Everyone in Ashford said I’d taken the marriage contract my sister Joyce had cast aside.

After all, Stephen was the moon in the sky, and I was the dust beneath his feet. His light was meant for my sister, whose own brilliance rivaled the sun. I wasn’t even worthy of its glow.

For eleven years, I loved Stephen.

From that breathless glimpse in our youth to later becoming his fiancée in name only, I was like the most devout believer chasing after a god. But my god’s heart belonged to another.

Only when Joyce was left in a coma after a car accident did the Grant family—to fulfill the engagement—let this dubious honor fall to me: Nova, the unremarkable adopted daughter.

I thought this was the culmination of eleven years of foolish devotion.

Little did I know, it was only the beginning of my descent into hell.

---

The night before the wedding, I delivered Stephen’s freshly pressed suit to his villa myself.

He sat beside my sister Joyce’s hospital bed, his usually cold and reserved face softened by a tenderness I’d never seen. Holding her pale hand, his voice was low, intimate. “Joyce, if you don’t wake up soon, I’ll have to marry that girl you hate—Nova.”

An invisible fist seized my heart, stealing my breath.

“You know I’m doing this for you. The Grant family fortune, your father’s company… Only by becoming head of the Grants can I get it all back for you. Once I have control, I’ll divorce her. Then all of Ashford will know that only you, Joyce, are worthy to be my wife.”

He pressed a gentle kiss to the back of her hand. The obsession in his eyes plunged me into an icy abyss.

So this marriage was a carefully orchestrated scheme from the start.

I was just a tool to protect his sister and seize power—a stepping stone to be used and discarded.

Eleven years of love, in his eyes, was nothing but a convenient joke.

Stumbling back, I knocked over a vase by the door.

“Who’s there?”

Stephen whirled around. The tenderness in his eyes vanished, replaced by icy contempt.

“What are you doing here? Eavesdropping? Is this how your family raised you?”

I looked at him, tears falling freely. “Stephen… why are you doing this to me?”

He laughed coldly, rising to close the distance between us. His tall frame seemed to fill the room, radiating overwhelming pressure.

“Doing this *to you*? Nova, know your place. If Joyce weren’t lying here, do you think you’d ever be allowed past the Grant family gates? You were her shadow then, and now you’re just her stand-in.”

“A stand-in…” I whispered, my heart shattering.

“Wipe that pathetic look off your face. Tomorrow, you’ll play your part as the obedient bride. Remember—play your role well, and don’t cause me trouble. Otherwise, I won’t hesitate to make you and your sickly mother disappear from Ashford together.”

His words were poisoned daggers, each one striking deep.

I don’t know how I left that villa.

Outside, rain fell in sheets.

The eleven-year dream was finally over.

When I woke, all that remained was wreckage.

---

Back home, my father, Kenneth, paced anxiously in the hall.

Seeing me broken and rain-soaked, he launched into a tirade. “Where have you been?! Don’t you know tomorrow is your wedding to Stephen? If anything goes wrong, our family can’t bear the consequences!”

My mother came from the kitchen carrying a bowl of hot soup. She hurried over, her face etched with worry. “Nova, what happened? Go change before you catch cold.”

“Stop crying! Marrying Stephen is the chance of a lifetime!” my father snapped.

I looked at this man who was my father in name only, feeling nothing but despair.

In this house, only Joyce was his treasured pearl. My mother and I were just vines clinging to him—ready to be cut away at any moment.

Just then, the butler hurried in, his expression grave. “Sir, someone from the Vance family is here.”

“The Vance family?” My father faltered, paling. “Which Vance family?”

“The Vance family of Ashford.”

My father’s face went deathly white.

Everyone in Ashford knew the Vances were an even more formidable presence than the Grants.

And the head of the family, Lucian Vance, was a ruthless, unpredictable demon—the devil himself.

Four years ago, after being ambushed and left crippled, he’d grown even more vicious.

Why would such a man visit our home so late at night?

A middle-aged man in a black suit entered, followed by two bodyguards. His presence commanded the room.

“Good evening, Mr. Nova. I am Andrew, butler of the Vance family. I come on behalf of my master to propose a marriage alliance.”

“P-propose?” my father stammered.

Andrew offered a faint smile, his gaze settling on me. “My master wishes to marry your second daughter, Nova.”

The living room fell into tomb-like silence.

My mother was the first to react, stepping protectively in front of me. “No! Absolutely not! Our Nova is already engaged!”

My father, though visibly terrified, gathered his courage. “Mr. Andrew, there must be some misunderstanding. My daughter Nova marries Stephen Grant tomorrow.”

Andrew’s smile didn’t waver. “There is no misunderstanding. My master has said that if Miss Nova agrees to marry him, this will be the betrothal gift.”

He opened an exquisite sandalwood box. A cool, medicinal fragrance filled the air.

Inside lay a plant of purest white, as if carved from ice crystals. It had nine leaves, each emitting a faint, ethereal glow.

“The Frostheart!” my mother gasped.

My heart jolted.

Legend called the Frostheart a Vance family heirloom, capable of miracles—restoring life to the dying, flesh to bone. It was said to work wonders in repairing nerve damage, even for coma patients.

After Joyce’s accident, my father had exhausted every means to obtain it, even kneeling outside the Vance gates for three days and nights. All for nothing.

And now, here it was, laid before me so easily.

The price? Marrying the man rumored to be cruel and merciless—the cripple, Lucian Vance.

“Mr. Nova, Miss Nova, my master is sincere,” Andrew said, slowly closing the box. “As for the Grant family… if Miss Nova agrees, the Vance family will handle everything.”

Struggle and greed flickered across my father’s face.

On one side: Stephen Grant, a man with a limitless future.

On the other: a divine medicine that could save Joyce.

Looking at him, the absurdity of it all hit me like a blow.

“I’ll marry him.”

Under my mother’s shocked gaze, I spoke those words calmly.

Didn’t Stephen want me as a stand-in? Didn’t he want to use me?

Then I’d make sure he never got the chance.

I wasn’t doing this to save Joyce—the sister who’d bullied me and taken everything since childhood.

I just wanted to settle my debt to this family. From now on, I would owe the Novas nothing.

And more than that—to sever, completely, my ridiculous eleven-year obsession with Stephen Grant.

Better to leap into a hell of my own choosing than to suffer endless humiliation beside a man who would never love me.

The following day, two seismic events shook Ashford to its core.

First, Nova—the younger daughter of the Nova family—publicly broke off her engagement to Stephen and refused to marry him.

Second, in a sudden whirlwind ceremony, that same Nova married Grant, the head of the Grant family.

The city’s elite were thrown into an uproar.

Everyone said I had lost my mind. How could I discard a dazzling prospect like Stephen only to chain myself to a man known as a notorious wreck?

Stephen stormed into my family home, eyes bloodshot, and confronted me. “Nova, what the hell are you playing at?”

I looked at his furious face, my own heart still as a placid lake. “Stephen, we have nothing more to say to each other. Please don’t trouble me again.”

“You’re betraying me for that cripple?” He seized my wrist, his grip so fierce I thought the bones might snap.

“Betrayal?” I laughed until tears streaked my cheeks. “Stephen, are you even worthy of that word? Did you ever truly see *me*? From the very beginning, I was just Joyce’s stand-in—a tool to secure your family’s fortune. Well, this tool has decided she’s done being used. What right do you have to be angry?”

All the color drained from his face.

I wrenched my hand free and walked away without a backward glance, following the convoy of Grant family cars as they left my childhood home behind.

The wedding at the Grant residence was perfunctory, insultingly simple. No guests, no ceremony. Still in my everyday clothes, I was driven directly to a villa perched halfway up the mountainside.

The villa lay silent, inhabited only by an elderly housekeeper.

I was led to a bedroom on the second floor. There, the man of legend sat in a wheelchair, his back to me, gazing out at the city lights below.

“You’re here.”

His voice was better than I’d imagined—low, slightly hoarse, threaded with an indefinable weariness.

He turned the wheelchair. A handsome, pallid face came into view. A savage scar ran from the corner of his left eye down to his jaw, marring his features and lending him a sinister, intimidating air.

This was my husband. Grant.

His eyes swept over me, sharp as a hawk’s. “Not afraid?”

“I am,” I answered truthfully. “But I don’t regret it.”

Something like a smile touched his mouth, though the scar twisted it into something grim. “There’s a contract on the table. Sign it.”

I walked over and picked up the document. The terms were clear: a marriage of convenience, valid for one year. For that year, I would play the part of Mrs. Grant flawlessly. We would not interfere in each other’s lives. Afterward, we would divorce, and he would give me another substantial sum.

At the very end, one final clause stood out: *Do not, unless absolutely necessary, go to the third floor.*

Without hesitation, I picked up the pen and signed my name.

“Good.” He gave a slight nod. “The Centennial Royal Sapphire Necklace has already been delivered to the Nova family. From today, you are my wife. Remember your place.”

With that, he wheeled himself out of the room.

Alone in the vast space, I walked to the window and looked down at the sea of city lights below. A hollow feeling settled in my chest.

I had leapt from one cage into another.

But this time, I had jumped willingly.

Joyce woke up on the third day after I married into the Grant family—the Centennial Royal Sapphire Necklace had truly worked a miracle.

Overjoyed, my father Kenneth called me, his voice gentler than ever before. “Nova, thanks to you, Joyce is awake! When can you come home for a visit?”

Home?

I laughed coldly and hung up. That place had ceased to be my home long ago.

Yet trouble found me anyway. A week later, on my mother’s birthday, I returned to the family house.

When I mentioned the visit to Grant beforehand, he showed no reaction, only a faint “Mm.”

Entering the living room, I found Joyce on the sofa, dressed in designer clothes, her makeup flawless as she bossed the servants around. Seeing me, her eyes flashed with jealousy and venom.

“Well, if it isn’t the Nova family’s great heroine—Mrs. Grant! What’s wrong? Life with a cripple not treating you well, so you’ve come to mooch off us?”

Ignoring her, I headed for the kitchen to see my mother. She stuck out her foot to trip me, but I was ready and steadied myself.

“Joyce, behave,” I said coldly, meeting her gaze.

“Behave?” She laughed as if at the world’s greatest joke. “Nova, who do you think you are, lecturing me? Don’t imagine marrying into the Grant family makes you special. He’s just a cripple who might drop dead any day! Believe me, one word from Stephen, and you’ll be tossed into the street—kicked out of Ashford for good!”

“Is that so?” A frigid voice cut from the doorway.

Everyone froze.

There sat Grant in his wheelchair, pushed by a tall bodyguard. He wore a black tailored suit that made his complexion seem even paler, but his deep-set eyes were like ice-forged blades—impossible to hold.

Why was he here? Joyce hadn’t expected it either; her face blanched before she simpered, “Mr. Grant, what brings you here? Stephen really should have warned us…”

Her words died under his icy interjection. “What is Stephen, that he deserves mention alongside me?”

His gaze swept over Joyce, then settled on me, softening slightly. “Come here.”

After a hesitation, I walked over. He took my hand—his touch was cold yet reassuring.

“Since when does anyone else lecture my wife?” He looked at Joyce, the chill in his eyes dropping the room’s temperature. “Miss Nova, it seems a car crash hasn’t taught you prudence.”

Joyce trembled, speechless.

Just then, Stephen arrived. His eyes darkened instantly at the sight of Grant holding my hand. “Grant, what are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to take my wife home,” Grant stated flatly, brooking no argument.

Stephen turned to me, disappointment and pain in his eyes. “Nova, look what you’ve become. For money, you’d marry someone like this!”

Suddenly weary, I faced him. “Mr. Stephen, what I’ve become is none of your concern. From now on, have some self-respect.”

Turning away, I said to Grant, “Let’s go.”

“Alright.”

The bodyguard wheeled him out, and I walked beside, leaving that suffocating place—once my home.

The car ride back was quiet. Finally, I asked, “Why… why did you come?”

Still gazing out the window, his voice soft, he replied, “My wife was wronged. As her husband, I couldn’t just stand by.”

My heart fluttered inexplicably. That simple statement was the warmest shelter I’d known in over twenty years.

Living with Grant proved more peaceful than I’d imagined. Most of the time, he was quiet—handling business in his study or sitting by the window. We coexisted like careful roommates, staying out of each other’s way.

But after that day, something shifted quietly. He began having my favorite dishes prepared. When I read at night, the housekeeper would bring warm milk on his orders. These small gestures were like rays of sunlight, piercing the ice around my heart.

Until one night, I rose to find the study light still on. On impulse, I went to remind him to rest.

The door was ajar. Through the crack, I saw something that shocked me to my core: Grant—the man who relied on a wheelchair, whose legs were crippled—was standing.