Chapter1

I had been dating my germaphobe boyfriend, Liam Whitmore, for three years. During my senior year of college, I found a tube of lipstick in the passenger seat of his car.

It wasn't my shade.

I had just stepped out of the photography department’s darkroom, still gripping a freshly developed roll of film. Liam leaned back in the driver's seat, his eyes glued to his phone screen, not sparing me a single glance.

Just as I opened my mouth to confront him, his project partner, Chloe Vance, popped up from the back. Looking slightly disheveled but wearing a breezy smile, she said, "Aria, my bad—we were just discussing our group assignment in the car. I'm in a rush to get to another party, so I did a quick outfit change in here."

Liam waved a hand dismissively, his eyes never leaving the screen. "Yeah. It's fine."

That night, I called him from my dorm balcony. My voice sounded dangerously calm, but I could feel the invisible string inside my chest trembling. "Liam, I have no use for a soiled man. If this happens again, we're done."

Silence fell over the line for a long moment before he finally replied. "Okay."

The next day, he actually switched project groups, separating himself from Chloe completely. I foolishly thought it meant he cared about my ultimatum.

That was, until the week my mother was hospitalized in critical condition.

I received an anonymous email containing a single video file. Through a frosted glass pane, two intertwining silhouettes writhed. Then came Liam's lust-heavy, desperate panting: "Baby..."

"Ah! Harder~" Chloe's familiar, breathy moan pierced my ears.

My eyes burned, and my chest felt like it was being sliced open by a rusted blade.

I turned my phone off and sent a text to my biological father—Benjamin Hart—who had tracked me down not long ago:

"I've changed my mind. I'll take the position of the Hart family heir."

My mother's funeral was held at the campus chapel. A cold, relentless drizzle fell that day.

Liam arrived in a rush. He still maintained that aloof, elite aura, but I caught a distinct whiff of a familiar women's perfume on him. Tracing the line of his hastily misbuttoned collar, I clearly spotted several fresh hickeys peeking out from underneath the stark white fabric.

The very last sliver of warmth in my heart fizzled out in the freezing rain.

He walked up to me with a gentlemanly demeanor, but before he could even utter a word of comfort, a figure barged into the chapel.

Chloe Vance. His classmate. She rolled in wearing an eye-catching red dress—red, at my mother's funeral—and carrying a bouquet of white chrysanthemums. Wearing a perfectly calculated look of sorrow, she stopped right beside Liam and held the flowers out to me.

"Aria. My condolences."

Suppressing a surge of violent rage, I forcefully snatched her hypocritical bouquet.

"Ah—!" she shrieked suddenly. Using the momentum of my pull, she lunged forward. Liam instinctively grabbed her wrist, pulling her back into his embrace to steady her. Tilting her chin up perfectly in sync with his downward gaze, their lips crashed together. Chloe deliberately deepened the kiss. I watched Liam sink into it, looking entirely too receptive; he didn't seem coerced at all.

Liam eventually pulled back, furrowing his brow as he gently pushed her upright. His voice was low, tender, and laced with helpless indulgence.

"Careful."

Hearing that familiar tone, my mind uncontrollably flashed back to that video. He had used that exact same gentle, obsessed voice when he called her baby.

I remembered the first night we made our relationship official.

I had mustered the courage to softly kiss his lips. It was just a feather-light peck. He shoved me away so violently I stumbled, and he bolted into the bathroom. I heard aggressive, echoing retching from inside. Then, he chugged five or six bottles of mouthwash and brushed his teeth obsessively, self-mutilatingly, for a solid half-hour until his gums bled and the copper scent of blood filled the room. When he finally stepped out, his face was ashen, his eyes absolute frost.

"Aria, I told you. Don't touch me."

I found out later why. As a child, he had been carried by a nanny with an infectious disease. He was hospitalized for a whole month, isolated in a solitary room where not a single soul dared to touch him. Ever since then, physical contact from anyone triggered a severe psychosomatic gag reflex. I thought time would heal him. I thought my love was the exception. But standing there, I finally understood—it wasn't that he couldn't stand being touched. It was just that he wouldn't stand being touched by me.

The low murmurs of the funeral guests swelled like an incoming tide. The gazes pinned on me were a suffocating mix of scrutiny, pity, and schadenfreude.

From the crowd, someone muttered in disgust, "What a disgrace."

Liam's grandfather, Arthur Whitmore, slammed his heavy walking cane against the floor. "Nonsense! What kind of place do you think this is to put on such a crude display?"

Liam's face drained of color. He let go of Chloe but still stubbornly positioned himself to shield her behind his back. He bowed his head to his grandfather. "I'm sorry, Grandpa. Chloe didn't mean it."

Didn't mean it. Such flippant words. With them, he effortlessly trampled over me, over my deceased mother, and over the dignity of the entire Whitmore family.

I opened my mouth, my voice so chillingly calm I barely recognized it myself: "Liam, take her and get the hell out."

He stared at me in shock, a flash of panic and guilt crossing his eyes. He stepped quickly toward me, lowering his voice into a harsh whisper. "Aria, please don't make a scene here, okay? Chloe just slipped..." He was still defending her.

I looked him dead in the eye, enunciating every single syllable. "I'm making a scene? You're openly defending another woman at my mother's funeral. Who exactly is making a scene here?"

His lips parted, but the words that ultimately slithered out chilled me to the bone. "I owe her, Aria. Please, I'm begging you. Don't make this any uglier than it has to be."

Tucked safely behind him, Chloe shot me a triumphant glare.

At that moment, a soft laugh escaped me. Yes, how could I possibly make things uglier? No matter how hysterical I got, nothing could compare to the lethal blade he had just handed me himself.

"I told you to get out. Do you not understand English?"

He squeezed his eyes shut in feigned agony. Ultimately, he pivoted back to Chloe and personally escorted her out of the chapel doors. As she brushed past me, Chloe threw me a provocative smirk. Liam, however, didn't even possess the spine to look at me.

The funeral finally dragged to an end. I white-knuckled my way through seeing off the last of the guests, then returned alone to my mother's apartment. Her scent still lingered in the quiet room. I stared at the framed photo of her gentle smile. That invisible string that had been pulled taut inside me for three years finally snapped. A tidal wave of overwhelming grief and humiliation swallowed me whole. I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle my sobs and slid down the wall until I hit the cold floor. The image of my mother's face blurred before my eyes.

I figured this was the ending my three years of devotion had bought me—him bowing at another woman's feet, while I kneeled before my dead mother's portrait. For three years, I had desperately tried to scrub myself clean, terrified of triggering his repulsion, thinking purity would allow me to get closer to him. In the end, the only dirt I needed to wash away was him.

I collapsed in front of my mother's portrait, my vision fading into absolute pitch black. And within that crushing darkness, I could faintly hear the sound of unfamiliar footsteps drawing near.