Chapter 1

After yet another failed startup, I braced myself for my fiancée to tear into me.

Instead of yelling, she just smiled and laid out a full spread of food.

Nerves on edge, I reached to pick up a piece of meat.

She slapped my chopsticks away.

The smile on her face slowly froze over.

"You've actually got the nerve to eat?"

I opened my mouth.

Her tone turned sharp in an instant. "All I asked was for you to build a company. I didn't ask you to pull the moon down from the sky."

"How can a person be this stupid?"

"Everyone else can make it."

"Why is it only you who can't?"

Head down, I said, guilt-ridden, "I'm sorry, I—"

"Three days without food. That's your punishment."

"Sit and think about what you've done."

I thought she was just trying to scare me.

I was wrong.

She meant it. I went a full three days without eating.

Right before I fainted from hunger and hit the floor.

I could still faintly hear her cursing me, furious that I couldn't measure up.

"I must have been out of my mind to pick a fool like you."

"You can't make something out of nothing."

"You're not even good enough for me!"

...

Faith Henson's words were cold and cutting, and that look of disgust in her eyes.

It was the way you'd look at a piece of worthless 'trash merchandise.'

In that moment.

I understood one thing clearly.

What was between her and me had never been love.

I was nothing more than a trophy under her overpowering need for control, the proof she was desperate to show everyone that she'd chosen right.

The only trouble was.

I kept letting her down, one failed startup after another, and that didn't just embarrass her.

It made her see me as useless trash.

After I passed out.

I don't know how long I was gone.

I felt someone pry my lips apart with chopsticks.

A sweet, clean taste flooded my mouth.

When I opened my eyes.

It was still that familiar face.

Except…

Her eyes were colder than before.

"You're awake?"

Seeing my eyes open, Faith stopped feeding me at once.

I let out a soft sound.

"A grown man, and you faint after a few days without food."

"Your body really is pathetic."

"Just like your abilities."

"Worse than anyone could imagine."

I had only just come back from unconsciousness.

Seeing her feed me.

It had warmed something in my chest.

But the words that came out of her mouth.

Always so harsh, so ugly to hear.

"A deputy department manager at a listed company, pulling in hundreds of thousands a year, and somehow I picked a useless thing like you?"

"Can't you make me look good for once?"

"You know what my girlfriends say about you?"

"That you're a kept man, living off a woman."

"No real skill of your own."

"You think I want to push you into building a company?"

"All I want is for you to succeed, to become a man who can carry his own weight!"

Here it was again.

Faith's presence, the tone of her voice, and her reasons for demanding I succeed.

Like an invisible boulder pressing on my chest, day and night without let up.

I couldn't feel the smallest sweetness of being in love.

Not a shred of say in my own life.

Everything had to go according to her plan.

Being with her.

I was so suffocated I could barely breathe.

After a long silence.

I said calmly, "Let's break up…"