Chapter 1

The gossip blog photo was everywhere.

It showed Ethan at the Innovatech charity gala, his arm wrapped tightly around Jessica' s waist. Her head was on his shoulder, her eyes closed like she was breathing him in. They looked like lovers.

The caption read: "CEO Ethan Reed and his hometown sweetheart, Jessica Miller. Is the company' s golden couple on the rocks?"

My phone buzzed with notifications. Colleagues sent pitying glances across the open-plan office.

Jessica walked past my desk, her expression a perfect blend of apology and triumph. "Clara, I'm so sorry. I have no idea who would do this. Someone must have leaked it to hurt you."

Ethan called me into his glass-walled office. He didn't close the door.

"Did you do this?" he asked, his voice low and cold.

"Do what? Ethan, of course not."

"Don't lie to me, Clara," he said, his jaw tight. "You were jealous. You saw us talking, and you did this to embarrass her."

I stared at him, my heart a heavy, cold stone in my chest. Three years. Three years of living in a tiny apartment, of pretending my family didn't exist, of carefully building a life I thought he would love. All for him.

It started because he was dying. A rare neurological disease was slowly claiming his life, and my family' s foundation had the only cure: an exclusive clinical trial. The price of entry was simple. He had to be family. So I made him family. I engineered our meeting, our relationship, our life together, all to save him.

He never knew. He just thought I was a clever, ambitious girl from a middle-class family who had trapped him.

His resentment was a wall between us, made higher by what happened to Jessica. The night our relationship began, the night I pulled him into my world to save his, she was supposedly mugged. The story was she was left with chronic pain and PTSD. Ethan blamed himself for not being there for her. He blamed me for being the reason he wasn't.

Now, he stood there, believing her lies over my truth.

My father' s voice echoed in my head. "One year, Clara. You have one more year to make this man trust you. If you can't, you come home. You marry Liam."

The clock was ticking. I looked at Ethan, at the man whose life I had saved, and saw a stranger.

"I didn't do it, Ethan."

"I don't believe you," he said, turning back to his computer. "Go back to work."