Chapter 1
The year Kaelen Sterling loved me most, he walked away from his family's empire and eloped with me to Europe.
But on the day he collapsed from washing dishes in a cramped diner, coughing up blood, I took the three-million-dollar check from his mother.
I stood there and watched his family's security drag him onto a private helicopter.
He clung to the cabin door until his nails were ripped raw and his fingers bled, begging me not to leave him.
But I just threw the crumpled bills he’d earned into the sink.
I told him, "Don’t talk about a future when you can’t even afford a tube of paint."
Seven years later, at an elite East Coast charity gala, we met again. I begged him for money.
He agreed, on one condition: I had to be the live painter for his wedding.
He wanted me to witness his happily-ever-after.
I nodded without hesitation.
What he didn’t know was that I needed the cash to pay for a life.
And the clock was ticking down on a devastating secret I had spent the last seven years protecting...
"Fine."
"As long as Mr. Sterling keeps his word."
I kept my head bowed, hiding in the dim shadows of the ballroom, and let out a long, silent breath.
It was such a simple condition.
As long as I agreed, I could save my Lila. Thank God.
But Kaelen didn’t move. He stared down at the top of my head for a long time before letting out a cold, sharp laugh.
"Only seven years, and you've already burned through three million dollars? Did you spend it all on paint?"
My breath hitched.
I dug my nails into my palms, forced my head up, and gave him the most flattering, pathetic smile I could muster.
"Yeah, the money ran out a long time ago. That’s why I need a generous man like you to help me out."
After seven years, he was a billionaire CEO—someone miles out of my league.
He stepped back abruptly, as if just standing near me would get him dirty.
"Kaelen, why are you hiding back here in the dark? Trying to get lucky?"
"Man, you're getting married. Don't let your fiancée catch you—"
The voices cut off abruptly.
"Elowen Marek? What the hell are you doing here?" Kaelen’s wealthy friends instantly darkened.
"Kaelen, don't be stupid!" One of them eyed Kaelen nervously.
"Did you forget how she played you? You can't trust a word out of her mouth!"
I lowered my head again, staying completely silent.
Everyone in their circle knew how crazy Kaelen had been for me.
To run away with me, he’d jumped from the second-story balcony of his family's estate, fracturing his leg.
He hadn't even let a doctor set the bone until our flight landed.
To buy me premium canvases and oils, he worked brutal shifts and took hits in underground bare-knuckle fight clubs.
He coughed up blood but refused to buy himself a decent bottle of cough syrup.
And I abandoned him in a single heartbeat.
I couldn't blame his friends for looking at me like they wanted me dead.
"You're overthinking it," Kaelen said, his voice devoid of emotion. "I just hired her to be the live painter for my wedding. To paint me and Cecily."
Cecily Ashford. His fiancée.
I silently repeated that beautiful name in my head.
Then I looked up at the group, flashing a hollow, shameless grin.
"That's right. As long as the price is right. Now, what can I get you gentlemen to drink? I'll head to the bar."
No one gave me a friendly look.
They crowded around Kaelen, hurling insults at me, calling me a gold-digger and a snake. They begged him not to fall for my tricks again.
I just kept nodding and bowing, swallowing every toxic word.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the banquet manager waving at me impatiently from across the hall. Panic flared in my chest.
Kaelen followed my gaze. His face was a mask of cold indifference.
He pulled out his pen, scribbled on a check, and tossed it to the floor right at my scuffed shoes.
"Start working tomorrow. That's your advance."
He waved me off like a bothersome fly, clearly sick of looking at my face.
I snatched the check from the carpet.
I bowed my way out of the VIP section.
Lila's hospital bills were covered.
I was so relieved I could cry.
Even when the manager barked at me to scrub dishes in the kitchen for two extra hours, I didn't feel an ounce of self-pity.
The cheap rubber gloves split open again an hour later.
The hot, soapy water ate away at my skin until my fingers looked like pale, wrinkled bark.
But I didn't feel the sting.
Instead, my mind drifted back to the nights Kaelen used to come home from the diner.
I would sit on our lumpy mattress and rub cheap ointment onto his raw, cracked hands.
The drugstore cream barely did anything, but he was so stubborn.
He’d pull his hands away, hiding the angry red blisters.
"I'm a grown man, El. I don't need this stuff." He would wrap his battered hands around mine, his thumbs brushing my knuckles. "An artist's hands are the only ones that matter."
Lost in the memory, my wet fingers slipped.
Crash.
A heavy porcelain plate shattered against the tile floor right by my feet.
My heart sank.
I immediately started calculating how much they would dock from my minimum-wage paycheck.
But before I could fully bend down to pick up the shards, a tall shadow fell over me.
A hand gripped my arm, hauling me up with terrifying force.
"Elowen Marek, are you trying to ruin your hands?!"
