Chapter 1

After seven years together, Charles Sinclair and I finally called it quits.

Shortly after we broke off the engagement, I found out at the hospital that I was three months pregnant.

Charles stormed into my office and slammed the pregnancy report on my desk, his face cold as ice.

"How ambitious of you. Trying to use a baby to climb back into my life?" he said.

I stared at the report and calmly explained that the child wasn't his.

He didn't believe me. Instead, he dragged me to the hospital in front of everyone, determined to force me into an abortion.

Furious, I slapped him across the face.

Then I pulled my marriage certificate out of my bag.

I said, "Look carefully. I'm married now.

"I won't make the same mistake twice."

*****

In the early days of my pregnancy, the symptoms hit me hard. I could barely keep anything down.

Charles dragged me along that rough stretch, and I couldn't stop retching the whole way.

When I finally pulled myself together, I looked up and saw not a trace of regret in Charles's eyes, just that icy, merciless stare.

He glared at my belly, and his face twisted with anger.

It felt like he was about to devour me alive at any moment.

After seven years together, we ended up hating each other.

A trace of bitterness crept into my chest.

I let out a slow breath, trying to steady myself.

I said, "The baby is my husband's.

"I'm married now, so you don't have to worry about me clinging to you."

I grew up with Charles in the Sinclair Estate. We fell in love when we were young.

After a drunken night on my eighteenth birthday, we ended up together, and I spent the next few years by his side as his fiancée.

But six months ago, a new designer named Isabelle Hart joined the company.

Charles started staying out all night, never coming home.

He stood me up on our anniversary, and in a fit of anger, I stormed into his office to confront him, only to catch him wrapped around Isabelle, holding her close.

That day, he finally came clean.

"I never loved you, not even for a second," Charles said.

Those words twisted into my heart like a knife, leaving me bleeding inside.

We spent seven years together, growing up side by side.

After all the ups and downs we went through, all I got was those words: he never loved me.

I just couldn't let go. I kept chasing after him for ages, hoping for any sign that he might actually care about me.

I'd stake out his office building like some obsessed maniac, blocking his way just to force a meeting.

I even used his grandpa Albert Sinclair's illness as a reason to try to lure him back to the Sinclair Estate, hoping he'd see me.

I went so far as to pretend to be a delivery person, just to sneak into his office and get close to him.

Then, when I found out I was pregnant, I was so ecstatic. I rushed to tell him.

"I'm pregnant," I blurted out, my heart pounding with hope.

But Charles just assumed I'd bribed the doctor, faking the pregnancy to hold onto my place as his fiancée, refusing to let him and Isabelle be together.

Completely crushed, I was knocked down in the pouring rain, and after two hours lying there, I lost the baby.

After that day, I finally snapped out of it.

I agreed to call off the engagement.

I left Sinclair Estate with ten million and ended up marrying my husband.

Looking back at all the crazy, desperate things I did, I was honestly pretty embarrassed, and I really regretted it.

But at least it was all in the past.

The basement was even chillier than the office, the cold seeping right into my bones.

I couldn't hold back a sneeze, then shot him a quick smile.

I said, "Trust me. I'm really telling the truth this time.

"I really am married, and it was Albert who introduced us."

The Sinclair family was all about feelings and sticking together.

Even after Charles and I called off the engagement, Albert had always been good to me. He really liked me ever since I was a kid.

He knew I'd always loved Geneva, and that I only stayed here because of Charles. So, he actually went out of his way to set me up with a bunch of guys my age from Geneva.

Out of hundreds of those matchmaking posts, I picked my current husband.

Once I wrapped up the project, I would finally be able to move to Geneva and settle down with my husband.

Charles's expression turned downright frigid.

As the only heir to the Sinclair family, Charles had always been cool and hard to trust.

I knew he didn't believe a word I said.

After all, everyone knew I'd been head over heels for him forever.

Back in grade school, Charles was the school's team member, and I loved watching him walk tall in the sunlight, looking so confident.

In middle school, he joined the basketball team and led a crew of students to win the national championship, shattering the stereotype that Westfield Academy was just a bunch of bookworms.

By high school, he'd grown into the guy every girl had a crush on, top grades, killer on the court, and girls were falling for him left and right.

I was no exception.

Just thinking about that one-of-a-kind guy being my future husband would have me smiling like an idiot in the middle of the night.

I was totally head over heels for Charles.

So, when he got drunk and slept with me on my eighteenth birthday, not for a second did I try to stop him.

For years after that, I kept telling myself he must like me back.

Never in a million years did I think he just saw me as a nuisance his family dumped on him.

I still remember the day I caught Charles and Isabelle together.

For the first time, he finally lost it, his voice raw with emotion and pain.

He admitted, "Talia, your parents died saving mine, but why does their kindness mean I have to give up my own future happiness?"

His words left me speechless.

Yeah, why?

Even though I understood where he was coming from, I couldn't help but feel really hurt.

Turns out, Charles had always resented this engagement.

Why didn't he ever just tell me?

Back then, I was so in love with him that I always put him first, never noticing the way he kept pushing me away.

It wasn't until recently that I finally figured it out.

Love conquers all.

But it was only because of Isabelle that Charles finally found the courage to break free.

I spent all these years believing Charles loved me.

Those fantasies made me confident and outgoing, even though I was just an outsider growing up in the Sinclair family.

The dream was shattered, and I was not some Cinderella who gets to marry her prince.

After the engagement was called off, I packed my bags in the middle of the night and left the Sinclair Estate, deliberately steering clear of anywhere I might bump into Charles.

I avoided all the restaurants we used to go to, the streets we walked together, and even the places we used to shop.

The catch was that the design company I worked at was one of his investments, and I couldn't just let someone else take over this project.

I had to wait until the project was finished before I could finally quit and move abroad with my husband.

Smart people know when to adapt.

Before the engagement was called off, I was entitled to act out. My status gave me that freedom.

After the engagement ended, we became nothing more than familiar strangers.

I was married. I had no right to interfere with his relationship with Isabelle.

Charles was worrying for nothing.

"Caleb Stewart. What a down-to-earth name," Charles said, eyes lingering on the marriage certificate.

Charles stared at the document for a long moment, quietly reading out my husband's name.

His voice still had that deep, husky warmth I remembered, gentle, magnetic, just like before.

When I was a kid, I loved listening to him tell stories in that voice, soothing me to sleep.

But honestly, he was never that patient with me. Truth is, he barely ever did it.

"Yeah, he's a really good guy, modest and gentle," I said.

My husband worked as a researcher at a university, and he was nothing like Charles.

But he truly loved me, with all his heart.

He gave me the kind of devotion and tenderness that Charles never could.