WonNovels

After losing my memory, I mistook my sworn enemy for my husband.

Then I moved into his house.

The day my memory came back, I was tugging at his sleeve, demanding a kiss.

The moment my memories crashed back into place, my entire body went rigid.

I was just about to run.

But the man who had always been distant and cold merely furrowed his brows, lowered his head, and kissed me lightly.

“All right,” he said with helpless patience. “Now can you stay home and behave?”

1

Before my memory returned, I thought Ethan Shaw was the best husband in the whole world.

I loved him so much I thought I might die from it.

If I couldn’t see him for even a second, I would start crying.

At breakfast that morning, I was gripping Ethan Shaw’s sleeve with both hands and refusing to let go.

Tears trembled in my eyes.

“Are you going to leave me behind again?”

“Lola, let go.”

The man whose sleeve I was clutching wore his usual indifferent expression. He tried to pull his arm free, and the buttons on his suit jacket gave an ominous strain.

I stubbornly wrapped both arms around him instead and said in a wounded voice, “That’s not what you used to say. You said you’d love me forever. Without you, I’ll really die…”

This conversation happened almost every morning.

On average, I threw this kind of fit once every two or three days.

And Ethan was the only one who could calm me down.

Ethan closed his eyes, gave up struggling, and said, “I have a meeting. I’ll be back tonight.”

“How late is tonight? I’m scared of sleeping alone.”

When he didn’t answer, I lowered my head and began to cry.

A flicker of headache crossed his face.

Suppressing his temper, he asked in a low voice, “Fine. What do you want this time?”

I turned my face and pointed at my cheek. “You haven’t kissed me yet.”

In the mirror, my pretty reflection stared back at me.

Ethan sat beside me, lean and elegant.

Honestly… we really did look like a match made in heaven—

The thought stopped halfway through.

At some point, the face in front of me gradually overlapped with the one in my mind.

And with that, my memories slammed back into place.

I froze.

The adoring look in my eyes turned into outright horror.

Wait.

What am I doing?

I, Lola Reed, CEO of Reed Capital.

I’d spent years trying to destroy Ethan Shaw in the corporate battlefield.

And now that my brain had short-circuited, I’d been calling him my husband?

My whole body tensed as sarcasm rushed to the tip of my tongue.

But before I could say anything, Ethan—always so cold and controlled—frowned, leaned down, and pressed a kiss to my cheek.

The cool touch shot through me like electricity.

His voice was helpless.

“There. Can you stay home quietly now?”

2

Ethan left.

I stayed rooted to the spot for a full twenty minutes before I managed to process anything.

He… kissed me just now?

As for the relationship between Ethan and me—well, saying we hated each other would be putting it mildly.

The last time we met, I’d smilingly wished him an early death.

He had only glanced at me and replied in that calm, indifferent tone of his, “If I go early, I’m dragging Ms. Reed down with me.”

And yet in the short span of half a month, I’d gone through a car accident, amnesia, love at first sight with Ethan Shaw, and had even clung to him shamelessly enough to move into his private residence.

What a disaster.

The whole house was silent.

I sat in the chair for a long time, forcing myself to calm down.

And I reached one conclusion:

Under no circumstances could I let Ethan know my memory had returned.

He would laugh at me for the rest of my life.

I tore through the room and finally found my work phone hidden in a secret compartment of my suitcase.

When my assistant picked up, she nearly burst into tears.

“Ms. Reed, where on earth have you been for the past half month? Ethan Shaw has practically poached all of your business!”

I gritted my teeth so hard they almost cracked.

No wonder he’d been unbelievably gentle with me these past two weeks.

So that was it.

He’d been laughing at me in private while swallowing up my business as fast as he could.

“The Yucheng contract is being signed today, right?”

My assistant sounded frantic. “Yes! You disappeared for half a month. Yucheng is about to sign with Ethan Shaw instead.”

My heart sank.

I immediately stood up and pulled on my clothes. “I’ll stop Ethan myself. Tell Victor Wu that if he can’t get that contract, I’m firing him.”

3

That same day, I boarded the flight right after Ethan’s and landed in Yucheng.

The project here had always been handled by my vice president, Victor Wu.

And my unfamiliar face made me perfect for moving in quietly.

That night, the ballroom glittered with clinking glasses and polished smiles.

I stood before the glass wall in the lobby and gave myself an approving once-over.

I was wearing a pale gold mermaid gown.

I’d bought it with Ethan’s card while I was still suffering from amnesia.

Including the jewelry, I’d spent close to ten million.

Even this plane ticket had been charged to him.

Ethan definitely knew I was here.

I stood at the entrance, scanning the crowd, but didn’t spot him.

I had just turned to leave when my back collided with a hard chest.

A cool, refined woody scent enveloped me instantly.

Then Ethan’s familiar voice slipped into my ear, edged with chilly mockery.

“So Ms. Reed has dropped the act?”

I froze for one second, then spun around and threw myself into his arms.

“Honey, I missed you so much!”

The movement was so sudden that the back of my dress slipped, exposing far too much skin.

A few people nearby immediately noticed.

“Who is that?”

“I think that’s Mrs. Shaw.”

Ethan stiffened. With a dark face, he wrapped his jacket around me, put a hand at my waist, and hustled me into the catering prep room.

The cold stainless-steel counter pressed into my hips, knocking silverware into a clattering chorus.

His eyes were dark.

“Lola Reed. What exactly are you doing?”

He only ever called me by my full name when I was “amnesiac.”

So apparently I’d fooled him again.

I toyed with his tie, eyes wandering innocently. “Nothing. I just missed you…”

“Tell me the truth.”

The smile slipped from my face.

My mouth trembled, my eyes reddened instantly, and I said, “They said you have a lover in Yucheng… so I came to see…”

There wasn’t a trace of warmth in Ethan’s expression. “That’s not true.”

“You’re lying!”

I kicked him petulantly. “I saw you talking to another woman just now. You don’t love me anymore…”

He frowned. “That was our business partner.”

Of course I knew it was a business partner.

Vice President Yao of Minghua Group, the people we’d come here to negotiate with.

I turned my head away. “I don’t believe you. Not unless you keep me with you tonight.”

Ethan looked as though he’d had the life drained out of him by my theatrics, but in the end he gave in. “Fine.”

That night, I took Ethan’s arm and fluttered around like a delighted little butterfly.

I chatted merrily with all the representatives from Minghua Group.

I interrupted Ethan’s negotiations again and again.

By the end, he was sitting alone in a corner, those dark eyes fixed on me in silence.

I had no idea what he was thinking.

The moment the gala ended, Ethan dragged me back to the hotel room.

The door slammed shut behind us.

Darkness fell all around.

His rough fingertips settled against my throat, stroking lightly.

“Lola,” he murmured, “how is it that I never realized you’re so good at acting familiar?”

His voice was low and steady, and in the dark it sounded devastatingly restrained.

I’d had a few drinks and felt pleasantly floaty.

Leaning against his chest, I complained in a sticky, clinging voice, “I just didn’t want you talking to another woman…”

Secretly, I was covered in goosebumps.

Good lord. Was this really what I had been like after losing my memory?

Ethan let out a sudden laugh.

“No title, no status, but you’re already this possessive.”

When he set me down on the bed, his phone rang.

The screen lit up sharply in the darkness.

He answered.

His assistant’s voice drifted through the receiver.

“Mr. Shaw, the Yucheng contract was taken by Ms. Reed’s people.”

“By who?”

“Victor Wu. Vice President Wu.”

Silence filled the room.

The clock in the corner beat in time with my pulse, each tick hammering against my nerves.

I casually brushed my foot against him as though nothing was wrong, while holding my breath and waiting for his reaction.

His suit trousers rustled softly.

He hung up, and a cool smile touched his lips.

“Lola Reed, you knew I was here to sign a contract today, didn’t you?”

I lay in his arms, breathing in his dark, clean scent, and said nothing.

He pinched my chin and tilted my face up for inspection. Then suddenly he smiled.

“So. Your memory’s back?”

My heart lurched.

If I admitted it now, I was dead.

So I put on my blankest face and murmured, “Honey… I’m hot…”

He took in my flushed cheeks, red from alcohol.

Those deep eyes fixed on me without moving.

Ethan hid whatever storm had flashed across them, and his voice turned deceptively gentle.

“Lola Reed, do you think I’m easy to play with?”

“I like you… why would I play with you—”

The smile vanished from his face.

He lowered his head and bit down on my lips.

The kiss carried a kind of anger that refused to dissolve.

He bit so hard that I tasted blood.

Only when I winced did he release me, stroking my disheveled hair with a cold smile.

“Go on. What other nonsense haven’t you said yet? Your husband is listening.”

I caught my breath, looked at him earnestly, and said, “I love you—ah—”

With a vicious ripping sound, the hem of my dress was torn open at the waist.

The last trace of restraint disappeared from Ethan’s eyes.

“You really won’t give up until you see a coffin.”

He pinned me hard into the corner, threading his fingers through mine and locking our palms together.

Then he laughed softly.

“I hope that on the day your memory comes back, you’ll still be able to say that.”

“Otherwise, I won’t mind killing you myself.”

…

4

My evaluation of Ethan Shaw had always been simple:

A vile wild dog.

Unlike me, he didn’t come from old money. He had clawed his way up from nothing.

People said that anyone who crawled out of a pit that ate the weak would spend the rest of his life tearing at everything in sight for resources.

That was Ethan.

Relentless, ruthless, impossible to stomach.

I remembered how, years ago, I had flirted with him out of spite after he stole a business deal from me.

He had replied lazily, “You want to keep me? Ms. Reed, I’m afraid you can’t afford me.”

And tonight—watching him lose control—gave me a secret kind of satisfaction.

There was a saying for this, wasn’t there?

I got him for free.

Ethan had always been obsessively clean, disgustingly so.

When the day came for us to tear each other apart, I wasn’t sure whether he would laugh at me more, or I’d laugh at him more.

That train of thought shattered when a hard thrust from behind broke it apart.

Ethan’s lazy, lowered voice came from right behind me.

“Daydreaming?”

His warm, damp breath spilled across my skin.

Instinctively I bit my lip and threw out a weak taunt. “What? Didn’t you eat?”

He went still for a split second, then laughed—a low ripple that spread outward in the dark.

“Fine.”

Just one word.

And after that, not another sentence.

Only increasingly merciless retaliation.

…

The next morning, I struggled awake from the depths of sleep.

The soreness all over my body had only gotten worse.

I gritted my teeth, forced myself upright, and felt around until I found the phone that had fallen beside the bed.

Switching to my private account, I saw a message from Victor Wu.

“Ms. Reed, everything’s done.”

“And Mason Jiang has switched sides. He sent over some things.”

Mason Jiang had built Ethan’s empire alongside him from the beginning.

The two of them were as close as brothers.

But for the past six months, they’d been fighting constantly.

It looked very much as though they were feuding over an uneven split.

I’d quietly tried to get leverage through Mason Jiang before, but I hadn’t expected it to finally pay off now.

I paused, then replied, “What things?”

“Evidence that Ethan Shaw stole commercial secrets. This time we can absolutely send him to prison.”

My first thought was that Ethan himself had laid this trap.

For me.

After a brief silence, I said, “Send it to my email. I’ll review it myself.”

Victor Wu panicked. “Ms. Reed, don’t hesitate—”

“Do as I say.”

But the moment I hung up, the door opened.

Ethan stood in the doorway, his gaze fixed on the phone screen going dark in my hand.

“Who were you talking to?” he asked softly.

I shoved the phone away. “No one.”

He narrowed his eyes and started toward me.

I planted my foot against his knee before he could get close and frowned. “It hurts…”

“What hurts?”

He hadn’t reacted yet.

“What do you think hurts?” My ears burned. “It’s the first time something like this has happened to me. Can’t I ask someone about it?”

Remembering the sheer intensity of the previous night, I still felt a little shaken.

Ethan froze. His voice turned tight.

“You ask other people about this?”

He took hold of my foot, bent down, and slipped it into a pair of house slippers.

“Get up. I’m taking you to a doctor.”

5

Maybe it was my imagination.

But compared to the version of him I knew while I was “amnesiac,” Ethan’s temper had improved by leaps and bounds.

Early spring in Yucheng was still cold.

When we came out of the hospital, I accidentally bumped my foot and immediately felt a surge of irritation.

If I hadn’t been acting for his benefit, I wouldn’t have had to make a trip to the hospital at all, much less injure my foot.

“Carry me.”

I stood on the steps, completely unapologetic.

“What did you say?”

Ethan always looked at people in that cool, half-detached way, but now with his brows drawn together, he looked dangerous.

I folded my arms and repeated, word by word, “I want you to carry me.”

I had expected another sarcastic remark.

Instead, he turned around, crouched down, and motioned with one hand.

“Get on.”

Had he really changed that much?

Suspicious but curious, I climbed onto his broad back and stared absently at the loose strands of hair behind his ear.

His arms held me tight and steady as he carried me through the crowded hospital, his black hair stirring in the wind.

I had to admit it.

He really did look like a wild dog.

“Where do you want to go?”

The question came so suddenly that it caught me off guard.

“Hm? Don’t you need to negotiate business?”

He said flatly, “Didn’t work out. Deal’s dead.”

A little thrill of schadenfreude rose inside me, and I pretended to be indignant. “Which bastard dared to steal your business—ow—”

Pain shot through my thigh. I nearly bit my tongue.

Ethan laughed and loosened the grip of his hands just enough to make me suffer. “Oh, he’s definitely a bastard. A hopeless one.”

I stopped making noise.

Lying quietly on Ethan’s back, I seriously considered Victor Wu’s words.

After all the years Ethan had been in business, I didn’t believe for one second that he had no dirt on him.

But if you said he’d actually broken the law by stealing commercial secrets, it still didn’t ring true.

There was a good chance I’d fail to kill Ethan and instead bury myself alive with him.

…

By evening, Yucheng had filled with holiday tourists.

The lantern festival was in full swing, brilliant and chaotic, dragging me back from my thoughts.

Food stalls lined the old street, giving the ancient architecture a smoky warmth.

I climbed down from Ethan’s back and looked around curiously.

This kind of street market was a first for me.

Pink sausage skewers splashed into hot oil, sending up a delicious sizzle.

The vendor smiled brightly. “Ten yuan for three. Want to try some?”

Ethan answered for me. “No.”

When he saw my displeased expression, he added, “It’s dirty. Let’s go.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

No pedigree, but still so finicky.

When we reached a noodle shop, I genuinely couldn’t walk anymore.

I simply collapsed into a chair in the outdoor courtyard and refused to move.

Ethan frowned. Before he could drag me up, the waiter set out bowls and chopsticks and said, “Scan to order.”

Afraid Ethan would turn difficult, I quickly pulled out my phone to scan the code.

Only then did he sit down.

He asked for a kettle of hot water and carefully poured it over my bowl and chopsticks.

I looked at him suspiciously. “Why aren’t you pouring yours too?”

He didn’t even look up. “I’m not the one with that many standards.”

This time I was the one who froze.

So when he said the skewers were dirty, he wasn’t talking about himself?

He was being picky on my behalf?

I thought of the glorious half-month when I’d burned through ten million of his money, and I supposed Ethan had every reason to assume I was arrogant, spoiled, and impossible to please.

The waiter brought out two bowls of crab roe noodles.

I finished barely half of mine and still managed to eat more slowly than Ethan.

Nearby, one of the waiters was chatting with someone.

“Why are there so many people tonight? I heard the railing on Mingzhai Bridge got crushed earlier. Several people fell over the side.”

Ethan checked the time. “As soon as you’re full, we’re leaving. It’s too crowded tonight. Not safe.”

I had just started to stand when someone shoved me from behind, and I almost went sprawling.

Ethan’s reflexes were faster than thought. He caught me at once and looked toward the street with sharp focus.

“Don’t move. Something’s wrong.”

Only then did I realize that the slowly shifting crowd outside had turned into a blocked river.

In less than half a minute, the density exploded, forcing people against storefronts.

A disturbance rippled from somewhere far away.

Then came cries.

And a nameless kind of fear started spreading.

The sheer volume of people had exceeded what the street could hold.

A stampede had broken out in the middle of the road.

The shopkeepers slammed their glass doors shut to block the packed crowd outside.

In the span of only a few seconds, Ethan shoved me brutally into the narrow gap between two neighboring buildings.

“Against the wall. Don’t move.”

He braced one hand on either side of me, standing directly in front of me like a human barrier.

Very soon, the pressure of the crowd reached us.

I heard bodies hitting the ground.

Heard the rasping breath of people being crushed underfoot.

Heard someone vomiting.

Ethan’s face had gone white, but he didn’t budge.

He lowered his head and said nothing.

By sheer force, he carved out a tiny pocket of space for me in that crushing wave of bodies.

I reached up, wanting to hold him, but he barked, “There are people behind me. If you want your arm crushed flat, try it.”

That was when I realized he was already at his limit. Even speaking looked difficult.

I grabbed his shirt.

“Ethan Shaw… are you going to die?”

His breathing was unsteady.

“Try cursing me with something better. What, you want to be widowed?”

6

The horrifying crush went on for what felt like forever.

Only after a long time did the crowd finally begin to thin.

People lay sprawled all across the street.

Crying erupted on every side.

The moment it was over, Ethan slid down the wall and collapsed into my arms.

I caught him just as the flash of ambulance lights strobed across my vision.

“Doctor! Doctor, over here—” I shouted.

His breathing was very weak.

His fingertips were cold.

There was a deep cut across the back of his hand, probably from some iron decoration, and his palms were flayed open from scraping against the rough wall.

I didn’t even dare touch him.

All the way to the hospital, I stared at the monitors, shivering with cold.

The doctor said Ethan Shaw might die.

He was wheeled into surgery.

The doctor stopped me at the door. “What are you to him?”

“My…” I swallowed. “His partner.”

“This is the critical condition notice. Sign here.”

I signed my name at the bottom and watched the doors close.

A bizarre sense of unreality washed over me.

I laughed.

What the hell was this?

Ethan Shaw had nearly thrown his life away to save me.

Back when our house caught fire, even my own parents hadn’t risked themselves for me.

So what was it to him?

Brain-dead wild dog.

Stupid, gullible wild dog.

A little girl nearby shrank behind her mother and pointed at me. “Mommy, that lady is crying and laughing. She’s scary.”

The mother covered her child’s mouth. “Don’t provoke lunatics. Let’s go.”

Night deepened.

I waited until my entire body felt frozen before the doctor finally came out.

“Your husband is stable for now. He still needs observation. If he makes it through the danger period, he can be transferred to a regular room.”

After thanking the doctor, I settled into a long wait.

The truth was, I didn’t know who to call.

I didn’t know anything about Ethan’s family.

I didn’t know what relatives he had.

That disaster felt like a rope that had tied the two of us together.

A few days later, Ethan was transferred to a regular ward.

Victor Wu called me. “Ms. Reed, Mason Jiang’s intel is absolutely solid. Trust me just this once.”

I looked at Ethan lying unconscious in the hospital bed and said, “We’ll talk when I’m back. Without my permission, do nothing.”

Victor sounded unhappy, but he didn’t argue.

That afternoon, Ethan woke up.

The room was quiet, warm sunlight falling across the spider plant beside the bed.

Exhausted, I had fallen asleep leaning over the side of the mattress.

When Ethan moved his arm, I woke at once.

He looked at the work phone I had left nearby, his expression dark but silent.

He knew my memory had returned.

In the very next second, I threw myself at him and wrapped my arms around his neck. My mouth trembled, and a tear rolled down my cheek.

Only then did his expression ease. He caught me at the waist.

“I survived other people crushing me to death,” he muttered, “only to be crushed by you.”

I just kept quietly sobbing and said nothing.

At last, Ethan patted me lightly. “Go get the doctor. I need to know my condition.”

…

Ethan Shaw really was a wild dog.

After waking up, he recovered at an astonishing pace.

Neither of us brought up the fact that my memory had returned.

The day we flew back was the last day of the holiday.

At the airport, Ethan packed a mountain of luggage.

More than half of it consisted of the little frivolous things I had deliberately bought with his money while pretending to be “amnesiac.”

I sat on the plane and watched Yucheng shrink until it vanished into the clouds.

I felt as though I’d just woken from a dream.

Going back to the battlefield Ethan and I shared—that was reality.

I had never been Ethan Shaw’s wife.

I was the enemy who wanted him dead.

“Is that how it goes together?” His voice beside me dragged me back to the present.

A wooden cherry blossom model sat on his lap.

It was something I had bought earlier and made him assemble for me.

I took it from him and hugged it to myself. “Yes.”

Ethan looked at me twice but said nothing. He folded up the instruction sheet and waited for the plane to land.

After the holiday, the airport was packed.

We pushed the luggage cart through a maze of crowds, inching closer to the exit.

Then I saw Victor Wu.

And I knew some performances had to end.

I looked up at Ethan, ready to speak.

He suddenly pulled me into his arms.

“You remember what I told you that night, don’t you?”

The fierce, threatening line?

My heart jumped painfully, as if some invisible hand had twisted it.

Ethan said, “When you’ve figured out what you want to say to me, come find me.”

Then he pushed me gently into the stream of people, toward Victor Wu.

Victor smiled at me. “Ms. Reed, mission accomplished. I brought the police.”

The moment I heard those words, my blood froze.

Several officers stepped out from behind him, flashed their badges at Ethan, and said smoothly, “Mr. Shaw, we received a report that you are involved in commercial crimes. Please come with us.”

The commotion instantly drew a crowd.

I turned in shock.

The warm smile on Ethan’s lips had gone rigid.

Then, with a metallic click, handcuffs snapped shut around the wrist that still hadn’t healed.

I took a step forward, but a surge of people shoved me back.

The crowd carried me farther and farther away from him.

“So that’s how it is.”

Ethan stared at me, his voice very light.

I opened my mouth. “It wasn’t me—”

He lowered his eyes and smiled. “What a grand game you laid out, Lola Reed. Were you trying to kill me?”

Victor shot back coldly, “If Mr. Shaw’s conduct were upright, he wouldn’t have anything to fear.”

When Ethan looked up again, the familiar sharpness and chill were back in his eyes.

“Upright conduct?” he said. “When you faked amnesia and toyed with my feelings, did you ever think of ‘upright conduct’ then?”

A dull ache spread through my chest.

When he saw my reddened eyes, Ethan smiled with mockery. “Was I wrong?”

I said, “Yes. I wasn’t the one who called the police.”

“Three months ago, the person who went to my brother for evidence—wasn’t you?”

I had no answer.

Because I had thought about it.

And I had gone to Mason Jiang for evidence.

The police shoved him. “Stop talking. Get in the car.”

Ethan stumbled a few steps, drawing the healing wounds across his body taut enough that he winced.

Before getting into the car, he stopped and turned back to me.

From a distance, he formed a sentence with his lips.

I read it clearly.

Lola Reed, wait for me.

I’ll kill you with my own hands.

7

Ethan Shaw was released after only three days of investigation.

Mason Jiang abruptly turned on everyone and insisted Victor Wu had fabricated the evidence.

Victor came to me, pale and panicked. “Ms. Reed, I really didn’t know Mason Jiang would screw me over like that.”

I had warned Victor to handle the matter carefully.

But his ambition had grown too fast.

He had already been blinded by it.

The half-month I’d been gone, he’d run wild like a horse with its reins cut.

I sat by the window, looking out at the high-rises, saying nothing.

Now Ethan had struck back, using Victor Wu’s malicious false report to drag Reed Capital into a credibility crisis.

Regulators had already stepped in.

At the same time, Ethan began his retaliation.

One blow after another sent our market value plummeting.

In the space of a single night, everything was on the verge of collapse.

My office was full of people coming and going. The lights stayed on all night.

A few days later, one of my subordinates came in, white-faced.

“Ms. Reed, Ethan Shaw is really going for the kill. We can’t hold out.”

“He said if you want to save the company, you’ll have to go beg him in person.”

…

The relentless work left me with a brutal cold.

When I dragged myself to Ethan’s office, I was told he was in a meeting and I would have to wait.

There wasn’t even a bench in the hallway.

So I stood outside.

A cold front had just passed through, and one of the corridor windows had been left open. The place felt like an icebox.

I felt miserable.

At last I leaned weakly against the glass wall outside his office just to catch my breath.

I had no idea how long had passed when suddenly the door was yanked open.

Ethan’s face appeared, all hard frost.

Even his voice had no warmth.

“So this is the level of sincerity Ms. Reed is offering?”

I couldn’t hold myself up any longer.

I sagged lightly against his shoulder.

His hand clamped onto me painfully.

His tone was cold and hard, full of disgust.

“Get away from me. Do I look that cheap?”

“Ethan Shaw…” I cut him off. My voice was thick with congestion. “I feel awful. Let me lean on you for a minute.”

For an instant, everything went unnaturally still.

I was burning up all over, and the wind had made me shiver uncontrollably.

In the end, Ethan carried me to the private lounge attached to his office.

While the doctor took my temperature, Ethan and Mason Jiang waited outside.

“Mason, are you insane?” Ethan snapped. “Do you know how cold it is out there in the hall?”

“…”

“She threw up just now too. Don’t tell me she’s pregnant?”

“…” Ethan shoved the door open. “Doctor, is she—”

“Out.”

Ethan closed the door again, a note of irritation creeping into his voice. “Stop talking.”

“Boss, in our line of work, the biggest taboo is falling in lo—”

“Get lost.”

My throat was on fire. Even my voice was hoarse.

The doctor prescribed medicine.

After I took it, I lay on my side in the lounge bed and slipped into a feverish sleep.

In the dream, I was trapped in the fire from years ago again, watching my parents disappear beyond a window while I cried until my voice gave out.

Later they had told me, “Don’t blame us. Someone had to stay alive to hold the family fortune together.”

To them, the child I had been was useless.

There was no point sacrificing their own lives to save me.

For many years after that, I became the kind of person who calculated every gain and every loss.

I never made deals that weren’t profitable.

When I woke, the room was dark, and the clock on the wall was ticking with unhurried precision.

I was covered in sweat, sticky and uncomfortable, so I got out of bed.

Outside was Ethan’s office.

He was standing before the floor-to-ceiling windows, the glow of neon picking out the side of his face.

His expression was unreadable.

He turned to look at me, like a vicious dog fixing on prey.

“I suggest you stay in bed for two days.”

I crossed my arms and gave him a lazy look. “Restricting someone’s freedom is illegal.”

His eyes were black and still as ice.

I expected him to say something like, Go wherever you like. Just don’t die in my office.

Instead, Ethan said, “Exactly. I do want to lock you up. And if you die, you’ll die here.”

8

He didn’t actually lock me up.

A doctor came every day to check on me and hang IV drips.

I didn’t like unnecessary fuss, so I more or less moved into the place.

Sometimes, when Ethan was in a meeting, I would leave the door open wide and brazenly listen in on their plans.

At first, everyone resisted me.

Then gradually they all began pretending I wasn’t there.

Even Mason Jiang started casually calling me “sister-in-law,” and every single time Ethan kicked him out for it.

With me acting as an “inside source,” things on my company’s side eased up a lot.

At last we could breathe.

But I hadn’t been idle either.

Victor Wu was finished. I promoted a new vice president.

The rot and bad habits Victor had cultivated in his division were wiped out almost overnight.

The company came back to life like weeds exploding after rain.

As soon as I recovered from my cold, I immediately arranged a vicious little scheme against Ethan.

A gesture, I told myself, of accountability to the whole company.

One quiet afternoon, the door to the lounge was pushed open.

I was lying on the rocking chair by the window.

Before I even opened my eyes, someone scooped me up around the waist and threw me hard into the soft bed.

Ethan’s voice was glacial.

“So even while living under someone else’s roof, Ms. Reed still dares to scheme against people. Aren’t you afraid I’ll snap that proud little neck of yours?”

I stared at his gloomy face and smiled brightly.

“Ethan Shaw, murder is illegal.”

Then, reckless as ever, I pushed my bare foot against his lower abdomen.

“Oh?”

His voice turned low and dark.

He flipped me over in one sharp motion.

“If I don’t kill you, I have plenty of other ways to make you wish you were dead.”

Only then did I realize that the spark I’d lit was burning hotter and hotter.

He yanked me beneath him.

That familiar clean scent of his grew even stronger under the rising heat of his body.

It tangled with my own perfume and refused to give ground.

I panicked and pushed at him, only to have my arm pressed back down.

“Admit you were wrong.”

Competitive instinct flared at once.

I tilted my chin up and sneered, “What exactly did I do wrong? I lied to you, but you were willing to believe it. That’s on you. You served me, and I profited from it.”

His smile disappeared completely.

He gripped my jaw and kissed me hard.

“Fine. I served you.”

“And however I serve you now, you’re going to take it.”

This was probably the first time Ethan and I had ever “fought” outside the world of business.

Neither of us wanted to let the other off easy.

Fine sweat gathered on Ethan’s forehead. His jaw was clenched. “Lola Reed, relax. Are you trying to watch me die?”

By then I didn’t have much strength left. Tears filled my eyes on instinct alone.

But I still couldn’t stand it, so I punched him hard. “You bastard. Go lighter. Do you even know how to serve someone—”

That single insult earned me an even more merciless retaliation.

Ethan bit down on my ear, pushed aside the damp hair at my temple, and murmured, “And now? How does it feel now, Princess Reed?”

Humiliated and furious, I bit his shoulder.

By the end I had no strength left at all.

Ethan lowered his head and rubbed the coarse stubble of his hair against my palm.

Just like a dog.

“Admit you were wrong,” he said again.

I tangled my fingers fiercely into his hair and cried back, “Beg me.”

He lowered his voice. “Then I’m begging you. Admit it.”

“I won’t.”

The last thing I heard before passing out was a helpless sigh.

9

In the end, Ethan let me leave.

From that day forward, we didn’t see each other again.

We even tacitly avoided each other at every business event.

For a while, the two companies that had fought each other for years entered an eerie peace.

My new vice president was a young woman with a weakness for gossip.

One day she ran into my office and said, “Lola, I heard Ethan Shaw has a girlfriend now.”

I touched the little wooden cherry blossom ornament on my desk and asked, “Where’d you hear that?”

She thrust her phone toward me. “Look. He’s out shopping with some girl. If she’s not his girlfriend, what is she?”

In the photo, Ethan looked like a glorified servant, carrying armfuls of shopping bags behind her.

I smiled.

“That’s good.”

The girl shivered, maybe because the office suddenly felt cold, and quickly retreated.

Meanwhile, my parents had started calling nonstop.

“Have you given any thought to the marriage alliance we mentioned last time?”

I leaned back against the cushions. “I don’t want it.”

“Then your mother and I will leave our shares to your cousin. From now on, whether you come back to this family or not is up to you.”

The Reed family was always like that.

Men over women.

In their hearts, I ranked below even my cousin.

The truth was, I had originally planned to agree.

It was only because a few complications had cropped up in the middle that things had changed.

I thought about it and said, “Set a time. I’ll come home.”

I hadn’t expected both families to make such a spectacle out of the arrangement.

My prospective fiancé was my age. He’d gone through hundreds of girlfriends. The abortion money he paid women every year was enough to buy a luxury sports car.

To arrange our “meeting,” both families even organized a lavish dinner.

When the city lights came on that night, I wore an elaborate couture gown and drifted aimlessly through the crowd.

The useless little rich boy himself had disappeared who knew where.

Leaving me to entertain the guests alone.

At seven-thirty, a black Rolls-Royce pulled up under the evening sky.

When Ethan Shaw stepped out, he had a bottle of wine in one hand.

He looked different tonight.

A little too dazzlingly expensive.

I narrowed my eyes and looked at the watch on his wrist, wondering since when Ethan had started liking flashy, impractical things.

With everyone watching in confusion, he walked straight toward me.

Like a wolf that had finally fixed on its prey.

Oddly enough, that feeling of being hunted gave me a strange sense of safety.

“Ms. Reed,” he said when he reached me, “allow me to congratulate you on finding such a good match.”

He handed me the wine.

I smiled with polite detachment. “Thank you.”

Because Ethan and I had spent years fighting each other to the death, quite a few people were openly sneaking glances at us.

Ethan said nothing further. He simply took a nearby seat.

I accepted the gift and turned to deal with other guests.

There were still twenty-some minutes before dinner began.

My heels had already rubbed blisters onto my feet.

Then again, what could you expect from something that idiot had given me?

I went upstairs, pushed open the bedroom door, and planned to change shoes.

But before I could switch on the light, someone stepped forward and blocked the doorway.

Ethan’s tall silhouette cut off the light from behind him.

I tightened my hand around the doorknob. “What do you want?”

He caught my wrist and pulled me away from the door.

The moment it clicked shut behind us, he drew me into the darkness.

Our breaths mingled instantly.

“You were limping. Does your foot hurt?”

His hand settled at my waist, searching slowly.

I nudged him lightly with my foot. “If you noticed, then let go. Aren’t you afraid your girlfriend will see?”

He fell silent for a moment. “What girlfriend?”

“You forgot already? You were just out shopping with her. How heartless.”

The sourness in my tone slipped out before I could stop it.

Ethan’s dark eyes rested on my face for a long second. Then he pinched my chin and kissed me hard.

He’d lost his mind—

Furious, I lifted a hand to hit him, only to have my wrists caught and pinned against the wall.

“Don’t move.”

He barked, “You’re jealous, and I’m not allowed to soothe you?”

When he saw me ready to curse him again, he added, “Not a girlfriend. My sister. My actual sister.”

“Oh. What does that have to do with me?”

I was panting by then, but still clung stubbornly to the moral high ground. “I’m about to get engaged. Why would I need you to soothe me? What right do you even have?”

“I like you.”

Those four sudden words knocked the weight out from under my heart.

In the dark, Ethan’s gaze burned, boiling everything inside me.

But my face still flushed as I said stiffly, “Then why did you just congratulate me?”

Ethan laughed, and a ruthless certainty flashed in his eyes.