Chapter 1

Five years of marriage, and Ethan Sterling spoiled me rotten.

Because I was always freezing, he relocated our entire lives to a sunny estate in Southern California.

Knowing my obsession with lychees, he bought the only private lychee orchard in the state at an exorbitant price just for me.

He even got a vasectomy, purely because he couldn’t bear the thought of me going through the pain of childbirth.

A lavish lifestyle, a wildly successful tech-mogul husband.

The media constantly labeled us the happiest couple in California.

But tonight, on our fifth anniversary.

Just as Ethan, drenched in sweat, rolled off my body—his eyes still hazy with lingering desire.

I took the custom-made, diamond-tipped hairpin he had gifted me and plunged it straight into his heart.

Drowning in his own blood, he looked at me in absolute despair as I calmly wiped my fingerprints off the weapon.

I broke down, my tears falling onto his dying face:

"Ethan, I remember. I remember everything."

"This stab is six years too late."

Ethan Sterling was a god in San Francisco.

The locals spoke of him with nothing but reverence.

The moment news of his critical condition broke, the internet erupted, demanding I be locked away for life.

In the interrogation room, I remained dead silent for three days and three nights.

Until Lucy Martinez, a young detective newly assigned to my case, slid a photo in front of me.

"According to this, you two knew each other and were married long before you arrived in California."

"So why did Mr. Sterling tell everyone you met and married in San Francisco five years ago?"

The young man and woman in the photo looked incredibly naive. They looked nothing like the polished couple from five years ago.

I stared at the photo for a long time before I finally found my voice.

"Yes. Ethan and I didn’t start our lives five years ago."

"And... I wasn't even his first wife."

I pulled down my collar, revealing a hideous, fifteen-stitch scar just below my collarbone.

Ignoring Lucy's gasp, I began to tell her the story of a lifetime ago.

Before me, Ethan had an ex-wife.

An ex-wife he personally threw into prison for two years.

When I first met Ethan, he was just a divorced, bankrupt young entrepreneur with nothing but a dream.

He had come to my university to pitch his startup and look for partners.

Since we shared the same major, our paths crossed.

I was the only daughter of the Vance family. I grew up pampered, a princess who got everything she wanted.

But when I brought Ethan home to meet my parents, they rejected him instantly and harshly.

"Amy," my father said, "his past is too messy. A man who can ruthlessly send his own wife to prison is cold-blooded."

"We don't need a prestigious family alliance, but we do need someone with a clean heart."

"You are too naive. He is not the one for you."

But a young girl in love never listens to reason.

I ignored my parents. I moved into a half-built apartment with him, pulled all-nighters working on business proposals, and ran around the city trying to secure clients.

Seeing my stubbornness, my parents could only sigh and capitulate.

They gave Ethan the ultimate boost in the business world, showering him with the Vance family’s resources, connections, and capital.

Ethan was brilliant. In just two years, his name shook the business world of the city. He climbed to the top like a rocket.

By the third year, I was pregnant. Ethan knelt before my parents, offering all his company shares as a dowry.

He swore he was eternally grateful to the Vance family and begged them to let him marry me.

That was the year we loved each other the most.

And that was also the year everything shattered.

Three months before our wedding, we ran into his ex-wife, Fiona Rivers, at a high-end grocery store.

She was working as a promotional sample girl, desperately trying to get shoppers to try brand-name milk.

The moment Ethan saw her, he knocked over a display rack.

There was a look in his eyes I had never seen before. Later, I learned that look was called regret.

That night, Ethan sat in front of his computer in the study until dawn.

When I went in to wrap a blanket around his shoulders, he turned, wrapped his arms around my waist, and wept uncontrollably.

"What do I do, Amy? I just found out... I got it all wrong."

"She didn't steal my startup funds to run away. She did it to pay for her mother’s cancer treatment."

"But I sent her to prison. She hid the truth just so she wouldn't drag me down."

"And now, because of me, a top-tier university graduate is reduced to handing out samples just to survive."

I was young and soft-hearted back then.

So when he suggested bringing Fiona into his company to make amends, I didn't think twice.

That moment of pity was the first catastrophic mistake of my life.