Chapter 1 The Groom Didn't Show Up

It was so hot.

The woman on the bed felt as though she was in the middle of a desert, lying under the scorching sun.

In Suite 8307, on the top floor of Crowne Hotel.

The thick curtains were drawn, letting in only a sliver of sunlight through the crack.

The man got up to get dressed. After climbing out of bed, he turned his head and looked down at the woman who was sleeping soundly because of exhaustion.

But his mind was still hazy. With blurred vision, he could only vaguely make out the woman's figure, and he couldn't see her face clearly.

He shook his head wryly. He had always been cautious, but last night was different. He didn't know what went wrong. Until now, his vision hadn't cleared up, and he could only see vague, overlapping images.

He frowned, picked up his suit, and took out a checkbook from his pocket.

Each check was worth a million dollars. He walked over to the bed and threw the checkbook at the woman carelessly.

The checkbook smacked her right on the face.

"Here's ten million. Take this and don't show your face in front of me again."

Last night, he had completely lost control of himself...

At the thought of this, his expression darkened.

A rustling sound came from the bed. He knew that the woman had woken up.

"Take a morning-after pill and get out of Ploville. Do anything stupid and you'll regret being born," he added coldly.

Then he turned around and strode out of the suite without looking back.

Candice Blake was awakened by the checkbook hitting her on the face. Still groggy and half-asleep, she peeled her eyes open slowly.

She saw the man leaving. His back was to her. When he slammed the door behind him, she winced slightly.

Picking up the checkbook on the bed, she felt suffocated. The pieces of paper were as light as a feather, but they were as heavy as lead in her hands.

Ten million dollars? What a rich man!

But she didn't want the money.

Yesterday, she was supposed to marry Greyson Harman.

Last night was supposed to be her wedding night.

And this very suite was specially prepared for them by the Harman family.

Yesterday was supposed to be the happiest day of her life.

She had been looking forward to this day for over ten years.

But the groom never showed up.

Instead...

A damned stranger had broken into her suite all of a sudden.

He violated her on her wedding night, insulted her, and he even wanted to send her away with money!

Who the hell did he think he was?

Her throat was bone-dry and she couldn't make a sound. She struggled to sit up, ripped the checks, hoping to throw the shreds at the man's back.

Unfortunately, the man had already left, and he wasn't able to witness this.

Shreds of meaningless paper floated in the air like snowflakes.

Candice wrapped the quilt around her and wanted to get out of bed, but her whole body was so sore that she couldn't move.

She didn't know who that man was, and she had only seen his back just now.

What went wrong last night for her to end up like this?

She remembered waiting for Greyson for a long time. When he never showed up, she wondered if he was downstairs entertaining the guests. After a while, she fell ill. There was something wrong with her body. And then that man...

How? How did this happen?

Gritting her teeth, she tried to pull herself together and was about to get out of bed.

Suddenly, the door to the suite was kicked open.

The next second, all the lights in the bedroom were suddenly turned on, temporarily blinding Candice. She instinctively reached out to shield her eyes from the dazzling lights.

Several people rushed inside the room.

Before Candice could understand what was going on, she heard the shutter of a camera going off in front of her.

Rachel Harman, her mother-in-law, rushed over and slapped her hard in the face.

As if the physical abuse wasn't enough, it was quickly followed by verbal abuses.

"You fucking bitch! How dare you fool around with another man on your wedding night? You have disgraced the whole Harman family!"