burned alive."
Xander's gaze held a trace of regret. "I told you not to provoke her."
Her mind reeled with one question—why?
When Alena Bryant slapped her, Phoebe merely dodged and was thrown into the ancestral hall to kneel for three days and nights.
When Alena fed her rotten fish broth, Phoebe threw up and was forced to survive on spoiled leftovers for a week.
Even Alena's midnight medical emergency somehow became Phoebe's fault.
He loved Alena—fine, Phoebe had left. But every time she tried to escape, he dragged her back, punished her, and humiliated her.
The cruelest part? After every punishment, Xander would pull her into his arms, whispering, "The one I love is you. Be good. Once this is over, everything will be fine."
But Phoebe couldn't find a shred of his love, even if she searched for it with a magnifying glass.
Just like now, the cold shard pressed against her cheek.
Xander said, "I'll find the best plastic surgeon. You won't be left with a mark."
Pain flared, sharp and searing. Phoebe squeezed her eyes shut to keep the tears from falling.
As darkness closed in, only one thought remained. She had to escape.
*****
When Phoebe woke up, her face was covered in bandages. Her first reaction was to try and rip them off.
The nurse quickly stopped her, catching her hand.
"Don't move. You've got so many knife wounds on your face, and they haven't healed at all," the nurse warned.
Phoebe felt dazed. She remembered Xander had only slashed her once. She thought, 'Where did all these other injuries come from?'
"I arranged for you to have a full facial reconstruction," Xander said.
His voice was soft, carrying an effortless sense of authority, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Alena said your face was too similar to hers. She couldn't stand it," he added.
Phoebe was on the verge of collapse, tears leaking from her eyes and soaking through the bandages.
She'd been kidnapped when she was just a kid, and she had no memory of what her parents looked like. The only way she could imagine her mother's face was by staring at her own reflection.
But now, they'd even stolen her own face from her.
Xander saw her shoulders shaking and, for a split second, felt a twinge of guilt.
He opened the thermos, letting the familiar scent of oatmeal drift out, and then handed her a bowl.
"I made it myself. Drink it while it's hot," he said.
After a fight, their secret ritual for making up was always a bowl of his homemade seafood oatmeal.
Phoebe still remembered when Xander was interviewed on a financial channel. The host asked if he'd ever cooked for his childhood sweetheart, and Xander just smiled, gentle and confident.
"Yes, before I got married, I did have a history with her. But that's all behind me now. My wife is the most special person in my heart, and she's the only woman I've ever cooked for," he said.
Back then, Phoebe had beamed stupidly as she ate the oatmeal he made for her, never imagining that three years later, thanks to his childhood sweetheart, she wouldn't even be allowed to keep her own face.
Suddenly, Phoebe turned her head, her blank stare settling on him.
"Xander, did you only choose me because I looked like Alena?" she asked.
Phoebe first met Xander back when she was a college student.
To cover her living expenses, she attended classes during the day and ran a small stall near campus at night, selling savory flatbreads.
It was just a deal that cost less than 3 dollars, but she never expected it would make Xander pursue her relentlessly for four years.
He paid her tuition in full.
When she was hospitalized for severe anemia, he stayed by her side the whole time.
But even then, her insecurity made her want to escape.
After graduation, she secretly bought a ticket back to her hometown, but was targeted by thugs and was almost assaulted—until Xander showed up out of nowhere and saved her just in time.
She felt she didn't deserve him, but Xander's eyes were rimmed with red.
"Alright. I'll donate everything I own right now, and we can just be an ordinary couple. Would that be enough for you to accept me?" he said.