Chapter 1

　　The night she got word of Matthew Heath's death yet again, Edith Butler walked into a nightclub and ordered ten male models.

　　As they crowded into her arms one after another, her mother-in-law stormed in and slapped her across the face, spitting that she had no heart.

　　Edith turned around and dragged the daughter the Heaths had adopted up onto the rooftop.

　　She smiled into the livestream camera, wild and reckless. "Matthew, I know you're not dead. You have one hour to crawl out here, or I'll push her off!"

　　The minutes bled away. An hour later, Matthew still hadn't shown.

　　Edith's grip on Susan Heath's hand tightened. She gritted her teeth and hauled Susan another inch toward the edge.

　　She thought this would force Matthew out, the way it had countless times these past three years.

　　On their wedding day, Matthew had faked his death. She'd stripped off the gown, the wedding became a funeral, and she'd run herself into the ground grieving for three days, only to collapse from exhaustion just as she saw Matthew stroll back in, holding his adopted sister's hand, gifts in his arms.

　　A year into the marriage, with her about to go into labor, he ignored her and faked his death again, all to take his adopted sister abroad to see the northern lights.

　　Rushing to reach the scene, she'd been in a car accident. By the time she was brought to the hospital, the baby had already stopped breathing.

　　Memories of everything that had happened came rushing back, and tears streamed down Edith’s face as she screamed into the camera, praying Matthew would appear in the next second.

　　But Susan, standing at the edge of the rooftop, suddenly lost her balance and plunged straight over the side.

　　Her mother-in-law charged onto the rooftop with a swarm of police. "Matthew is really dead!"

　　"He was pushed into the crematory right in front of me. If you don't believe it, watch this video!"

　　"Even at the end, he was still worried his wife would grieve. And what did you do?"

　　Edith stared hard at the face on the screen. It was Matthew.

　　Her body lurched suddenly,

　　Matthew... was really dead?

　　Only when the cold handcuffs snapped shut on her wrists did her mind jolt clear.

　　"Susan, what happened to Susan?"

　　She wrenched free of the officer's grip and threw herself to the rooftop's edge, where she saw the mangled body on the ground below.

　　A roar filled her skull.

　　"No... I put out the airbags..."

　　Edith spent seven years in prison. When she was released, her mother-in-law, who blamed her for killing her daughter, demanded she kneel in the family chapel every single day and repent.

　　She was thirty-two, seven of those years spent behind bars, and no respectable job would hire her.

　　All she could do was curl up in the back kitchen of a restaurant as the lowliest dishwasher.

　　At night, she knelt in the Heath family chapel, confessing her sins over and over.

　　Then one day, the restaurant was short on waitstaff, and the manager told her to fill in.

　　Passing one of the private rooms, she suddenly caught a familiar voice.

　　"Matthew, ten years have gone by. Are you really not going to go back and check on your wife?"

　　"I heard she did seven years in prison. So pitiful, really."

　　Edith's steps froze on the spot. Stiffly she turned her head, and through the gap in the door she saw two faces she knew.

　　Matthew and Susan.

　　Matthew gave a cold laugh. "If she hadn't tried to lay a hand on you back then, how would she have ended up serving seven years?"

　　"Besides, I married her because she was obedient, easy to manage. And then she used the dead baby as an excuse to sulk at me for two whole years."

　　"Call these ten years a lesson for her. From now on, as long as she behaves herself and stops meddling in how Susan and I get along, the title of Mrs. Heath is still hers."

　　It was as if every drop of blood in Edith's body had frozen solid, the ache in her heart creeping slowly up into her skull.

　　Her eyes went red with rage. She burst straight into the room, snatched the wine bottle off the table, and swung it down at Matthew's head.

　　"You animal!"

　　Ten years of her life!

　　She had been the finest stage actress in the Capital, active on every major stage since her college days.

　　Matthew had been struck by her during one of her performances, then thrown himself into pursuing her.

　　When he proposed, his eyes had brimmed with feeling. "Edie, before I met you, I'd never known what love tasted like. Only after meeting you did I understand what the most beautiful, most precious feeling in this world is."

　　"I want to protect you for a lifetime, so you can perform on that stage forever, without a single worry. Edie, will you give me the chance to be the one who guards you?"

　　Back then, Edith had thought he was a man worth entrusting her whole life to.

　　And what had her trust bought her?

　　It had bought her Matthew abandoning her again and again, faking his death and walking away, all for Susan.

　　It had bought her seven years of prison.

　　It had bought her three years of penance in the family chapel.

　　For ten years, every minute and every second, she had lived in remorse and pain, believing she had killed Susan, believing she had failed Matthew's love.

　　Only now did she learn she had been living inside a laughable lie the whole time.

　　And Matthew could actually say, so lightly, that it was nothing but a lesson.

　　Matthew's face darkened. He immediately summoned the manager.

　　"Is this how your restaurant trains its waitstaff?"

　　"Letting her assault a customer in public?"

　　The manager looked at the blood on Matthew's forehead and shuddered from head to toe.

　　He raised his hand and cracked a vicious slap across Edith's face. "Have you lost your mind? Raising a hand against a customer?"

　　"You clearly don't want this job anymore. Pack your things and get out, right now!"

　　"And apologize to the customer!"

　　Matthew's eyes were full of ice. "I want her on her knees, apologizing to me."

　　"Never!"

　　Edith shot him a hate-filled glare and spun to storm out of the room.

　　"Edith, I don't imagine you'd like to be locked up for another seven years."

　　Edith's body went rigid all at once.

　　Remembering those seven years in prison, she shivered before she could stop herself.

　　She couldn't. She couldn't go back.

　　Inch by inch she turned around, dropped to her knees before Matthew with a heavy thud. "I'm sorry, Mr. Heath."

　　The pain and humiliation buried deep inside tore at her mercilessly, until she could barely draw breath.

　　Matthew, arm around Susan, stepped around her. "Seems ten years still hasn't taught you to be obedient."

　　"Pay me a hundred thousand and I'll forgive you. You can even come back to the Heath family."

　　"Otherwise, I'll take you to court."

　　With that, he strode off.

　　The manager threw Edith out of the hotel too. She walked the streets in a daze, nothing in her hand but the two thousand dollars in wages the manager had just settled with her.

　　She couldn't scrape together a hundred thousand. And she would never swallow her pride and hand it over.

　　Matthew only wanted to force her. To force her to learn obedience, to force her to accept that her own husband had something unclean going on with his adopted sister.

　　But Edith was tired. She didn't want to go back to the Heath family, and she didn't want to be dragged into the tangle of love and hate between Matthew and his adopted sister ever again.

　　She only wanted to get away, completely, from this city so full of pain.

　　She pulled out her phone and dialed a number.

　　When the call connected, she spoke carefully. "Mr. Gilbert, you once said you'd be willing to take me to America with you. Does that still stand?"

　　"Of course it does. Miss Butler, your talent is astonishing. You belong on the finest stage there is."

　　The man's voice was steady and calm. "So Miss Butler has changed her mind? I recall you saying before that you wouldn't go abroad, for the sake of your boyfriend."

　　"Don't tell me the two of you never married after all?"

　　Edith's fingertips went white. "I'm widowed."