Chapter 1

It was the seventh year of my marriage to Ethan when his first love, Celeste Dubois, returned to the country.

My mother was left in a vegetative state after Celeste's botched surgery, and my brother, Dylan, was thrown into prison by Ethan himself for trying to seek justice for Mom.

When I called the police, Ethan locked me up at home.

He forced me to kneel and apologize to Celeste.

After stripping me of all my dignity and destroying my family, Ethan said coldly, "Celeste is the woman I vowed to protect for life. The Miller family owes her, and you'll never be able to repay that debt."

Heartbroken, I jumped into the sea.

Three years later, I returned to the top as Shirley.

When he knelt in a pool of blood, begging me to come back, I stepped coldly over his hand. "Ethan, your affection and your life are both too dirty for me to stomach. Get lost. Don't ever show your face to me again."

Avery's POV

A cold, late-autumn rain, mixed with hail, lashed against the gray steps of the New York Police Department.

I was drenched, clutching a detention notice tightly in my hand. The edges of the paper were soft and pulpy from the rain, but the bold sentences on it were still glaring: "Suspected of forging evidence, commercial extortion."

The person detained was my brother, Dylan Miller, a renowned lawyer in New York.

And the one who had personally handed over the damning evidence to the police was my husband of seven years, Ethan Thorne, CEO of Thorne Group.

I don't know how I drove to Thorne Group headquarters.

As I pushed open the heavy door to the CEO's office on the top floor, even my breath was trembling.

The sprawling office was warm. Ethan sat on a wide leather sofa, head bowed, carefully wiping a faint red mark on Celeste's wrist with a cotton swab.

His movements were so gentle, his gaze so soft. A tenderness I had only dared to dream of in these past seven years.

Hearing the sound, Ethan looked up. Seeing me, soaked and disheveled, his brow furrowed, and he immediately shielded Celeste behind him.

"What are you doing here?" His voice was as cold as ice.

I slammed the detention notice onto the coffee table, my voice hoarse. "Ethan, why was Dylan arrested? What exactly have you done?!"

Ethan's face remained calm. He pulled out a wet wipe and slowly cleaned his hands. "Dylan fabricated evidence of Celeste's medical malpractice for extortion, involving a huge sum. I'm simply a law-abiding citizen cooperating with the police investigation."

"Medical malpractice?" I was so furious I laughed. "My mom is still lying unconscious in the ICU! Celeste, trying to prove her skill, performed bypass surgery with one hand, leading to massive hemorrhage. That's a fact witnessed by everyone in the operating room! My brother was just following legal procedures to sue her. How dare you say he's extorting her?!"

Celeste, hiding behind Ethan, trembled, and tears instantly welled up in her eyes. "Ethan, I'm so sorry, it's all my fault... If I hadn't returned, Avery wouldn't hate me so much, and Dylan wouldn't have turned to crime..."

"Shut up!" I cut her off.

"Avery!" Ethan abruptly stood up, his imposing height casting me into shadow. "How long are you going to keep this up? Celeste is a genius with a scalpel; her hands are meant to save lives, they must never be stained. Dylan was intent on ruining her career, so I merely made him see reason."

He said it as if ruining a top lawyer's entire future was a trivial matter, all to protect the woman he loved.

I felt a chill spread through me.

Seven years. I had stood by him as he rose from an overlooked heir of the Thorne family to his current position. I thought I was an indispensable wife in his life, but the moment Celeste returned, I became a joke, something to be sacrificed at any moment.

Ethan picked up a document from his desk and handed it to me.

"Sign this."

I looked down. It was a public statement. The statement required me, as a family member, to admit that my mother's vegetative state was a normal surgical risk, and to accuse Dylan of maliciously slandering Celeste for money.

"I won't sign." I glared at him. "Ethan, you can forget about me trading Dylan's life for her career!"

Ethan wasn't surprised by my refusal. He glanced at his wrist, his tone flat. "Ten minutes ago, I already notified the hospital to stop all your mother's specialized medication and life support."

My heart felt as if it had been brutally crushed by an invisible hand.

"Are you insane?! That's a human life!"

"Sign the papers, record an apology video, and your mom will live, and Dylan can get out of prison sooner." Ethan looked at me coldly, without a trace of warmth in his eyes. "A vegetable, or dead. You choose."

I trembled all over, clear tears finally streaming from my eyes. I looked at this man I had loved for seven years and found him terrifyingly unfamiliar.

"Ethan, did you ever love me?"

Ethan's expression was cold. "Avery, stop being dramatic. Celeste is the woman I swore to protect for life. Just behave, and once this is over, we can go back to how things were."

Back to how things were?

I closed my eyes in despair. I picked up the pen, and with a trembling hand, I signed my name on the statement that betrayed my soul and my family.