Chapter 1

I had scrubbed toilets for three months to buy that Ladurée hazelnut cake for Leah.

Wearing a cheap, stained jumpsuit, I endured the shop assistant’s suspicious gaze as if I were a thief.

But all I could feel was the sweetness.

Today was Leah’s birthday. More importantly, the doctor had just emailed: a suitable corneal donor had been found.

Since the car accident robbed Leah of her sight, this once-brilliant piano prodigy had fallen. What remained was a desperate woman—one who hugged me at night, yet also smashed cups in frustration.

"Evan, I'm disabled," she would always say. "It's just that you don't despise a blind dog like I do."

She said I was her eyes, her crutch, the only reason she kept living.

To raise the astronomical sum for her surgery, I gave up my chance at graduate school and became a janitor.

I could almost picture her amazed face when she regained her sight.

I reached the door, but a burst of hearty laughter from inside doused me like a bucket of liquid nitrogen.

"How much longer are you going to keep this up? I hate that cheap toilet cleaner act of yours, pretending to be all devoted."

The man’s voice was tinged with mockery.

Through the crack in the door, I saw a scene that chilled me to the bone.

Leah, who should have been groping in the dark, needing me to feed her water, was instead embracing Colin, who wore a silk robe.

Her eyes were clear and bright. Where was the blindness?

Colin held her by the neck, laughing like a flower in the wind. "Would that idiot drop dead if he knew you weren't blind at all, and that he's been scrubbing toilets to support you?"

Leah wrapped her arms around Colin’s waist, her tone dripping with sarcasm:

"He deserved it. Who told him to outshine you everywhere at Parsons? Making him serve me like a dog for three years—that's his punishment."

So that was it.

The tears, the despair, the "I'd die without you" of the past three years… it was all a carefully scripted play, staged to help her ex-boyfriend vent his jealousy.

I pulled out my phone, my hand trembling as I found the number I had blocked three years ago.

The woman who controlled half of New York.

I wiped my tears, my expression shifting from shattered glass to icy determination, and pressed send:

"Cecilia, I accept the marriage proposal."

The cake box dug painfully into my fingers.

"You're so evil," Colin giggled. "He's Evan Sterling, the design prodigy. Even willing to scrub your toilet. What if he knew you used his mom's design drafts to help me with the finale for this season? Would he have a stroke on the spot?"

My pupils constricted sharply. I peered inside.

Colin was holding a deep brown leather notebook.

It was my mother’s legacy. But for Leah, I had sold it.

Leah tossed aside her paintbrush, her "blind" eyes burning with naked desire.

"Compared to that, I want to give you something else..."

They kissed as if they were the only two people in the world.

Disgusting.

Nauseating.

I kicked the door open.

The heavy wooden door slammed against the wall with a deafening crash.

The intimacy between them came to an abrupt halt.

Leah stared straight at me, her pupils dilated with panic.

"E-Evan? You... you're back? I... this..."

She frantically tried to push Colin away, but he wouldn’t budge.

He slowly stood up, smoothed his robe, a hint of amusement playing on his face.

Leah stood rigidly. The "patient" who always ordered me around now looked like a clown caught red-handed.

She tried to walk towards me, her hands instinctively reaching out, desperately trying to maintain her façade.

"Evan, listen to me..."

"Save it," I cut her off. "Are you going to tell me Colin sitting on your lap kissing you is some new form of physical therapy for the optic nerve?"

Leah froze.

"Or," I took a step closer, staring straight into her eyes, "did God happen to kiss your eyes today and restore your sight?"

The lie was torn open, revealing the maggot-infested truth underneath.

Leah seemed to give up resisting at that moment.

I stared at the design draft in Colin’s hand. "Those are my mother’s manuscripts. Give them back."

Colin raised an eyebrow, as if he’d heard a hilarious joke.

He deliberately held the papers high and shook them vigorously. The rustling of pages stabbed at my eardrums.

"Give them back? Why?" Colin sneered, "Leah gave them to me. Are your toilet-scrubbing hands even worthy of touching them?"

"They’re mine," I said through gritted teeth.

They were the last thing my mother left me. I couldn’t let them fall into hands like his.

"They’re in my hands now, so they’re mine. But, since you want them so badly…" Colin rolled his eyes, a cruel smile curling his lips. "Three hundred thousand."

"Give me three hundred thousand, and I'll return this pile of trash to you. Otherwise..."

He walked towards the fireplace. The flames were mere centimeters from the paper.

"I'll burn it."

He knew perfectly well I didn’t even have three hundred dollars to my name right now.

I looked at Leah.

The person who once claimed "anything I have, it's yours if you want it" didn’t say a word to me.

"Fine. Three hundred thousand. I'll buy it," I said calmly.

I just wanted to retrieve the last memory my mother left me, and then never have anything to do with the disgusting trash before me for the rest of my life.

"Are you insane?" Colin burst into incredulous laughter. "Are you going to sell your body or a kidney? Three hundred thousand? You’re daydreaming!"