Chapter1

In December in London, a blizzard cut off most of the streets in the Chelsea district.

I've been standing outside Evelyn's villa for four whole hours. My brow bone is covered in frost, but my hands are still tightly protecting the incubator in my arms—for the past three years, she has always been cold to me, until three in the morning, when she called for the first time ever, specifically asking for freshly baked crab roe pastries from the old shop in the west of the city.

At that moment, I thought the iceberg had finally cracked open for me. Without hesitation, I rushed into the blizzard, just wanting to see her smiling face as she ate the crab roe pastry.

In the distance, blinding headlights tore through the night. A black Bentley rolled over the snow and came to a stop in the driveway.

The car door opened, and Evelyn stepped out in her high heels. She was wearing a perfectly tailored coat and looked stunning. I eagerly went to greet her, intending to hand her the incubator, but I froze on the spot.

A blond man stepped out of the driver's seat of the Bentley—Julian, her childhood sweetheart who had just returned from Paris.

He walked over to Evelyn with complete ease and put his arm around her waist. I stared intently at that hand, hoping that Evelyn would push him away coldly and hard, just like she always did when she pushed me away.

But no. Evelyn actually leaned closer to him, following his lead.

When her peripheral vision finally caught sight of me standing in the doorway, an undisguised look of disgust instantly welled up between her brows.

"What are you standing there for?" Her voice was colder than the wind and snow, and her eyes looked at him like he was looking at a piece of disgusting garbage. "You're covered in snow, and you're just a downer, you know?"

My heart felt like it had been stabbed by an ice pick, and my knuckles gripped the handle of the incubator until they turned white: "You have a sensitive stomach, and you said you wanted to eat crab roe pastries..."

" This is the social outcast you were talking about? How pathetic ."

Julian interrupted me. He uttered a French slang phrase at an extremely mocking pace, assuming that I, a "gold digger," would not understand it at all.

I took a deep breath and fixed my gaze on Evelyn's face.  She only said half a word in my defense, and I could pretend nothing had happened.

However, Evelyn did not get angry. Instead, she smiled and revealed a bright smile that I had longed for for three years but had never shown to me.

At that moment, the crab roe pastry in my arms completely lost its warmth.

"Come inside, it's cold outside." Evelyn didn't even bother to look at me again, and walked into the villa side by side with Julian.

As soon as you enter, a wave of heat from the underfloor heating hits you.

“Go get that bottle of 1962 Romanée-Conti from the basement.” Evelyn tossed her coat aside, treating me like a servant as if it were her right. “Julian just got off the plane, and I need the best wine to welcome him home. Hurry up, don’t dawdle.”

I swallowed the bitter taste rising in my throat and walked silently towards the liquor cabinet. Because I love her, I habitually swallow all my grievances.

Julian leaned back on the leather sofa, legs crossed, enjoying the thrill of trampling on me in front of his mistress. He deliberately raised his voice: "Arthur, opening this bottle of wine requires top-notch skill. Someone as inexperienced as you, if you break the cork and splinters fall into the wine, you couldn't afford to pay for it even if you sold all your organs."

To maximize his sense of superiority, he added another sentence in French:

" Trash shouldn't touch fancy wine glasses. "

The air was thick with suffocating humiliation, accompanied by that sneer.

I stopped what I was doing. Even a clay figure has some earthy spirit. I can tolerate Evelyn's indifference because I love her, but that doesn't mean I'll let an outsider trample my dignity into the mud in front of my wife.

I didn't look at Evelyn's expression and just grabbed the bottle opener.

"Bang."

Without any unnecessary preparation, with a slight flick of the wrist, the intact cork was pulled out with a crisp, muffled sound, the break perfectly clean, without even a speck of dust falling out.

Julian's mocking expression froze slightly.

I gently placed the bottle on the marble island, raised my eyes, and stared at him sharply:

" A true nobleman would not drink undried Burgundy, much less with arrogant ignorance, Mr. Julian. "

The purest French court accent. Every syllable was like a resounding slap across Julian's face.

The hall fell into a deathly silence.

Julian's face instantly turned from deathly pale to a deep purplish-red. He sprang up from the sofa, stammering, "You...you..."

Evelyn stared in astonishment. She had never imagined that her submissive and humble husband could so easily overwhelm Julian with such a domineering and oppressive aura.

"The wine's ready." I grabbed a white towel to wipe my hands and turned to look at Evelyn. I desperately hoped she could see that I wasn't entirely useless, if only she were willing to understand me—

"Arthur! Who do you think you're talking to?!"

Evelyn stood up abruptly, her anger masking the shock in her eyes: "What are you trying to prove here?! Talking back to my guest with your broken French, who taught you to be so rude! Get back to your room and don't come out here tonight!"

Seeing how she defended Julian, the last glimmer of light in my eyes slowly went out.

"Okay." I didn't argue and walked alone to the guest room at the end of the corridor.

The door closed behind me.

This was a room with the heating off year-round, containing only a thin, hard mattress and the pungent smell of mothballs. In her home, I wasn't even treated like a guest.

Just downstairs, separated by a wall, after a brief silence, Evelyn's deliberately unrestrained laughter soon returned. That relaxed feeling, tinged with a hint of intoxication and ambiguity, made the four hours I spent standing in the snow tonight seem like a pathetic yet laughable joke.

I leaned against the cold wall, slid down to the floor, and suddenly my phone vibrated in my pocket.

It was an encrypted text message sent by a contact of the Vance family:

[Young Master, your three-year period of secret training within the family is coming to an end. You are ready to resume your identity as Silas Vance and take over control of the global conglomerate at any time. Do you... still wish to remain by that woman's side?]

The screen's light illuminated my pale face. I gripped my phone tightly, my fingers trembling.

"Just bear with it a little longer..." I said to myself in a hoarse voice, and pressed the lock screen button.

Once my training period is over, once I reveal my identity as the heir to the Vance family and present her with all the wealth and glory in the world, she will surely see my sincerity. If I just try a little harder, I'm sure I'll have a place in her heart.

I took deep breaths of the cold air in the room, trying to ignore the laughter and chatter coming from downstairs, desperately deceiving myself.

But the almost tearing pain in my heart was so clear. I didn't even know how much longer this humble, deep-seated endurance and love could last.