Days before my wedding, I received a video of my fiancee, Alice Moore, being violated against her will. By the time I find her, she's covered in bruises, her body bare.

She wails as she punches me in the chest, demanding to know why I didn't come to her sooner. She says her life has been ruined.

As I hold her close, I make her a promise, saying that I would never scorn her. I even promise to give her 10% of my company shares as a wedding gift, hoping that it will put her at ease.

Everyone says I've lost my mind for going to such lengths for a woman who has been sullied by another man.

But then, I end up overhearing Alice giggling away with her friend in the bathroom.

"That fool actually believed me and thought I'd been abducted. Cole and I went at it for three days in a row. I had the best time of my life! Oh, well. Since I can't marry Cole, my only option is to let him be the first man I take to bed before I get married."

Miranda exclaims in shock, "What if Luke finds out about it? Aren't you afraid of that happening?"

"He's a complete idiot. He even promised to give me his company shares as a wedding gift!" Alice retorted derisively. "There's no way he'd find out about this. I'm only marrying him because his family is one of the richest in the city. Otherwise, you couldn't even pay me to date him. Who would want a guy as boring as him?"

I remain frozen outside the bathroom, feeling like I'd just taken a plunge into icy water.

So be it, then. The wedding ceremony will proceed as scheduled, but I'll have to make some adjustments as to who the bride will be.

"Alice, Luke has treated you really well all these years. Are you sure you never once felt anything for him?" Miranda Green, the friend of my fiancee, Alice Moore, asked her.

My breathing stalled when Alice didn't answer right away. For those brief two seconds, I felt an absurd dash of hope. Perhaps…

"Nope," Alice responded decisively. "Cole Jenkins has always been the only man I loved."

The hope that bubbled up inside of me popped.

Miranda seemed to have more to say. She sounded worried when she said, "You're seriously playing with fire right now. Aren't you worried that things might blow up in your face? To think that you pulled something like this right before the wedding. Luke and the Sheltons must be humiliated! Luke's parents—"

"Humiliated? Well, he deserves it!" Alice snapped shrilly, her voice laced with venom. "You have no idea how awful it is to be with a man as controlling as Luke! He tries to stick his nose into everything I do and meddle in every part of my life. I feel like I'm about to suffocate, okay?

"I want the whole wide world to know that I gave my first time to another man! I want Luke and the entire Shelton family to become the laughingstock in all of Northvale!"

After a pause, she added smugly, "Thankfully, he's been hopelessly in love with me all these years—like a lovesick puppy. He believes everything I tell him. Otherwise, I wouldn't have dared to do something like this."

I closed my eyes. There was a tightening feeling in my chest that made it almost impossible to breathe.

When Alice's family, the Moores, had been on the brink of bankruptcy, her mother came looking for mine and cried up a storm.

At first, I didn't want to form a marriage alliance with the Moores. It was Alice who tugged on my sleeve and tearfully begged me not to reject her.

I took pity on her and gave in.

Throughout these years, I pumped money into Moore Corporation. I personally taught Alice how to evaluate business opportunities and negotiate business deals. I stayed up with her through multiple all-nighters.

It was I who dragged the failing Moore family back to glory and helped them reestablish themselves among the elite circle in Northvale.

But in her eyes, this was just me being a controlling man?

I turned and walked away without a sound.

Once I got back to the living room, I pulled out my phone and clicked on a group chat that had been dead for ages. All the participants were wealthy scions I'd known since childhood.

My fingers flew across the screen, and moments later, I sent a message to the group.

"I need a bride for the wedding ceremony in three days. Who can help me find one to put on a show?"

Immediately, messages flooded into the chat.

"What the heck? Did your account get hacked, Luke?"

"Luke, are you being serious right now? What about Alice?"

I was in no mood to explain the situation, so I simply replied, "I'll share the whole story later. Keep this a secret for now."

Alice came out of the bathroom with a sweet and pleasant smile. It was as if the vicious woman I'd overheard just now had only been a figment of my imagination.

She came over and looped her arm through mine with familiar ease. "It's getting late, Luke. You can head to bed first. I want to spend the night with Miranda."

Ever since that "ordeal" of hers, Alice kept coming up with all sorts of excuses to avoid being alone with me. All along, I thought that she simply needed time to recover from the trauma she'd suffered.

But from the looks of it now, it was simply because she didn't want to see me.

Nodding back at Alice, I pulled my arm away and said with an impassive expression, "Got it."

As I turned to head back to the bedroom, I caught a flash of relief in her eyes. The anger in my heart intensified.

The moment I entered the room, I saw a friend request from someone with a familiar profile picture. She'd also sent a short message. "Submitting my application to be your bride."

Without warning, my heart missed a beat.

It was her—Vanessa Langdon.

We'd broken up due to a misunderstanding some years ago, and we hadn't had any contact since.

I hadn't expected her to enter my life once more in this manner. I stared at the request, my fingertip hovering over the option to accept it, but I couldn't click on it.

Was this just a coincidence or…

I tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall asleep. My chest felt all clogged up, so I decided to get out of bed for a glass of water.

The living room was completely dark. Only a faint bluish glow seeped through the crack of the door to the study. After a pause, as if possessed, I snuck over to the study.

Alice was sitting at the desk, the light from her laptop screen illuminating her flushed face.

Playing on the screen was that video of the "assault" she'd endured, the one that had caused me great agony. As she watched the video, she kept mumbling Cole's name while digging her fingers deep into her body.

"Cole… Cole… You feel so good…"

It felt as though something inside of me snapped. My heart turned to ice.

With trembling fingers, I ended up accepting Vanessa's friend request.

I slept poorly that night. All kinds of scenes kept flashing through my mind, like some sort of movie.

When I woke the next morning, the sunlight outside the window was bright and warm, but I had a splitting headache.

After emerging from my room, I saw two people in the dining room.

Cole sat at the table, his body almost touching Alice's. The two seemed to be carrying on a conversation with such intimate expressions that it looked as if they were alone in the entire world.

In the past, he had always dropped by the house to accompany Alice, claiming to be her "best male friend".

I'd long felt that the closeness they exhibited crossed the line, but out of consideration for Alice's so-called trauma, I just put up with the discomfort I felt.

However, it was now painfully obvious that I wasn't just reading too much into it.

"You're up, Luke," Cole called out after he spotted me.

He picked up a bowl of beef stew and handed it to me with a grin. "Alice tells me you like stews. Here. Try the beef stew I made. Alice loves it."

"That won't be necessary," I declined with a frosty expression. "I'm allergic to beef."

Cole's smile stiffened, and he swiftly put on a look of feigned hurt. "Are you looking down on me, Luke? Or are you just looking down on my cooking?"

Before I could say anything, Alice's expression darkened as well. She grabbed the bowl of piping hot beef stew and flung it all over me. "What's the meaning of this, Luke? It's one thing for you to turn your nose up at me, but are you even turning your nose up at my friends, too?"

The boiling soup soaked through my shirt, scalding my skin. As I gasped from the pain, I had the instinctive urge to try to appease Alice. As it was, in the past, I would always give in whenever she threw a tantrum.

But this time, out of the corner of my eye, I caught the way she'd smirked in smug delight for the briefest moment. It was like a bucket of cold water that put out the spark of concern that had ignited in me.

I was able to stop myself before I said anything.

There was no way Alice didn't know about my beef allergy. But lately, she constantly used the most trivial of things to force me into submission. She would only be satisfied when I humbled myself to apologize and beg for her forgiveness.

Well, I no longer wanted to be the fool who catered to her every whim anymore. The sight of her now inspired nothing but repulsion in me. "If that's how you want to see it, there's nothing I can do about it."

Alice, who looked all fired up, now froze as if her brain had short-circuited. She didn't seem to have expected me to react like that this time.

Upon seeing this, Cole started berating me, "How can you treat Alice like that, Luke? You're being too cold toward her. She's in a fragile state right now. Why can't you just show her more patience and indulgence?"

I turned to Cole and eyed him with undisguised mockery. "If you care so much about her, Cole, why don't you take care of her yourself? Why bother putting on a show here instead?"

"What the hell are you trying to imply, huh, Luke?" Alice shrieked hysterically. "Don't even think for a second that I can't live without you! You know what? I'm not going to be a part of this wedding! It's over between us!"

She acted as if she truly had nothing to lose and had made up her mind to end our relationship. Even though her voice was shaky, there was a hint of exhilaration in it as well.

The fact that she'd spat out that ultimatum with such careless indifference completely chilled me to the bone. In her eyes, our impending marriage was something so insignificant that she could cast it aside without a care in the world.

"Fine." I calmly nodded back at her. "Since you're so unwilling to be with me, you can move out of the house right away."

Alice's breathing hitched. My unusual reaction made her uneasy. But in the end, out of spite, she grabbed her handbag and stormed out of the house without looking back.

As I stared at the mess on the floor, I felt completely drained.

Just then, Vanessa texted me, "Meet me at the bridal studio at 1:00 pm this afternoon."

…

Despite arriving at the bridal studio, I sat in the car, unable to bring myself to head in. My mind was in chaos as I stared at the glass doors.

Vanessa and I had broken up because she saw me accompanying my cousin, who had secretly gotten involved with someone and had to get an abortion once she got pregnant.

After misunderstanding the situation, Vanessa left the country without even giving me a chance to explain. Many years had passed since then, but I didn't know if she was still upset with me.

Just then, my phone buzzed. I looked down and saw a call from Alice. I thought she was calling to get back together with me. She did storm out of the house without taking anything with her.

But when the call connected, I heard her breathing heavily. Her voice was unusually hoarse as she asked, "Luke, can you give me the wedding gift you promised me in advance?"

What was she doing right now?

I frowned. In the background, I heard Cole's low voice ring out, his tone lewd. "Go on, babe. Say more…"

Hit with a belated realization, I figured out what the two of them were doing right now. My stomach churned, and my other hand gripped the steering wheel tightly.

Alice's voice abruptly shot up several octaves, and I heard a muffled moan at the end. "I'm out jogging right now. I'll talk to you later!"

After she frantically ended the call, I tossed my phone to the side and took a few deep breaths.

When I looked up, I saw the glass doors to the bridal studio opening.

Vanessa stepped out. Standing in the sunlight, she seemed to glow. She was still as beautiful as ever. It was as if time hadn't left a mark on her at all.

When she stopped me, her eyes flickered, but there was a hint of exasperation in them. She came up to me and said, "Why aren't you heading inside, Luke?"

Alice's call ended up dispelling most of my nervousness.

Without saying anything further, Vanessa hauled me into the bridal studio. She swiftly picked out a wedding gown for herself before urging me to change into a new suit.

"You should change the decor and all the other arrangements for the wedding ceremony as well," she said briskly while handing me a folder filled with brochures and samples.

I glanced at her while remarking nonchalantly, "You're making it seem like it's a real wedding."

Vanessa paused and looked me straight in the eye. "How can a wedding be fake?"

After a pause, her voice turned colder. "Are you starting to regret this?"

I met her gaze and swallowed hard, but I stubbornly retorted, "Why should I regret this? What's there for me to be afraid of when you're not afraid?"

As I looked around out of habit, my gaze swept over the display wall on one side of the bridal studio. A photograph from a wedding photoshoot caught my eye.

Alice was dressed in a white gown, smiling radiantly as she leaned into Cole's arms.

Scoffing, I got my phone out and snapped a picture of that before sending it to Alice. Three minutes later, I got an audio message from her.

In a haughty and overbearing voice, she snapped, "What the hell is wrong with you, Luke? I only took that photo for fun. Don't be so petty! I'm about to marry you tomorrow anyway!"

She'd gotten dressed in a wedding gown and taken a wedding photo for fun, huh?

I couldn't be bothered to respond, so I stuck my phone back inside my pocket.

Later that night, I'd just slipped off my shoes when a soft body pressed against me from behind.