Chapter 1

My half-sister gave me to Adrian Cole as her replacement.

And I went willingly.

I had loved Adrian for fifteen years, but my desperation could never buy me the love I wanted.

I did everything I could to please that untouchable man.

In the end, all I got was one simple sentence from him:

“How could she ever compare to Vivian? Nora Hart is nothing but a slut. She’s no different from a woman who sells herself on the street.

“You can have her for the right price. Want to try?”

Everyone in A City’s elite circle knew I was Adrian Cole’s pet.

Wherever Adrian went, he brought me along, as if he couldn’t bear to be away from me for even a moment.

But whenever someone humiliated me, he never stepped in to save me.

He watched coldly as wealthy heiresses mocked me.

He watched as spoiled rich boys surrounded me and harassed me.

He simply sat there, looking down at me from his superior position, his eyes cold as ice.

There was only one time Adrian ever defended me.

Someone had tried to slash my face with a piece of broken glass.

Adrian finally stood up.

He walked over and knocked the man to the ground with one punch.

Then he stood above him, his icy gaze nearly freezing the man in place.

“You can play with her however you want. I don’t care. But no one touches her face.”

I stood behind him, my entire body cold.

I had always longed for his protection.

But his words poured over me like a bucket of ice water.

That was right. I had almost forgotten.

I was nothing more than a substitute.

Vivian Hart’s substitute.

Aside from my face, which resembled Vivian’s, Adrian didn’t care about anything else.

I was a toy my half-sister, Vivian Hart, had personally given to Adrian.

“To keep you from being too heartbroken, I found you a replacement.”

“This is my father’s illegitimate daughter, Nora Hart. Her status is low enough to make the perfect substitute.”

“But you can’t touch her. If you dirty yourself with her, I’ll never want you again.”

With that, Vivian arrogantly delivered me to Adrian’s mansion like a package.

Her tone was full of disdain for me and possessiveness toward Adrian.

She had every right to be proud.

As the little princess of the Hart family, Vivian had been the brightest star in A City since childhood.

When she won first place in the children’s division of an international piano competition, I was the one turning pages for her.

When she became the lead ballerina, I was the one arranging her costumes.

And when Adrian confessed his love to her, I stood silently in the shadows, holding the handbag he had given her and watching with envy.

It wasn’t until she personally gave me to Adrian that he finally noticed me.

The day Vivian left, Adrian shed tears for the first time in years.

Those tears burned my heart.

I longed for the day he would shed one for me.

Just one would have been enough.

Ever since I was brought back to the Hart family, I had been bullied.

Everyone looked down on me because I was an illegitimate child.

Worse, my father, Richard Hart, and his wife, Laura, had always been seen as the perfect couple.

My return tore the fig leaf from their marriage in front of everyone.

It proved that their supposedly perfect love was nothing but a joke.

Laura allowed the household staff to mistreat me.

Vivian had never seen me as anything but a servant.

And my father, Richard, hated me to the bone.

Every day, he whipped me until my body was streaked with blood.

The day Adrian saved me, Vivian had thrown a party at the Hart estate. One of her friends deliberately pushed me into the pool.

I sank lower and lower beneath the water as darkness closed around me.

I remember thinking that maybe it would be better to die.

But I never expected even that darkness to hold a sliver of light.