Chapter 1

The hospital air was cold and smelled of disinfectant.

I clutched the thick envelope in my hands, the thirty thousand dollars feeling heavy and dense. It was everything. Every extra shift, every meal skipped, every hour of sleep my mother and I had given up. This money was supposed to save her.

I ran down the hallway, my heart pounding against my ribs. I pushed open the door to my mother's room.

The bed was empty. The sheets were neatly folded.

A nurse saw the look on my face. Her expression was soft with pity.

"I'm so sorry," she said quietly. "She's gone."

My mind went blank. Gone? Gone where? We had the money now. The surgery was scheduled.

"She left this for you," the nurse said, handing me a folded piece of paper.

My hands trembled as I opened it. It was my mother's handwriting, frail and shaky.

"Lily, I can't go on. The pain is too much, and I can't bear to be a burden anymore. Take this money to clear the debt. Jake is a good man, he loves you, he just lost his way. After the debt is paid, live happily together. Don't be sad for me. I love you."

Tears blurred the words. The thirty thousand dollars wasn't for her surgery. She had saved it, endured the pain, so I could give it to Jake. So I could be free.

I don't remember leaving the hospital. The next thing I knew, I was standing outside Jake Miller's office, holding a simple wooden box. My mother's ashes. The envelope of money felt like a block of ice in my other hand.

I walked inside. Jake wasn't at his desk. I thought he was out, maybe looking for another job, still struggling with the debt that had consumed our lives for the past two years.

I was about to leave the money on his chair when I heard voices from the conference room next door. The door was slightly ajar.

"Mr. Miller, Ms. Davis has passed all your tests. What's next?"

I froze. That was one of the creditors, a man I had begged for an extension just last week. Mr. Miller?

Then I heard a woman's voice, one I recognized with a sickening jolt. Chloe Adams, Jake's childhood friend.

"Jake, Lily can endure hardship with you, that's clear," Chloe said, her tone laced with something I couldn't place. "But we need to test if she can share prosperity. You can't have a gold digger for a wife."

A moment of silence. Then Jake's voice, the voice I loved, the voice that had whispered promises to me in the dark.

"Next, I need to know if she's truly devoted to me," he said, his voice cold and analytical, completely different from the warm, troubled man I thought I knew. "I'm going to reveal my true identity to her. If she doesn't get greedy or materialistic after learning I'm the CEO of Miller Corp, if she still loves me and not my money, then I'll marry her."

The wooden box in my arms suddenly felt impossibly heavy. The thirty thousand dollars in my hand felt like burning coals.

My mother worked herself to death. She chose to die in pain, believing she was helping the man I loved, a good man who had just lost his way.

And it was all a lie. A test. A cruel, elaborate game.

I clutched my mother's urn tighter, the sharp corners digging into my chest. Tears streamed down my face, hot and silent.

Jake, Mom was wrong about you.

And so was I.

I don't want to marry you anymore.