Chapter 1.
To help my boyfriend pay his debts, my mother and I worked ourselves to the bone. Because of years of fatigue, my mom developed lung cancer.
When I rushed to the hospital with money for her treatment, I discovered she had already hanged
herself, leaving only a note:
“Rowan, Mom can’t go on. Take this money to help Mason with his debts–he’s a good man.”
Clutching my mother’s ashes, I transferred the $300,000 she had earned with her blood and sweat to
Mason Knox.
When I returned to the company, I accidentally overheard him speaking with several creditors.
“Mr. Knox, Miss Irvine has passed all your tests. What are your plans now?”
Mason’s childhood sweetheart Piper suddenly spoke up:
‘Mason, she only passed the poverty test. Now we need to see if she’s a gold digger?”
Mason pursed his lips:
‘Next, I need to know if her feelings for me are genuine.”
‘If she doesn’t become shallow or money–hungry after learning my true identity…”
‘I’ll marry her.”
Looking at my mother’s ashes, I broke down in tears.
Mason, Mom was wrong about you. I was wrong too.
don’t want to marry you anymore.
Leaving Luxe Enterprises, I sat on the street curb, clutching my mom’s ashes in my arms.
It was more of a pickle jar than an urn.
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Chapter 1
She had insisted on this, all to save fifty more bucks to pay back Mason Knox’s supposed debt.
Mason’s face suddenly appeared on the digital billboard overlooking the plaza.
Breaking news: “Just moments ago, Mason Knox, the mysteriously absent CEO of Luxe Enterprises who vanished three years ago, made his public return with fiancée Piper Reynolds at his side.”
I stared at the screen, watching Mason’s confident, charismatic smile.
Tears streamed down my face.
So, every dollar Mom and I had scraped together to pay off his “debt.“–It had all been a lie.
I sat there until dusk wfien Mason finally called.
His voice came through, gentle as always:
“It’s getting late. Why aren’t you home yet? Where are you? I’ll come get you.”
I opened my mouth but couldn’t speak.
Before today, I would have snapped back with frustration, accusing him of interrupting my work.
But now? That intimate tone between us felt hollow.
Mason’s voice tensed with worry: “Rowan, where are you right now?”
“Working,” I managed.
He paused, seemingly remembering how I’d been working myself to exhaustion paying off his supposed debt.
He’d promised once it was cleared, he would marry me.
Start a real life together, just as Mom had hoped.
Today was supposed to be when he finally revealed the truth.
“I–I need to tell you something. The truth is I’m the heir to Luxe Enterprises.”
“I’m coming to get you right now…”
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I hung up and hailed a taxi.
I had no expectations left for Mason Knox.
When I came back to my senses, I saw tears reflecting in the taxi window.
My phone lit up with notifications–message after message from Mason.
I didn’t look. Didn’t want to look.
Today should have been the beginning of our new life together.
Instead, his deception had turned Mom’s suicide into some cruel joke.
Five years of sacrifice, all for an absurd truth.
Mason Knox, I don’t want to marry you anymore.
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