Chapter 1

This was my forty-ninth suicide attempt in six years.

When I woke up, the doctor told me I was suffering from dissociative amnesia. I had forgotten everything—my name, my past, my childhood, even the people who were supposed to be my parents. My mind was completely blank.

The doctor explained that sometimes the brain buried painful memories as a way of protecting itself from overwhelming trauma.

Protecting me?

It didn’t feel that way.

It felt like punishment.

A middle-aged couple was sitting beside my bed. The instant they noticed my eyes were open, their expressions hardened.

The woman folded her arms and looked at me with open irritation.

“Well, look at that. You’re awake again. Adeline, how long are you planning to keep doing this? Is this supposed to be some kind of punishment for us because we’re your parents?”

Parents.

The word sounded foreign to me.

The man beside her rubbed his forehead before giving me a bitter look.

“Do you really think killing yourself will make Nathaniel come back?” he asked. “Because if that’s what you’re waiting for, you’ve already done it forty-nine times and he still hasn’t come.”

My chest tightened for some reason.

“You know Nathaniel never wanted you,” my mother continued. “He loved Camille from the beginning. Everyone knew it. If he hadn’t been drunk that night and accidentally entered the wrong hotel room, you wouldn’t even be married to him. He would have married Camille, just as he planned.”

I stared at her, unable to make sense of what she was saying.

My mother gave an exasperated sigh.

“Did you really think sleeping with him once would make him fall in love with you? Of course he doesn’t come home. Of course he doesn’t want to see you.”

“And then there are your suicide attempts,” my father added. His voice was quieter, but there was no kindness in it. “Forty-nine times, Adeline. Has Nathaniel ever come to the hospital even once?”

Silence settled over the room.

Apparently, he hadn’t.

“You keep hurting yourself because you want his attention, yet he has never even bothered to show up. Don’t you realize how pathetic that makes you look?”

He paused before adding coldly, “If you weren’t our biological daughter, we wouldn’t even waste our time coming here anymore.”

Something inside me sank.

I didn’t remember these people, yet their words hurt.

My father looked at me with unmistakable disappointment.

“Honestly, Adeline, you’ve never been half as good as Camille.”

Camille.

That name was unfamiliar too.

I stayed quiet because I had nothing else to rely on. If my memories were gone, then their words were the only pieces I had to reconstruct the life I could no longer remember.

Slowly, a story began to emerge.

I was the biological daughter of the Prescott family. When I was young, I had been kidnapped and remained missing for years. By the time my parents found me, they had already adopted another girl.

Camille Prescott.

And apparently, by then, Camille had become the daughter they truly loved.

The place that should have been mine was already occupied.

Later, I fell in love with a man named Nathaniel Sterling, a powerful CEO.

But Nathaniel loved Camille.

Then came a banquet.

Nathaniel had been drunk that night and mistakenly entered the wrong hotel room.

Mine.

We spent the night together.

One night. One drunken mistake.

But once the scandal became public, Nathaniel had no choice but to marry me. According to my parents, he had hated me for it ever since.

He rarely came home. When he did, he treated me with nothing but coldness and resentment.

My parents didn’t love me.

My husband didn’t love me.

And apparently, the woman I had been before losing my memories eventually couldn’t endure it anymore.

So she kept trying to die.

My mother suddenly stood and grabbed her purse.

“Enough. We’ve wasted enough time here,” she said. “We all know you probably paid that doctor to pretend you have amnesia again. It’s pathetic.”

My father rose as well.

“Camille is waiting for us at home. We still have dinner to make.”

My mother looked down at me as though I were an inconvenience.

“Stay here and think about what you’ve done. Maybe next time, try behaving like a normal person instead of pulling these ridiculous stunts. Useless mutt.”

Then they left.

The door closed behind them.

For a while, I sat there without moving.

Then a sudden pain spread through my chest, sharp enough to steal my breath.

I didn’t remember this life.

I didn’t remember my parents, my husband, or Camille.

Yet the sadness inside me was real.

It was heavy and suffocating, as though some part of me still remembered everything my mind had forgotten.

Why would my parents love their adopted daughter more than their own child?

The more I tried to think about it, the worse my headache became.

Eventually, I stopped trying.

I climbed out of bed, signed my own discharge papers, and left the hospital.

The evening air brushed against my face as I stepped outside.

Cars passed along the street. People walked by, talking and laughing, completely unaware that my entire world had fallen apart.

I stood there holding the thin plastic bag containing my belongings.

Then I realized something terrifying.

Where was I supposed to go?

I couldn’t remember my parents’ home. I didn’t know where Nathaniel lived. I didn’t even know where I belonged.

I was still standing outside the hospital entrance, staring helplessly at my discharge papers, when a commotion suddenly broke out nearby.

Someone gasped.

Another person told everyone to move aside, and the crowd slowly parted.

I looked up.

A tall man was walking toward the entrance with a woman in his arms.

He moved quickly, but every step was careful, as though the woman he carried might break if he handled her too roughly. His black suit was perfectly tailored, and everything about him—from his broad shoulders to his sharp features—spoke of wealth and authority.

Yet it wasn’t his appearance that caught my attention.

It was the way he held her.

The woman’s pale face rested against his chest while his arms remained firmly wrapped around her. Every few steps, he looked down at her, and the softness in his eyes was so striking that I couldn’t look away.

He even slowed whenever necessary, careful not to jostle her.

“Move,” he ordered the people blocking his path.

The crowd immediately stepped aside.

Someone behind me whispered, “Wait… isn’t that Nathaniel Sterling?”

“Who else would it be?” another person replied. “Nobody else in this city has that kind of presence. And he’s even more handsome in person.”

My chest tightened.

Nathaniel.

So that was him.

My husband.

The woman in his arms had to be Camille.

The girl everyone loved.

The girl my parents had chosen over me.

The woman Nathaniel loved.