Chapter 1

For eight years, I harbored a secret crush on Lucas Brooks. And then, I slept with him.

The next morning, I heard him on the balcony, taking a phone call.

"I told you, it was just a one-night stand. Marry her? Don't be ridiculous. Just give her some money and send her on her way."

I didn't cry. I didn't make a scene.

I got dressed, went home, and dragged out the box filled with eight years of memories from my closet.

Secret photos, movie ticket stubs, a button he'd discarded. I dumped it all into a black garbage bag.

As the garbage truck rumbled past, crushing everything beneath its wheels, I let out a long breath.

Later, that same man who said "just throw some cash at her" took a red-hot steel pipe through his back to save me.

He lay on the ground, covered in blood, but he was still smiling.

"Thank God… it didn’t hit your face. You're getting married tomorrow, even if the groom isn't me. You should still be the most beautiful bride."

Ivy Laurent POV

For eight years, I harbored a secret crush on Lucas Brooks. And then, I slept with him.

It was unexpected, absurd, yet somehow inevitable.

I woke at six in the morning.

London had been raining all night. The air was heavy with moisture and the lingering scent of us.

My whole body ached. I didn't even dare look at the man sleeping beside me.

This was the deity I'd placed on a pedestal and worshipped for eight years, now reduced to evidence of my deepest transgression.

I picked my clothes up off the floor. I'd barely gotten half-dressed when I heard movement from the balcony outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Lucas was awake, taking a phone call.

Through the half-open glass door, his voice was low and husky, lazy with post-coital drowsiness, yet it cut into my heart like an ice-cold blade.

"I drank too much last night. Didn't even see who it was."

The person on the other end must have been teasing him, because Lucas lit a cigarette, his tone distant to the point of coldness.

"Who told you to drug her? Don't use that kind of tactic again."

Through the curling smoke, he paused, irritation creeping into his voice.

"I don't like her, but we've known each other for years. Last night was her first time... What do you expect me to do? Take responsibility? Marry her?"

A scoffing laugh.

"Don't be ridiculous. Not just anyone can walk through my family's door, least of all her. What I feel for her is friendship at most."

"Enough. Keep this between us. As for compensation... I'll have my assistant send her a card later. She can fill in whatever amount she wants. Enough to keep her comfortable for the rest of her life. That'll settle years of acquaintance."

My hands froze mid-button.

In an instant, my blood ran cold. My hands and feet went numb.

So in his eyes, my eight years of careful companionship, this one wild night-all of it could only be converted into a string of cold numbers.

With the added phrase: "Don't be ridiculous."

I didn't cry.

I dressed efficiently, left no note, took nothing, and slipped silently out of the villa that had trapped my youth.

When I got home, my father was sitting on the sofa, sighing.

Spread across the coffee table were a pile of photos, potential marriage candidates he'd painstakingly collected.

"Ivy, I know you've got pride. You used to chase after Lucas all the time. But people like him, we're not in their league. I'm getting old, my health's failing every day, and I just want to see you settle down with someone ordinary..."

In the past, I would have stayed silent, resisted, made excuses to retreat to my room.

But today, I walked over and scanned the pile of photos.

Not one looked like Lucas.

That was good.

I randomly pointed to one.

"This one."

My father froze, hardly daring to believe it.

"That's Ethan Rivers. He's a doctor, very refined. But he's being transferred to the New York branch for a few years. If you marry him, you might have to leave home..."

"It doesn't matter."

I cut him off.

"The farther away, the better. Set up a meeting for us."

My father was overjoyed and hurried to make the call.

I returned to my room and pulled out a locked box from the depths of my closet.

Inside was everything related to Lucas Brooks.

Photos I'd secretly taken in high school, every movie ticket stub from the past eight years, even a button he'd carelessly tossed aside.

I didn't burn them.

Burning things creates smoke, stings your eyes, makes people think you're crying.

I found a large black garbage bag and dumped everything I'd once treasured, along with the heart that had loved Lucas Brooks for eight years, into it.

I tied the bag shut and threw it in the trash bin downstairs.

The garbage truck rumbled past, crushing everything.

I looked at my empty room and let out a long breath.