When Ethan Caldwell shoved me down into the comforter, the moonlight fell right across my tear-streaked face.

It had been three days.

Three whole days, and he was still like some starved beast, relentless, again and again, like he’d never had enough.

His burning palm pressed into my waist hard enough to leave finger marks. His voice dropped with ragged breaths, heavy and sharp as it hit me. "Yanyan, when you made me sleep on the floor back then, did you ever think this day would come?"

...

Ethan Caldwell was the live-in son-in-law of the Mercer family.

The one I originally liked was his younger brother.

But that class reunion three years ago wrecked everything.

I got drunk. That night, Ethan held me in his arms and took my first time.

The next morning, the whole city was flooded with headlines: "Mercer Heiress Forces Herself on Eldest Caldwell Son."

My father smashed his teacup on the spot. "Either he marries into this family, or I send you overseas. Pick one."

Ethan was the son born to his father's first wife. Ever since his father remarried, he’d barely cared about him at all.

My family had money. I was an only daughter, spoiled and protected by my parents since I was little.

So when it came to making Ethan the Mercer family’s live-in son-in-law, his father couldn’t have been happier.

And just like that, in a total daze, I got married.

But there was always this knot of anger stuck in my chest.

Because the one I had feelings for was Sebastian Caldwell.

On our wedding night, I yanked his blanket away and sneered, "You think you deserve to sleep in my bed?"

He hugged his pillow and curled up on the carpet without a word, like some silent statue abandoned in the dark.

And I only got worse after that.

On stormy days, he’d bring me an umbrella, and I’d deliberately leave him standing in the rain. At dinner, I mocked the way he picked up food, saying he looked cheap and pathetic. Once, I even splashed scalding tea all over the suit he’d just had pressed.

But every single time, he only lowered his lashes and said softly, "It’s okay, Yanyan."

Ethan Caldwell was like a puppet with no temper at all.

I smashed bowls, and he cleaned up the shards.

I called him a loser in front of everyone, and all he did was press his lips together, saying nothing.

He clearly had a face blessed by heaven, absurdly good-looking.

But back in school, his grades were bad. He could only stay hunched in the back row of the classroom like some repeater student no one cared about.

His younger brother, Sebastian Caldwell, was the exact opposite—ridiculously outstanding, the kind of guy everyone noticed the second he walked onto campus.

When Sebastian won awards for his speeches, Ethan Caldwell could only sit in the very last row of the auditorium and clap quietly. It was almost the same as how he slept on the floor after marriage, curled up in a corner like he didn’t even deserve a bed. Pathetic. Seriously pathetic.

The moonlight traced the clean line of his broad shoulders and narrow waist, and for some reason, the sight made her eyes sting.

"Ethan Caldwell!"

In the middle of the night, she jolted awake from a dream, then kicked him without holding back. "I’m thirsty!"

He woke up in a split second, got up right away, and went downstairs to pour her water. He even adjusted the temperature to a perfect forty degrees—warm enough, not too hot, exactly how she liked it.

But the moment the glass caught his faintly trembling lashes, the class reunion flashed across her mind again—that night, what he had done to her...

Before she knew it, she threw the whole glass of water straight into his face. It ran down from his jaw, slid past his Adam’s apple, and disappeared into his collar.

Her hands shook nonstop. "Why? Tell me why. Why did you have to ruin my whole life?"

He said nothing.

He only crouched down in silence and cleaned up the mess all over the floor.

That silent back made her stomach clench so hard it hurt.

That night, when he took the soaked quilt and went to sleep on the balcony, she stared at the ceiling for hours and thought, Are we really doomed to torture each other until the day we die?

It wasn’t until three years later, when he tossed the divorce papers in front of her, that she finally realized a life like that could actually end.

Her family had gone bankrupt.

And during those three years, no matter how hard she tried to hold herself back, she had still fallen for him.

The very first time she truly wanted to spend their wedding anniversary properly, she came to see him with a gift in hand—only to be greeted by the divorce agreement he pushed across the table.

"Sign it."

He looked at her, his eyes cold enough to freeze the air. "She’s back."

His white moonlight. The woman he had never forgotten.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she stared at the last line of the property list—

the ownership of the villa was now under his name.

She froze where she stood. Only then did it hit her that the house she had lived in for over twenty years no longer belonged to her.

After our family went bankrupt, every last asset got sold off.

And the live-in son-in-law who’d schemed his way into marrying me back then, the one my whole family looked down on, had actually built a business in secret. Now he’d even bought this villa.

But I had no right to blame him, and no claim on a single cent of what he owned, because he’d earned all of it himself after years of keeping his head down and swallowing the humiliation. He’d never taken a dime from my family.

"I get it. I’ll sign."

The second the pen scratched across the paper, a scene from three years ago flashed through my mind—him kneeling in front of me, carefully tying my shoelaces. My throat instantly filled with that sharp, rusty taste of blood.

"Congrats," I said, putting the pen down, my nails digging hard into my palm. "You’re finally free."

Without warning, he caught my wrist. Even through the thin fabric of his shirt, his body heat felt scalding.

"The driver’s downstairs."

I yanked my hand away and stood up too fast, knocking over the glass he always used. It shattered on the floor with a crisp, splintering crack. In that sound, I finally saw his eyes clearly—just like that night at the class reunion years ago. Dark. So dark it made my skin crawl.

"Thanks for the concern. I’m leaving."

I fled in a hurry, almost like I was running for my life.

His voice came from behind me. "You came to see me tonight. Was there something you wanted to say?"

"Nothing." I didn’t even dare turn my head. I rushed straight out of the yard.

The rain started coming down harder, dot by dot, then all at once. I clutched the gift in my hand so tightly my fingers went numb.

Today was our third wedding anniversary.

Thinking about how cold and awful I’d been to him before, guilt gnawed at me so hard it hurt.

Ever since I realized I was hopelessly, completely in love with him, I’d secretly sworn to myself that I would spend every important day with him properly, no matter what.

Funny, right?

What was waiting for me instead was a divorce agreement.

I stood in the rain and let out a bitter laugh, letting the water soak through my clothes, drenching me top to bottom until I looked absolutely miserable.

The next morning, when I woke up, my whole body was burning with fever. I lay in bed, weak and unable to move.

Then a burst of shouting suddenly rose from downstairs.

I forced myself up and staggered out to see what was going on, only to find my father sitting on the weathered wall in the courtyard, yelling that he wanted to end his life.

The old residential block was shabby as hell, but the one thing going for it was the cheap rent.

Downstairs, her mother was crying so hard she was almost howling, shouting that if he really jumped, she’d jump right after him.

Song Yan forced herself through the pounding in her head and walked over. "Dad, don’t do anything stupid. As long as we’re still alive, there’s still a way out. There’s always hope."

But her father suddenly fixed her with a burning stare, so sharp it made her chest tighten.

"Go ask Ethan Caldwell for help," he said through clenched teeth. "He’s our son-in-law. He won’t just stand by and do nothing."

Her mother quickly chimed in, wiping tears as she spoke. "Exactly. We did treat him badly before, I know that. But for your sake, he shouldn’t be that heartless, right?"

A wave of bitterness rose in Song Yan’s chest. They still had no idea she had already been cast aside.

"I can’t..." she had barely started when her father lifted his chin and snapped, "If you won’t agree, then I’ll jump right now!"

"YanYan, save your father!" her mother cried too, her voice breaking apart.

Song Yan bit down hard on her lip. In the end, she could only force herself to nod.

Before she left, her mother used the very last bit of savings in the house to buy her an outfit—a deep V-neck dress, paired with a pair of sexy pointed high heels.

Not stopping there, her mother even hired a beautician to do her up properly, full makeup, hair styled, the whole package.

Looking at the woman in the mirror, polished until she barely looked like herself, Song Yan couldn’t help letting out a faint, bitter laugh.

This didn’t look like she was going to beg for help at all. It looked more like she was heading out to hook some rich guy.

Too bad—even if she dressed up this beautifully now, in Ethan’s eyes she was probably nothing more than air.

Even now, she still couldn’t figure out why he had slept with her that night after the class reunion.

Was he drunk too? Had he mistaken her for the woman in his heart?

She shoved all that messy nonsense out of her head. If nothing else, she had to do this so her parents would finally give up. So in the end, she decided to just go and try her luck.

After finding out he was at the company, she went straight to the office building in that full getup.

Her parents stayed downstairs, waiting anxiously, looking up again and again, hanging all their hope on her bringing back good news.

Watching them fidget like that, Song Yan felt a sharp sting in her chest. For a second, she honestly had no idea what to say.

The moment she stepped onto Ethan Caldwell’s floor, strange looks came at her from every direction. Whispers drifted into her ears, mixed with snide laughs and blunt mockery.

"Isn’t that the former Miss Song?"

"Heh, I heard after her family went bankrupt, she turned into a total stray dog too..."

"Mr. Caldwell dumped her ages ago, didn’t he? She used to act so full of herself."

Song Yan forced herself to stay calm. She lifted her chin, straightened her back, and walked straight toward his office.

But the second she saw him sitting there, calm and untouchable, carrying that whole superior, high-above-everyone aura, she folded on the spot. All the courage she had scraped together instantly leaked out, and even her back seemed to slump.

He lounged in his chair with lazy ease, every bit of him wrapped in cold elegance and moneyed grace, the corner of his lips curved in a half-smile as he looked at her...