Seven Years of Love Seven Minutes of Truth

Chapter 1

To force me into breaking off our engagement, my fiancé orchestrated my father’s company’s downfall, driving it to bankruptcy and leaving him drowning in millions of dollars of debt.

The shock made my father collapsed from a heart attack and was rushed into emergency care.

Desperate and out of options, I knelt before my fiancé, tears streaming down my face, begging him to help cover my father’s surgery costs. But he only looked down at me with cold indifference.

Then, just as all hope seemed lost, Atlas Whitmore, my childhood best friend, returned from abroad.

Without hesitation, Atlas pulled every string necessary to get my father the best medical care. He stayed with me through endless nights, never leaving my side, offering quiet reassurances when my world was crumbling.

But a week later, my father suffered another sudden attack.

As his life slipped away, Atlas knelt by his bedside, his voice trembling with emotion as he made a solemn vow–he would marry me and take care of me for the rest of his life, so my father could leave this world without worry.

After the funeral, hollow and broken, I finally severed all ties with my fiancé.

Instead, I chose Atlas.

For five years, I thought I had found peace, that I had been saved from my grief.

Until one night, I stumbled upon a conversation that shattered everything.

“You really outplayed me on this one. Got Celeste to walk away willingly, like the clingy fool she is. But tell me–what do you think she’d do if she found out it was you who destoryed her father? Will she’d want to kill you?”

My fingers hesitated on the polished brass handle of the private lounge door.

out, low

trusted you like a brother, loved you unconditionally. I

caught in

alcohol and anger, responded. It was

Ivy,” he bit out, his words laced with something bitter. “I never cared for Celeste even though, but I’m not a monster. I’d never go as far as

wood, the sound edged with

of Love.

粒粒

Chapter 1

back then was for Ivy’s sake. But if you ever hurt her, if you ever

a slow, taunting sound.

it’s too bad she met me first. You should focus on protecting your dear Celeste… after all, you killed her

sound of glass shattering against the

turned on my heel and walked away,

thick with the scent of liquor and smoke. My hands trembled as

throat, tears welled in my eyes. I never drank. But tonight, I needed

wasn’t Nathaniel who ruined my father.

sharing a bed with, waking up next to, trusting with the fragile remains of my heart.

first attack, he must have said something,

in those final moments. The look I had thought was gratitude–relief that I would be taken

It was rage.

I had been too blind, too trusting, to see it. The love, the warmth, the marriage

been love at all. It was

taste of alcohol turned to ashes on my tongue, my stomach churning with something ugly and

blankly at my empty glass when