Chapter 1

Isabella's POV

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I never would have believed it—

Julian Hawthorne, my fiancé who had been kissing me intimately at the banquet just half an hour ago, now had his mistress's fat ass pressed against my grandmother's family crest.

"No, ah! Ah! Julian, here... we'll be discovered here!"

Clara clung to his neck, letting out trembling moans one after another.

"Come on, my little cheese cake, don't you find the thought of being discovered even a little exciting? This is way more thrilling than in the car."

Julian gripped Clara's shoulders, thrusting his lower body rhythmically.

The last time I remembered seeing him stand in such a position was during an emergency call, when he tried to pry a worker who'd gotten stuck to a telephone pole with paint.

"Oh! It's so cold here! Thank god your big dick is keeping me warm enough! This damn manor, cold moldy walls everywhere. I really don't understand why any living person would choose to live in a place like this?"

"Of course, I'm not trying to insult your fiancée. I just think that countess's daughter's party is more ridiculous than I imagined—"

"Shut your mouth, Clara. Now's not the time to discuss that killjoy woman. Or maybe you'd prefer to have something harder in it to shut up that chattering desire of yours?"

I stood outside the storage room door, witnessing it all with my own eyes.

But I had only one choice before me—

Quietly draw the curtain for them, then leave as if I'd seen nothing.

Because I couldn't imagine what would happen if I impulsively burst in, grabbed that woman by the hair, and threw her like a drowned dog into the banquet hall next door—

My father, the count who insisted on wearing an impeccable tailcoat even though he could only move in a wheelchair;

And my mother, who would rather drain the last of our credit just to make this party look presentable and grand.

How would they handle it?

As the last nobility of the Kensington family, they had always valued face more than life itself.

At this moment, they should still be at the social center of the banquet, collecting the guests' polite compliments one by one—

"So happy for you, Count Kensington. Marrying your daughter into a nouveau riche tycoon family like the Hawthornes, you surely won't have to worry about any debts in the future."

"A girl like Isabella, with such noble bloodline and both beautiful and intelligent, is truly rare. I heard she just graduated from St. Augustine Royal Medical School last year and now works at St. Cecilia Hospital alongside Julian, who's already an attending physician?"

"Such an enviable match of talent and beauty. I hope the next party will be their wedding, where we can offer our blessings."

Tears welled up in my eyes, my nails nearly digging into my palms.

Those small cuts from long-term exposure to disinfectant were now splitting open viciously, one by one, scratching painfully across my hands and my heart.

Of course I had suspected that Julian might have a mistress.

Behind all his excuses to postpone our engagement, all those times his phone was unreachable, all those late arrivals to our dates—it was his complete indifference toward me, the daughter of a fallen noble family.

He didn't really love me that much, and he believed I didn't love him that much either.

It was just a transactional marriage alliance between a debt-ridden noble family using their well-bred daughter and a powerful nouveau riche tycoon family.

But he never knew that from the moment I first saw him at that ball when I was sixteen, I had already made up my mind to enter this handsome young man's world.

I chose the boring and grueling medical school because I wanted to be with him.

I wanted to become an excellent doctor who could stand shoulder to shoulder with him, not a useless person who only had noble blood to rely on.

I worked so hard to let him see my most brilliant self, but in the end, it was he who made me witness his most disgraceful side.

...

I didn't burst in to fight them, nor did I return to the banquet hall.

The tear stains on my face couldn't be disguised—that would be the most undignified behavior in my parents' eyes.

So I could only hide in the bushes outside the corridor, burying my face in my knees.

I needed this late autumn rain to cleanse my rationality and rebuild my composure.

I don't know how long passed before I felt something soft and wet seemingly licking my hand.

I raised my eyes and was surprised to see a beautiful Border Collie.

It had a coat of distinct black and white fur, plastered wetly against its body. Comical, yet not pathetic.

"Hey, little guy, are you lost?"

I instinctively reached out my hand, feeling the warm, rough texture of its tongue.

That reckless warmth unique to small animals eased my emotions slightly.

"Lucas doesn't get lost. He knows exactly where he's going—the direction in his heart."

A tall figure emerged from behind a nearby tree.

The man's voice was deep, carrying a barely perceptible breathlessness, as if he'd just finished a long chase.

The rain seemed to lighten at that moment.

I saw him fold his umbrella, his steps very light.

Silently treading through puddles, he stopped between me and the dog.

His trouser cuffs were completely soaked, and his leather shoes were splattered with mud.

But the deep-toned bespoke suit he wore still maintained its expensive matte texture.

Making him look like a low-key foreign nobleman who had stepped out of an autumn oil painting.

I looked up, rainwater sliding down my jaw and into my chest.

In the dim light, I couldn't make out his features clearly, but I could feel the depth of his downward gaze.

That scrutiny didn't feel invasive at all; instead, there was a sense of relief in being completely seen through.

"Lucas always knows where to go," he bent down, stroking the Border Collie's neck fur, "and how to find those who hide themselves—like a princess, heartbroken and dejected in the rain."

I gave a self-deprecating smile. "A princess's dejection isn't determined by the prince who broke her heart, but by having a poor and despotic king for a father."

"You could have burst in."

He looked at me. "Let the obtuse king witness his daughter's grievance and demands firsthand, and fight for your right to say no."

I shook my head with a bitter smile.

"No, I can't."

I can't.

The Kensington family's massive debts won't let me, my father's medical expenses after his stroke won't let me, my mother's lack of earning ability yet continued obsession with those vain and impractical consumption habits won't let me, and my two sisters' tuition fees definitely won't let me—

Even the meager overtime pay I currently use to support the family needs Julian, as an attending physician, to sign off on!

And all of this, traced back to that marriage contract between our grandparents' generations, what a snobbish and ridiculous reality—

As the eldest daughter of Count Kensington's family, I could only rightfully share the family trust assets after marrying into the Hawthorne family.

So I could only let Julian place a ring on my finger with the same hand that had touched his mistress's vagina!

"But as far as I know, Julian isn't the only unmarried man of eligible age in the Hawthorne family."

The man smiled slightly, extending his right hand to me in a friendly gesture.

His palm lines still held the dampness of rain, his tone as calm as if narrating a distant story.

"There's also me, Adrian Hawthorne."