Chapter 1

After my divorce from Julian Rivers, he begged me to remarry him a hundred times. I refused every single one.

On the hundred and first time, I said yes.

Only because his dying mother guilted me into it, trading the favor of saving me from kidnappers three years ago for three months of a contract marriage.

When those three months ended, I should have walked away unscathed. Instead, he personally beat me half to death and threw me out of the house, just to make space for his returning first love.

He thought I would die in that snowy night.

But when we met again, he knelt in the rain begging me to come back, while I held my new boyfriend's hand.

"Excuse me, sir. You're making us late for our wedding dress fitting."

Melanie Johnson POV

After Julian Rivers and I divorced, he begged me to remarry him 99 times.

Julian knew I loved adventure, so he prepared the most romantic rose-covered hot air balloon for me, took me to see fireworks by the Seine in Paris, and accompanied me to chase the Northern Lights in Iceland.

Everything I had ever wanted, Julian gave me.

But even so, after 100 marriage proposals, I still hadn't agreed.

Then came the 101st time. Julian knelt before me and asked to get back together.

"Melanie, this is my 101st proposal. This time, will you marry me again?!"

I looked at the man before me, but my thoughts drifted back to the beginning, when I first met Julian.

Back then, he pretended to be a poor guy.

But I didn't care about his money or status. I just loved him for who he was, so I married him without a second thought.

But shortly after the wedding, I gradually discovered some strange things.

For instance, Julian would often stare at his phone in the middle of the night.

Once, I accidentally glimpsed a woman's photo on the screen.

I was about to ask who she was, but Julian quickly put his phone away.

I didn't think much of it. After all, back then I trusted him completely.

But later, similar scenes became more and more frequent.

He would get blackout drunk on certain specific days, or receive a phone call that left him distracted for an entire day.

When I asked what was wrong, he'd just say it was work and tell me not to worry.

Then a sudden kidnapping changed everything.

I was locked in a basement for five whole days. The kidnappers demanded my husband deliver five million dollars, plus a promise that the Rivers family would stop monopolizing their industry.

That's when I learned my husband wasn't some poor guy, but the billionaire heir to the Rivers family fortune.

But four days passed, and Julian didn't come.

I waited and waited in the darkness. The injuries on my body grew worse with each failed escape attempt.

But I believed Julian must be figuring something out. He must be more anxious than anyone.

Then, on the fifth day of my captivity, the kidnappers threw me a phone.

On the screen was surveillance footage from a bar. Julian sat in a corner booth, drinking glass after glass.

On his phone was a photo, that familiar photo of the woman I'd glimpsed before.

I watched my husband stare at that photo for the longest time.

In that moment, something viciously squeezed my heart. The pain was unbearable.

When I was being beaten, he was drinking.

When I was desperately trying to escape, he was grieving over another woman.

Who was she?

Who could be worth my husband completely disregarding my life or death, even getting drunk over a photo in a bar every day while I was kidnapped?

Later, I learned that the days I was kidnapped coincided with the news of Moira Templeton's death.

And Moira was his beloved first love, the girlfriend he'd dated for years before they broke up.

Later, I was rescued by Julian's mother, who paid the ransom. They sent me to the hospital. I was unconscious for three days. When I woke up, I learned I'd lost the ability to have children.

At that time, I cried in that hospital bed for three days and three nights.

But what truly chilled my heart wasn't the devastating news about losing my fertility. It was that Julian never once appeared.

Not until the day I was discharged did Julian finally show up.

He stood in the hospital room doorway, looking haggard, his eyes red.

I looked at him, waiting for him to speak, waiting for an explanation.

But he just stood there, opened his mouth, and finally said, "You... take care of yourself."

Then Julian just turned and left.

Later I learned he was rushing to the airport that day.

Someone said they'd found Moira's body, and he had to personally go retrieve it.

That day, lying in my hospital bed, listening to nurses gossip about how devoted billionaire Julian was, I suddenly laughed.

Turns out, from beginning to end, what I thought was love was just him settling.

And I was merely a substitute during his first love's absence.

I initiated the divorce.

On the day of the divorce, Julian asked me with red-rimmed eyes, "How can you be so heartless?"

I didn't answer.

I wanted to ask: During those five days I was kidnapped, where were you? When I was lying in the hospital losing my ability to have children, where were you? When I needed you, who were you getting drunk over?

But I didn't ask any of it.

There was no point.

After that came those 98 remarriage proposals.

Hot air balloons, fireworks, Northern Lights.

Julian suddenly seemed enlightened, making every romantic thing I'd ever mentioned come true.

But looking at this man kneeling before me, my heart no longer felt a single ripple.

I knew what he was thinking.

But so what?

Then Julian's mother became critically ill.

She lay in the hospital bed, tears filling the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.

"Melanie, I know the Rivers family wronged you. But I still want to ask you, agree to Julian's 99th proposal. Consider it...fulfilling the contract from when I saved you three years ago."

"Julian still needs time to establish his position in the company. The Rivers family shares need him to inherit them. Just three months. As his wife in name, help him for three months. Once he gets what he needs to get... whether you want to leave or stay, the Rivers family and you will have no further connection."

I looked at this elder who had once saved me. After a long silence, I finally nodded.

So now I stood here, and amid everyone's blessings, I finally slowly extended my hand.

"I do."

"That's wonderful! Melanie, I love you! I've never minded that you can't have children. This time I swear I'll love you properly and never lose you again..."

Julian cried like a child. He reached out and hugged me tightly, but there was no emotion whatsoever in my eyes.

Three months. I would play the role of a good wife by his side, help Julian smoothly inherit everything after his mother's death, to fulfill the contract she'd made before passing.

I nodded, having just calmed Julian down.

But before I could ask about the remarriage timeline, I saw the man beside me, who had been so excited just moments ago, suddenly freeze in place.

And the friends Julian had specially invited also stopped their congratulations and fell silent.

In that moment, I saw disbelief on everyone's faces.

"Julian, I'm sorry for making you worry. I'm three years late, but... I'm back."

In the distance, a woman with slightly red eyes, wearing a white dress, slowly appeared in everyone's view.

I froze in place.

Even though I'd never seen her before, I recognized at a glance that this woman was the lover Julian had cried over every night in the bar three years ago, looking at her photo...