Chapter 1

Rosalie Clarke and I had been estranged and separated for several years now.

That was why I was surprised when her family called me.

"Zayne, your mother-in-law has passed away. We can't reach Rosalie. Please, come back and handle the funeral arrangements."

Hearing that Mona North, my mother-in-law, had passed away, I felt a sudden jolt in my chest. It wasn't grief, but rather as if a tightly strung string in me had snapped.

Rosalie and I had separated about three years ago.

Since then, she'd been living as if she'd never been married—constantly hitting up bars and clubs, hiring male escorts, and completely ignoring my messages and calls.

I frowned upon hearing the news, thinking Rosalie had crossed the line. Something had happened to her mother, and yet, Rosalie was nowhere to be found.

I stared at the voice message for a long time before finally canceling all meetings for the week and heading to Rosalie's hometown. My assistant wordlessly signaled for ten bodyguards to accompany me.

I tried calling Rosalie during my journey there. For some reason, I couldn't reach her.

I opened her social feed and found an update from just an hour ago, showing off her latest shopping spree. Most of the items were men's brands. A man's hand could be seen in the corner of the photo.

Clearly, Rosalie had bought all those things for him.

I sighed, opened our chat, and left her a message about how her mother's cremation was done, and she should come back to say her final goodbyes before the burial.

The message wasn't even sent—Rosalie had just blocked me.

Relatives from the Clarke family told me that Mona had caused quite a scene, demanding a custom urn worth eight million dollars and even staging a hunger strike in the village until she got her way.

"Poor her. If she hadn't gone on that hunger strike, she might not have fallen and passed away," they lamented with pained expressions, though they were quick to step back when it came to paying.

I considered it for a moment, then paid for the urn using Rosalie's card. Almost immediately, Rosalie called me.

"What did you spend so much on? Refund it now."

I didn't want to argue with her about money. I simply urged her, "Come back home. There's been a family emergency."

Rosalie must have heard the dirge playing in the background, and her tone faltered. "Who?"

"An elder in the family passed away," I replied calmly.

Rosalie said nothing and immediately hung up.

I couldn't help but wonder if I hadn't specified that it was her mother who'd passed away, would Rosalie have mistaken it for someone in my family and just ignored it altogether?

After handling everything, I opened my phone to catch up on work, only to get a notification from a forum.

"My fiancée's card suddenly shows a charge of eight million dollars. Does this mean trouble?"

There was no shortage of posts designed to grab attention, so I was about to close it when I noticed that I was following this particular poster. Curious, I clicked in to scroll through and realized it was from Lester Cumin, Rosalie's assistant.

Back when Rosalie first started her company, she and I were still close, and I'd handled most of the company's early arrangements, even helping recruit the initial team. Lester, her assistant, was personally recommended by her. I had followed his social media as part of his background check.

I opened the post to find a slew of comments speculating that his fiancée was paying for a boy toy—a pretty boy they warned him to watch out for.

Uninterested, I was about to unfollow him when Lester posted another update.

"Confirmed, folks—there's definitely someone else. My fiancée is on her way to meet her side piece. I'm on my way to catch them in the act."

Attached was a screenshot from a couple's tracking app showing her current trip, with the destination set as none other than Rosalie's family home.