Chapter 1

On the day I turned twenty, I gathered my courage and confessed to Ethan.

He called security to restrain me, then personally sent me to a conversion center for “treatment.”

After half a year of forced treatment, he told me he was afraid to “come out,” but that he loved me...

When I was ten, the Bennett family adopted me, and my foster parents treated me very well, raising me like I was the center of the world...

The glaring sunlight made my eyes ache, and I instinctively blocked the light, my eyes stinging as I took a long time to recover.

Facing the empty road, I realized he had not come to pick me up, so it seemed he really was sick of me.

After he learned about my feelings, he had security clamp down on both my arms and told my foster parents, then drove me to the conversion center.

The forced treatment was like living in darkness, with torture, electric shocks, and drugs...

After half a year of inhuman treatment, I did not want to go near him again, but my foster parents asked me to come home for a visit, and I could not cut off more than ten years of family affection.

I stood hesitantly at the villa entrance, took a deep breath, and told myself I was home.

In reality, the moment I stepped through the Bennett family’s front door, I feared this familiar place and forced myself not to let my legs go weak and collapse.

After taking a deep breath, I walked inside, only to bump into a wall, and when I saw the black leather shoes, I stiffly raised my head and met the eyes of the person who made my scalp go numb.

“Ethan...” I was about to greet him, but acid churned in my stomach, and my knees could not hold me up as I weakly fell to the floor, because whenever I saw him, I thought of those six months of forced treatment and was too afraid to go near him.

“You look like a dog right now.” Ethan Bennett had both hands in his pockets as he looked down at my sorry state with an arrogant expression, his voice indifferent while the end of his tone rose faintly. “Tsk, if you had the guts to lust after me, then you had to bear the consequences, and it seems the forced treatment worked pretty well.”

“It was my fault. I never should have had those thoughts about you...” I could not stand, so I curled up and crawled backward on my knees, because Ethan Bennett was far beyond my reach, and I had been delusional to try to get close to him. I crushed my last fantasy, my heart trampled to pieces by him, my breathing hard, and tears slid down uncontrollably as I wiped them messily with my sleeve, not daring to dirty the Bennett family’s floor.

“The person you should apologize to isn’t me. Mom and Dad loved you so much. How could you face them?” He walked up to me and crouched down, and beneath his loose bangs, those seductive eyes were full of pity. “Should I stay farther away from you? Look at you, like a dead fish.”