Chapter 1

After graduation, my boyfriend transformed overnight into the Pruitt family's long-lost true heir.

He went off to take over the family business, and I built my own design world.

Even living in different places, we still told each other everything.

Until one name started showing up in his messages, again and again.

Patsy Henson.

He said she was the daughter of an old family friend of the Pruitts, that she had given up her overseas company just to be his assistant.

And she stayed for three years.

The day the long distance was supposed to end, he threw me a welcome-home dinner for just the three of us.

Patsy sat on his left, one arm loosely circling his waist, and slid a little bottle across the table.

The girl smiled so sweetly.

"Come on, this is the truth serum everyone's obsessed with lately. Want to test Mr. Pruitt's loyalty?"

Marvin Pruitt played right along with her suggestion.

The more the questions came, the colder I went inside.

"My first time wasn't with you."

"I'm not your little dog. There's someone I like more now."

"Daisy Bishop, we stopped being in the same league a long time ago..."

At the peak of the awkwardness, she covered her mouth, let out a little laugh, and apologized.

"Oops, I grabbed the wrong one. That bottle's a reverse serum, everything you say comes out the opposite. You don't mind, do you?"

Of course I didn't mind.

After all, I'd come to say goodbye.

My wedding was already set for the seventh of next month.

...

When I came back from the restroom, through the door I overheard Patsy proposing her "jealousy game."

With herself as the bait.

The more jealous I got, the more it would prove how much I cared about Marvin.

It wasn't her first time playing this kind of game.

Right after Marvin hired her as his assistant, his messaging profile picture briefly switched, for two hours, to one half of a matching couple set.

He'd never done a matching set with me.

When I noticed, he only gave a helpless little laugh.

"She's a young, open-minded girl. She just wants to tease you."

A girl.

I suppose so. I'm five years older than Marvin. In his eyes, I really wasn't young anymore.

But her game could start anywhere, anytime.

Like a pirate-ship ride paused at the amusement park, I was strapped in, never knowing when it would start swinging again.

Every time the chat window lit up with "Let's get married, right now,"

I'd buy a plane ticket without a second thought.

Until the time I rushed over travel-worn with the marriage paperwork and stood outside the Crossway Corporation building, only to be told Mr. Pruitt was in a meeting with foreign clients.

Three strikes.

The fourth time, I didn't go, and the girl sent me a dramatic little voice message.

"You're not thinking of abandoning your Mr. Pruitt, are you?"

There had been that one time I'd pulled an all-nighter revising files with a client until dawn and missed his call.

Marvin had crouched outside my apartment building all night, eyes red.

No one knows how sensitive he is better than I do.

So I just quietly went along with her game, so Marvin wouldn't be distracted.

Until she sent me an intimate photo.

A drunk Marvin, slumped against a big-waved woman.

Patsy, voice thick with tears: "What do we do, Daisy? It looks like your Mr. Pruitt betrayed you..."

That night we fought for the first time.

He was angry that I didn't trust him, that I'd jumped to conclusions.

I was angry that he kept someone like that around him, someone sowing discord between us.

"The Hensons have only this one daughter. Their partnership with us depends on keeping her happy, and Dudley's watching for any opening..."

"Daisy, you can't help me. Just stop making trouble, all right?"

Dudley Pruitt. The false heir the family favored even more than him.

Fine. It ached to see him walking on thin ice, so I let it go.

But her game only escalated.