Chapter 1Where Love Runs Out

"Jackson, if you want to divorce Freya, you will forfeit everything—the trust, the shares. You will leave with nothing."

"Fine."

"You will also relinquish all rights to the child and are never to see them again. Can you accept that?"

"I accept."

Jackson Vance’s voice was resolute, devoid of emotion. "Mrs. Burrows, the contract has expired. Freya and the boy have someone to look after them now. It's time for me to go."

Silence lingered on the other end of the line before Freya’s mother sighed, a long, weary sound. "If you're so determined to leave, then as we agreed, I'll arrange for you to study music at the Vienna Conservatory. The paperwork will take a week."

"As for the divorce... you can tell Freya yourself."

"Thank you, ma'am."

After hanging up, Jackson quietly pulled out a photograph.

In the picture, Freya Burrows’s face was alight with a blissful, radiant smile. Their son, Leo, was beside her, waving a toy in a blur of happy motion.

The cruel irony was that the man in the photo with them wasn't Jackson. It was Freya's childhood sweetheart, Sebastian Cole.

…

Sebastian and Freya were heirs to powerful families, inseparable from childhood and each other's first love. But at twenty, Sebastian went abroad for an arranged marriage with another woman. When Freya found out, she nearly lost her mind, spending her days lost in a haze of tears and grief.

Desperate to save her daughter, Mrs. Burrows found Jackson, a brilliant Juilliard student in desperate need of money. For half a million dollars, she bought ten years of his life to pull Freya back from the brink.

From that day on, a relentless suitor appeared at Freya's side.

He was not only strikingly handsome but a gifted musician, full of talent and life. When Freya's spirits fell, he would appear as if from nowhere to play a soothing melody for her. When she was ill, he would keep a sleepless vigil by her bedside, his care absolute.

Slowly, she grew accustomed to having this male nurse, this shadow, but she never agreed to his advances.

Until one night, at a high-stakes business dinner. A rival heir challenged the table to a drinking contest, with a massive international project on the line. To secure the deal for Freya, Jackson drank himself into the hospital with a bleeding ulcer.

That was the first time Freya ever cried for him.

"Jackson," she had whispered at his bedside, "I'll marry you. I believe we can make this work..."

Only later did Jackson learn that day was also the day of Sebastian's grand wedding, and photos of him kissing his new bride were circulating throughout their entire social circle.

The truth didn't break Jackson's spirit. Instead, he fulfilled his contract with even more diligence, marrying into the Burrows family.

For eight years, he was a devoted husband. He and Freya had their son, Leo, who took the Burrows family name. Jackson thought their quiet life might last forever, but then Sebastian’s family business collapsed. He divorced his wife and returned home.

The day he landed, Freya raced to the airport at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. She threw him the most extravagant welcome-home party and gifted him a million-dollar watch and a luxury sports car.

Their old flame was quickly rekindled, their contact becoming more and more frequent.

To push Jackson out faster, Sebastian deliberately got close to Leo, poisoning the boy’s mind with whispers about his father.

Soon, his once-proud son was affectionately calling another man "Dad."

His wife, a woman who had never lifted a finger in the kitchen, began baking Sebastian his favorite pastries from scratch.

Jackson understood. There was no place left for him in this home.

But none of it mattered anymore.

In one week, he would be free from this gilded cage that had held him for a decade. He would finally pursue his own dreams, his music.

Jackson drafted the divorce papers and waited quietly for his wife and son to return.

Half an hour later, the front door of the villa opened.