Chapter 2

Daniel returned to his office to find Olivia still kneeling in the same spot, lost in thought. He tossed a folded document at her feet. It was a non-disclosure agreement, a contract.

"What? You don't want to?" he asked, his voice sharp with impatience.

Olivia stiffly picked up the agreement. "No," she said, her voice flat.

There was no pen. Without a word, she bit her finger, hard. A drop of dark blood welled up. She used her fingertip to sign her name on the paper. The signature was messy, shaky, as if she wanted it to be unrecognizable.

Daniel saw it instantly. "Has your handwriting deteriorated so much in three years? If you've forgotten how to write, get out of my office."

Olivia didn't dare be careless. She wiped the first attempt away with her sleeve and, biting her finger again, meticulously wrote her name in neat, clear letters. She then lowered her head and respectfully handed the agreement to him with both hands.

So obedient. So broken.

Daniel silently clenched his fist, a strange, sharp ache twisting in his chest. He took the paper from her. With this agreement, she was his personal assistant for life. A life that, unbeknownst to him, now had a deadline.

Three days later, the company moved its operations back to the main headquarters. It was a massive undertaking that took over a month. After two rounds of brutal corporate restructuring, the atmosphere at the main office was grim, heavy with the resentment of those who had survived the purges.

Olivia was confined to a small back office, a windowless room that felt more like a cell. She didn't see Daniel for another half a month. She couldn't wait any longer. Her time was running out.

Under the guise of delivering coffee, she made her way to the front office area. She immediately ran into a group of high-profile socialites, laughing and chatting. And in the center of them, like a queen holding court, was Chloe.

Chloe' s eyes lit up with malicious glee when she saw her. "Look who it is," she drawled, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. "My former criminal cousin."

The other women turned, their expressions shifting from polite smiles to open scorn.

"Ha, she's a convicted felon now," one of them said with a laugh. "If I were you, I'd have ended it all already. How do you still have the nerve to show your face?"

"Yeah," another chimed in, looking Olivia up and down with disgust. "She's been disgraced by her enemies, yet she still shamelessly begs the detective for mercy. How shameless!"

"How can our prestigious company have such a low-class former CEO?"

"Pfft, she's no CEO anymore. Now Chloe is the CEO!"

"Exactly! Who would have thought the once-famous CEO Olivia would end up as a maid, serving others coffee?"

Olivia' s expression remained calm, her face a neutral mask. These taunts were nothing compared to the hardships she had already endured in prison.

Her composure seemed to irritate Chloe even more. "With your status, how dare you disturb these important people?" Chloe's voice sharpened, cracking like a whip. "Kneel!"

Olivia didn't want to cause trouble. She was about to obey, to sink to her knees once again.

Suddenly, there was a commotion at the end of the hall. A man's calm, authoritative voice drifted over. "What's going on?"

It was Daniel.

Chloe immediately rushed to his side, her face transforming into a mask of innocent concern. "Daniel," she said, her voice soft and sweet. "I just said she wasn't worthy of you, and she got angry. Now she's disturbed these important people, so they told her to kneel. You don't mind, do you?"

Daniel' s gaze didn't even fall on Olivia. He looked only at Chloe, his expression softening as he spoke to her. "She's just an assistant," he said, his tone gentle. "You can punish her however you want. You don't need to explain it to me."

The words "just an assistant," coming from his mouth, felt more humiliating than all the socialites' taunts combined. Olivia unconsciously clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms. She felt a wave of humiliation and awkwardness wash over her. He always sided with Chloe. Always.

A bitter memory surfaced. Before his family's business troubles, he had held her hands, his eyes shining with adoration. "Our Olivia is the most noble woman in the world," he had said. "One day, I'll propose with the grandest ceremony imaginable."

How had things changed so drastically?

The winter in the city was cold. The nights were already freezing. She knelt in the open courtyard, the stone ground seeping a deep chill into her bones. A strong wind whipped withered leaves around her, slapping against her thin uniform. She couldn't stop trembling.

With only a month left before the poison took its full effect, she could feel her body growing weaker each day.

In a daze, she saw a figure standing before her. A man in a dark, expensive suit, silhouetted against the dim lights of the mansion. It was Daniel.

"Do you regret it?" he asked, his voice flat and emotionless.

Regret what? Regretting falling in love with him? Or regretting that she had begged her powerful father to show his family mercy all those years ago, an act of kindness that led directly to today's humiliation?

She couldn't help a small cough that escaped her lips. Then another, harder one. A warm, metallic wetness filled her palm. Blood. She silently clenched her hand into a fist, hiding the evidence. Perhaps it was too dark; Daniel didn't see it.

"No regrets," she whispered.

His hand shot out, a sharp, angry movement. "Olivia Reed, you knew my grandfather was seriously ill!" He was a trained professional, and his hand only brushed her cheek, but the rough fabric of his glove was enough to draw a thin bead of blood.

But that single, sharp movement was enough. Her body, already on the verge of collapse, gave out. Olivia crumpled to the ground.

The moment her consciousness started to fade completely, she felt the hard toe of his boot connect with her ribs.

"I know you're fine," his voice sneered from above her. "Stop faking it."

"Olivia Reed, do you think that will make me pity you?"

The darkness swallowed her whole.