Chapter 1

Tristan Cole's first love, Vanessa Sullivan, returned to the country.

I used a sketchbook to record every single instance he hurt me because of her. A hundred points total, and I'd leave when they ran out.

He abandoned me on the award ceremony red carpet to pick up Vanessa. Deduct 10 points.

He fed me birth control pills disguised as vitamins, just because his first love couldn't have children. Deduct 20 points.

He made excuses about working overtime, but had intense sex with Vanessa in his office. Deduct 20 points.

...

Until that day, when I was trapped under the collapsed construction site, pregnant and bleeding heavily, and he said on the phone:

"Even if you die out there, I wouldn't spare you a second glance."

The child was gone. All hundred points were deducted.

My heart died too.

The day I signed the divorce papers, I called my father. "I agree to the arranged marriage you set up."

Leah Sterling POV

Camera flashes flooded the red carpet.

I wore a custom-made starlit gown, my arm linked with Tristan's.

As the youngest nominee for the country's highest architecture and design award, tonight should have been the most brilliant moment of my life.

Tristan wore a perfectly tailored black custom suit, devastatingly handsome.

We were the perfect couple in the media's eyes. Three years married. The union of the Cole Group CEO and a genius architect made countless people envious.

Just as the host smiled and announced, "Next, please welcome Mr. Tristan Cole and Miss Leah Sterling," Tristan's phone in his suit pocket began vibrating insistently.

His initially indifferent expression shattered the instant he saw the name on the screen.

My fingers, linked through his arm, stiffened slightly. I knew this expression too well. Only when it concerned that woman would this eternal iceberg crack with anxious fissures.

"Tristan," I spoke softly, with a trace of pleading, "we're about to go on stage."

Tristan yanked his arm away in one sharp motion, the force making me stumble.

He gripped his phone tightly, speaking rapidly in a cold, unquestionable tone.

"Vanessa is back in the country. She's having a panic attack at the airport. I have to go now."

The name, Vanessa Sullivan, was like a blade dipped in ice, stabbing into my heart.

"But tonight is very important to me." I bit my lower lip hard, my voice trembling in the night wind. "You promised you'd walk this entire path with me."

"Leah, this is just some meaningless award ceremony!" Tristan's gaze was so cold, like he was looking at an unreasonable stranger.

"Vanessa could be in life-threatening danger right now. Can you put away that petty vanity of yours?"

He turned coldly without another word and strode toward the Maybach parked in the distance.

The wind lifted the hem of his coat. He didn't even glance back at me once.

The surrounding media instantly swarmed forward, countless cameras aimed at me standing alone at the end of the red carpet.

"Why did Mr. Cole suddenly leave?"

"Is there something more important than your award?"

"Rumor has it Mr. Cole has never forgotten a certain woman. Is that true?"

Those malicious speculations intertwined with the camera flashes like an impenetrable net, trapping me completely. I don't know how I walked that red carpet, or how I stood on stage holding that heavy trophy.

All I knew was that when I stood on the award platform, looking at the empty seat below that should have belonged to Tristan, my heart turned completely cold.

Late night, the villa.

This thousand-square-foot mansion felt as empty as a luxurious mausoleum. I removed my painful high heels, walking barefoot across the cold marble floor, step by step up to the second floor.

I pushed open the study door and retrieved a black sketchbook from the bottom of the safe.

Opening to the last page, it wasn't an architectural drawing but a countdown scoreboard drawn in red pen.

One hundred points total.

I picked up the pen, my fingers trembling slightly, and wrote a line on the paper:

"At the most important award ceremony of my life, he abandoned me alone on the red carpet to face public ridicule online, all to pick up Vanessa Sullivan. Deduct 10 points."

After writing, I crossed out the number "100" at the bottom and changed it to "90."

I bought this sketchbook on the first day of our marriage.

Back then, I naively believed that as long as I was obedient enough, loved him enough, one day I could win Tristan's heart.

But later, I accidentally overheard a conversation between Tristan and his friends.

I learned he only married me because Vanessa had left the country in anger to marry someone else. His grandfather had threatened him with his own life. So he randomly picked me, a woman with a docile personality, to be his placeholder.

He gave all his deep feelings to Vanessa Sullivan. All he left me was endless coldness and neglect.

I touched the glaring "90" on the paper and pulled my lips into a bitter smile.

I had set myself a deadline. When all hundred points were deducted, I would finally let go. I would give his wife's place back to the woman he truly wanted to marry.