Chapter 1

Tags: Cheating Husband, Strong Female Lead, Captivity & Escape, Wedding Showdown, Billionaire Family Feud, Brother Rivalry, Power Couple

We had been married for five years, and Ethan Vance and I still hadn't had a baby.

Because of this, my mother-in-law picked on me constantly, finding fault with every breath I took.

Ethan always comforted me. "It doesn't matter if we don't have kids, Chloe. If it comes down to it, we can always adopt."

To make things easier for him, I went to every specialist in town. I drank bitter herbal concoctions and endured endless treatments.

Two rounds of IVF failed.

My arms were so covered in needle bruises that a cop on the street would have probably pulled me over for a drug test.

Finally, two bright red lines appeared on the pregnancy test.

Thrilled, I grabbed the test strip and rushed to his office. But before I could even share the good news, I overheard him chatting with his friend through the half-open door.

"Are you really ready for this merger-marriage with the Sterling family?"

Ethan chuckled. "You think I'd dare mess with the Sterlings?"

"What a waste, though. Chloe is gorgeous. Once you divorce her, some other guy's going to hit the jackpot."

Ethan's tone turned chillingly cold.

"Who said I'm letting her go after the divorce?"

Hearing those words, a wave of nausea hit me so hard I nearly threw up.

If I hadn't wanted to surprise Ethan today, I might have never found out.

The man who had been my high school sweetheart, the one I walked down the aisle with, had turned into something this vile.

I stood frozen as their conversation continued inside.

"Damn, you really love Chloe, huh?"

Ethan gave a dismissive shrug. "I wouldn't call it love. It's just that if something belongs to me, I'd rather destroy it than let another man touch it."

"You're a sick bastard," Carter muttered, unable to hide his disgust.

"Well, she's an orphan. Marrying you was always way out of her league. Back when you fought your family tooth and nail, I actually thought you couldn't live without her!"

Ethan let out a low laugh. "If I didn't pretend to have a fatal weakness, do you think the old man would have handed over Vance Corporation to me so easily?"

My heart plunged into an icy abyss.

Ethan was a son of the wealthy Vance family, but he was an illegitimate one.

When we first met, the family hadn't acknowledged him yet.

He lived with his mother in a cramped two-bedroom apartment near campus. I always assumed he came from an ordinary, working-class background.

It wasn't until five years ago, when Sean Vance—the rightful heir—got into a catastrophic car crash and fell into a vegetative state, that Ethan was finally brought into the fold.

Back then, we were already planning our wedding.

Once Ethan took his place in the family, the Vance patriarch sent people to my doorstep, demanding I break things off.

To be honest, even I thought the wedding was off.

A prominent dynasty like the Vances would never accept an orphan girl as their daughter-in-law.

Yet Ethan defied the old man completely.

He swore that if he couldn't marry me, he would walk away from the empire. In the end, the old man grudgingly relented.

Still, all he allowed was a quiet trip to city hall to sign the papers. No lavish reception, no public announcement.

I didn't feel slighted back then.

If Ethan was willing to give up a multi-billion-dollar empire for me, what was a missed ceremony compared to that?

Only today did I realize what it actually made me.

A complete fool.