Chapter 1

The divorce papers my ex-husband handed me came with exactly one extra clause: take eight million and never set foot in Ashford again.

I laid a hand over the belly that wasn't showing yet, signed, left the country, gave birth to my daughter, and spent the next five years finishing my doctorate.

The morning I brought her to register at preschool, I was standing in the line of parents when I looked up and saw Daryl Gilbert.

He glanced at me, then down at my daughter, held there for two seconds, and quickly looked away, his face blank, as if we were two strangers.

The next second, a few lines of half-transparent text came drifting past my eyes.

【Keep it up! Keep pretending! He was crouched outside the preschool gate at five in the morning!】

【That enrollment spot for the daughter? He donated two academic buildings overnight to get it!】

【The child safety seat in his car? He had it installed three years ago!】

I stared, stunned, for a long moment.

Was this... a stream of floating comments?

They seemed to be able to see our lives, even things I didn't know myself.

The teacher went through the files page by page. When she reached my daughter's page, it listed only my name; the space for the father was blank.

The air in front of me lit up at once.

【He's afraid he doesn't have the right, he didn't even dare write his name!】

【Last week he went to learn how to tie little braids, ruined a whole drawer of hair ties practicing!】

I took a deep breath, bent down, scooped up my daughter, crossed the few steps, and pushed her straight into his arms.

"Hold her. The parent-child craft project requires the father to make one too."

His whole body went rigid.

I didn't give him the chance to play dumb.

"You dare say you don't know her, and I'll transfer her out tomorrow."

"By then, you won't even have anywhere left to crouch."

...

"You... don't let her fall."

Daryl stood frozen, his two hands fumbling, not knowing where to go, until finally he had no choice but to hold her under the arms.

His throat bobbed, over and over.

A thin layer of sweat had already broken out on his forehead, and for the longest time he couldn't force out a second sentence.

"Giggle, giggle, giggle..."

My daughter wasn't shy at all. Her little hand shot out and grabbed the dark-patterned tie at his neck, then opened her mouth and stuffed it right in.

Glistening drool smeared all over Daryl, and the front of that expensive tailored suit was quickly soaked in a big patch, which was quite an eyesore to look at.

I reached out, meaning to take my daughter back.

【Oh my god, he didn't even push her away! That tie is the lucky color he spent a whole week picking out just for today!】

A string of bold red comments popped up again, blaring across my line of sight.

I pulled my half-extended hand back.

Lucky color?

The great CEO of Gilbert Group actually believed in that kind of superstitious nonsense, and picked it out over an entire week.

"Daryl, where'd this wild kid come from, getting your clothes all dirty!"

A shrill female voice cut in from the side, the pitch wound so high it made your ears ache.

Charging over in ten-centimeter pointed heels was Valerie Fox, Daryl's rumored girlfriend.

"Where's security? What kind of job is this preschool's security even doing!"

"Hurry up and get this trashy person out of here!"

Her nails were painted bright red. She curled all five fingers and shoved them straight at my daughter's thin little shoulder.

"Get off!"

My eyelid twitched. I snatched my daughter into my arms first, then backhanded Valerie's arm away and put the child completely behind me.

"Before you raise a hand, you'd better weigh what you actually are."

I stared at her, my voice cold and hard.

Valerie clutched the back of her hand, which was reddening fast, her eyes going wider and wider. She looked at me for a long time before she recognized me.

"Charlotte Simmons? You actually have the nerve to come back to Ashford!"

She crossed her arms over her chest, raked her eyes over me from head to toe, and pushed a cold snort out through her nose.

"Back then you signed the papers, took your eight-million breakup money, and got lost."

"Now the money's spent, so you've come back to sponge off him?"

I raised a hand to cover my daughter's ears and couldn't help letting out a laugh.

"Eight million, is that a lot?"

"Any random sports car in CEO Gilbert's garage costs more than that. Only someone like you would treat it like a treasure."

Choked silent by that one line, Valerie's face went green, then white, then green again.

"Don't play the noble act!"

"Everyone knows how loose your private life was overseas, the little bastard's probably some Black man's for all you know!"

She wasn't satisfied yet; her voice climbed higher and higher.

"Bringing some cheap thing with no known father to shake people down, and you don't even look at how high the Gilbert family's threshold is!"

"You, worthy of it?"

A lot of the parents around us turned to look, and the whispers, kept low, grew thicker and thicker.

My daughter was startled by that shrill voice. She buried her face in the crook of my neck, her little hands clutching me tight.

"Mommy, that lady's so scary, like the old witch in the fairy tales who eats children."

The corridor had gone quiet for a stretch, so my daughter's soft, milky little voice came through clear, and a few laughs that couldn't be held back quickly slipped out of the crowd.

"You little brat, who are you calling an old witch!"

Losing it completely, Valerie raised her hand and swung it down toward my daughter's face.

"You touch her, just try it."

My face darkened. I gripped the insulated bottle in my hand tight and was already swinging it at her forehead.

A gust of wind swept past my side.

"Who gave you permission to touch them?"

Daryl took a step forward, his tall frame putting himself right between them and me and my daughter.

He caught Valerie's wrist in one grip, and as his fingers slowly tightened, the color drained from her face along with it.

Then he flung her hard away.

"Let me hear half a dirty word again, and I'll make sure you don't walk out of this preschool's gate."