Chapter 1
I married Charles Lockwood, one of the most eligible bachelors in Mayfair, in an arrangement his grandmother set up.
On our wedding day, he showed up late because of his first love.
For two years after the wedding, his first love kept texting me every single day, just to mess with me.
[Oh, dear, I just know you'll be happy for us.]
[Charlie, I don't think your wife likes me.]
[Charlie's throwing me a birthday party. He won't be home tonight.]
One day, while tearing through drawers hunting for my passport, I stumbled across an old backup phone I'd forgotten about.
I powered it on. Hundreds of messages from her, literally every single day, flooded the screen.
I let out a laugh. It was so pathetically juvenile, yet I couldn't help but be impressed.
"Girl," I muttered, shaking my head, "with that kind of stamina, you could crush at anything."
On a whim, I took screenshots of everything and tweeted them with a caption, "Looks like my husband's first love is falling for me. What now?"
*****
After I posted, I didn't think much of it and just dove straight back into my grad school prep.
The next morning, my bestie, Emily Lane, blew up my phone, completely freaking out.
"Holy crap. Girl, you are a hit! Your post went viral!"
I'd pulled an all-nighter studying, so I was in a zombie-like haze when I groggily checked my phone. My eyes struggled to focus, but then it hit me—sitting at the very top of the trending list was the hashtag: [Love triangle: Mr. Lockwood's first love is into his wife]. It racked up millions of likes, comments, and retweets in no time.
Clipped screenshots of my post were everywhere, stirring up theories. People were "identifying" the triangle, dissecting rich-family marriages. Surprisingly, so many people backed me up, saying my clapback was savage.
I was still scrolling when my phone rang. Charles Lockwood called from an out-of-town acquisition meeting.
By the third ring, I forced myself to answer.
"Lily Shaw! What the hell are you doing?" Charles snapped, anger roughening his voice. Even through the phone, I could feel how rattled he was.
His voice was sharp enough to sting through the speaker. I instinctively held the phone away and calmly flipped through my textbook, sneered, "It's just a post. Chill, man."
He exhaled, trying to collect himself. "Delete the post. Work with our PR team, explaining it was all a misunderstanding. Then apologize to Scarlett Young."
I shot back, "First of all, those messages are all from Scarlett. She finds new ways to mess with me every single day. How are you not seeing this?
"Second, she only pulls this crap because you let her. And last? I'm not apologizing."
Before Charles could respond, I hung up on him.
Looking at the mountain of study materials on my desk, I took a long breath and buried my head.
But my phone kept ringing, absolutely unforgivable when you're trying to memorize some key concepts.
I blocked him then. Sweet silence settled over me, and I buried myself back in my books.
By eleven, I'd yawned my way through another GRE practice test. My pen paused during a reading comprehension passage, a dry excerpt on social history that argued "the people are the creators of history."
When I looked up, Charles was somehow by the bay window in our study, absorbed in "Capital." He must've flown back early for this mess. Gold-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose, his long fingers bracing the frame.
Lost in his book, he looked serene.
He finally felt my stare and met it head-on. "Ms. Shaw," he said coolly, "do you have an explanation for your actions?"
His tone carried that commanding authority, every inch of him radiating aristocratic pride and distance.
It instantly reminded me of our first meeting two years ago at Lockwood Manor, where a private gala had been staged for him to choose a wife. He played the perfect gentleman, charming every heiress in the room while his eyes harbored nothing but disdain.
Snapping back to the present, I ignored his question and checked my phone. The trending topic about us vanished, replaced by fresh celebrity gossip about someone's secret marriage.
"Mr. Lockwood," I said evenly, "we agreed on three ground rules from day one." His expression darkened. I was usually invisible to him, but my sudden defiance revealed I wasn't the "perfect wife" his grandmother had promised.
Two years ago, he showed up to our wedding nearly two hours late. The excuse given to guests was "traffic."
The excuse fooled no one. Photos surfaced later showing Scarlett leaving his place in an oversized shirt on our wedding day. Gossip that actress Scarlett was his true love tore through high society.
After the wedding, we never even shared a room. He made his position clear. "I don't love you. This is a business arrangement, so we just need to keep up appearances." So I didn't bother daydreaming about making him fall for me.
I set my conditions instead. "One, stay clean. I don't want diseases. Two, keep your scandals and your women away from me. Three, back the Shaw family."
Now he was blaming me for the stock market turmoil caused by the scandal. But pointing fingers wouldn't help. Instead, he needed to understand that he was the source of all this chaos.
When I mentioned our wedding, his tone softened slightly. He must remember our agreement. "Scarlett's immature. She didn't mean anything by it. Don't take it to heart."
I was so exhausted from this love triangle bullshit that my voice rose. "Immature?" I snapped, "She's in her twenties, not a toddler. She knows what she's doing. And so do you. You're both accountable."
"Are you jealous?" Charles teased. For someone so consistently cold, this unexpected shift left me frozen, unsure how to respond.
"You're deflecting," I shot back.
I wasn't a genius, but I wasn't stupid either. He was baiting me into the "do you have feelings for me" trap, hoping I'd forget how he let another woman parade around disrespecting me.
My blunt certainty clearly bothered him. He frowned, and for just a second, something like embarrassment flashed across his face before his expression turned cold again.
He spoke to me like I was an underperforming employee, voice dripping with executive authority, "Mrs. Lockwood, your little stunt cost both our families. Do you have any idea how many points our stocks have dropped?"
I set down my pen and met his gaze directly. "So what? You want me to keep smiling while your precious Scarlett needles me so that your stock price stays pretty? You expect me to play the perfect, long-suffering wife?"
His frown deepened, clearly annoyed. "Don't be such a baby. This isn't some game. Our marriage affects both our families, not just you."
"Me? Baby?" I scoffed. "Mr. Lockwood, I think you're missing the point. You created the whole mess because you can't keep your pecker in your pants. I'm the victim here, not the problem."
I met his cold gaze through his glasses. He stared back, clearly not expecting such a sharp response. "Mrs. Lockwood," he said evenly, "watch your tone."