Chapter 1

My daughter was in the operating room fighting for her life, and I made fifty phone calls. Ethan Foster didn't answer a single one.

When someone finally picked up, his first love's saccharine voice came through: "Mr. Foster is cutting cake for my dog right now. Call back later."

In the background, I heard Ethan's gentle voice coaxing: "Good boy. Eat this piece of meat, and then let daddy hold you."

He played father to a dog, but refused to spare a single glance for his own daughter.

When my daughter's eyes closed for the last time, her little hand still clutched the card she'd drawn for her father.

I calmly signed the papers and burned that card to ash.

Ethan Foster, we're done.

Lila Hart POV

I sat in the hospital corridor until dawn broke.

White walls, white lights—everything so blindingly white.

The thin piece of paper in my hand was Nina's death certificate. I'd gripped the edges so hard they'd frayed, just like my heart being torn apart.

I mechanically dialed the fiftieth call.

This time, it finally connected.

But the voice that came through wasn't my husband Ethan Foster's. It was his first love, Mandy White, her tone cloying with a hint of irritation at being disturbed.

"Mr. Foster is cutting cake for my Fluffy right now, Lila. Whatever it is, talk to him later."

Fluffy was Mandy's dog.

Before she'd even finished speaking, Ethan's familiar yet foreign gentle voice came through in the background. He was coaxing a golden retriever.

"Fluffy, be good. Eat this meat, and then let daddy hold you."

Daddy...

He played father to a dog, but refused to look at his own flesh and blood one last time.

When Nina closed her eyes, her tiny hand still clutched the card she'd spent all afternoon drawing—a crayon family portrait of the three of us, wobbly and imperfect.

I don't know how I signed those documents, how I walked out of that building that had swallowed my daughter, or how I made it back to this villa we called "home."

I slid the key into the lock and turned it.

The door clicked open with a "click," and a wave of warmth rushed out—mixed scents of cream, expensive aromatherapy, and pet shampoo.

That warm, pleasant smell clashed violently with the cold disinfectant that had soaked into my clothes.

The living room blazed with light.

Ethan's tall figure crouched on the expensive handwoven carpet, holding an imported silent hair dryer, patiently blow-drying that golden retriever called "Fluffy."

Beside him, Mandy wore nothing but his loose white dress shirt. Her bare legs swung back and forth, making my eyes hurt.

When she saw me, Mandy immediately pulled the collar tighter and put on that pitiful expression I'd seen a thousand times.

"Lila, you're back... I'm so sorry. It's all my fault for not watching Fluffy properly. He accidentally fell in the pool and got so scared. Ethan was worried about him, so he rushed back."

Playing the victim. What a performance.

I ignored her. My eyes locked onto Ethan.

Those hands—long-fingered, clean, elegant.

Once upon a time, I'd imagined those hands holding our daughter gently. But from birth to death, the most intimate contact Nina ever got from him was the occasional touch.

Now, those same hands rubbed the dog's head with infinite care and tenderness.

My throat felt like it had been scraped raw with sandpaper. Each word came out bloody.

"Why didn't you answer your phone?"

Ethan finally deigned to lift his head. He turned off the dryer, and the room fell silent. That handsome face showed undisguised disgust and impatience.

He smirked like he'd heard the joke of the year.

"Lila, to trick me into coming back, you'd even lie about our daughter being critically ill? Can't you come up with something classier?"

His gaze swept over my wrinkled clothes, stained with god-knows-what. His nose wrinkled in displeasure, and he actually took half a step back.

"You reek of disinfectant. It's nauseating." He waved his hand like shooing away a disgusting fly. "Stay away from Fluffy."

Disinfectant?

I looked down numbly and finally saw the dried, dark red trace on my sleeve.

Nina's blood.

But to him, it was just an unpleasant smell that might bother his precious dog.