Chapter 1

1

My best friend called me, slurring her words, begging me to pick her up from a downtown bar after a bad breakup.

When I rushed to the VIP booth, I found her arms wrapped around my fiancé's neck.

"Ian, I've waited seven years for you. Aren't you tired of playing house with Nora yet?"

The man who once swore to give me a dream wedding was holding my closest friend. He smiled down at her with pure adoration.

Later, he spent a fortune buying out the city's top headlines to stage a grand public proposal.

Facing the live stream cameras, I smiled coldly and raised my right hand, showing off a ten-carat diamond ring.

"Sorry, Mr. Stewart. I got tired of playing with you, and I already married someone else."

……

Under the neon lights of the lounge, my best friend Chloe was sitting on a man's lap, her face flushed with alcohol.

"When are you finally breaking up with Nora? What's so great about a boring, plain girl like her anyway? You've been with her for seven whole years, but you know you get the real thrill with me."

"Ian, I didn't mean it when I said I wanted to end things. I just wanted you to care about me more!"

"I'm sick of waiting alone in our empty apartment late into the night until you finish soothing her!"

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I never would have believed it.

The man she was clinging to was Ian Stewart, my fiancé of seven years. We were supposed to get married in a few months.

The mystery boyfriend Chloe constantly bragged about, the one she fought with and threatened to die for―was my fiancé.

Yet for the past three years, Ian always told me how much he despised Chloe. He claimed he couldn't stand her spoiled, wealthy attitude.

It was all an elaborate act to brainwash me.

They had known each other seven years ago. The tangled mess between them started before he even met me.

So all those late nights at the office weren't overtime at all. He had been sleeping with Chloe in their secret love nest.

Chloe became my best friend just to describe her spicy bedroom encounters with her boyfriend to my face. She wanted a front-row seat to watch me make a fool of myself.

It felt like a series of lightning strikes hit me all at once.

The pain was so sharp that I had to grab the back of a nearby chair just to stay on my feet.

Sitting in the booth were Ian's startup business partners.

They were cheering for the two of them, completely unaware that I was standing in the shadows, falling apart.

"Ian, a gorgeous, rich heiress like Chloe has been crazy about you for seven years. We're all dying of jealousy!"

"If it weren't for Chloe's connections, how could our seed funding have gone through so smoothly? Hurry up and dump Nora. Don't keep Chloe waiting!"

"Seriously, Nora only handles basic grunt work at the company. She's completely useless for the big picture. Why stay with a nobody when you have Chloe?"

Their words sliced into my heart like razor-sharp knives.

All the sweat and tears I poured into Ian's business meant nothing. The endless client dinners where I drank until I threw up, the contracts I begged for on my knees for months, the proposals that landed me in the hospital from exhaustion―none of it mattered.

To them, I was just a useless assistant.

Now that Ian was a successful CEO, I was suddenly no longer good enough for him.