Chapter 1

Five years into our marriage, Chris knelt in the pouring rain outside my mansion, soaked to the bone, weeping as she begged me to save her.

She claimed a failed investment had buried her in colossal debt. If I'd just mortgage the historic estate my parents left me, she could weather the storm.

To spare me from her mess, she even suggested a fake divorce, promising we’d remarry once the debt was clear.

My eyes red, I frantically searched for the property deed that night, terrified that a single moment’s delay would push her past her breaking point.

Until I accidentally knocked her phone off the couch.

The screen lit up, displaying a message she’d sent to her ex-boyfriend:

“That fool Carter has totally fallen for it. Once I get my hands on the historic estate, I’ll build a French castle with a rose garden for our wedding home.”

I stood rooted to the spot, every drop of blood in my body turning to ice.

There was no bankruptcy. From the day she married me, she had been plotting to get her hands on my parents’ inheritance.

Watching the woman kneeling in the rain outside, putting on a show of deep affection, I suddenly laughed.

Ten minutes later, I knocked on the door of Chris’s aunt, Anhel, the multi-billion dollar head of the Thompson Group.

I placed the property deed on her desk, a smile playing on my lips.

“Ms. Anhel, I heard you were looking for a legitimate husband?”