Chapter 1

Liesel Sharp had just unlocked her phone while waiting for her IV drip to be done when she received a message from her best friend, Chelsea Walden. "Jacob's back."

She faltered. She and Jacob Ford had barely spoken throughout their month-long cold war, so she had no idea he was back.

Soon, she received another message. "He's brought a young woman back with him."

A photo had been sent with the message. The young woman in the photo resembled Liesel a little—she was Natalie Sharp, Liesel's younger half-sister. She'd been raised in the countryside.

Chelsea continued, "The Sharp family is throwing them a welcome-back party. Do you want to crash it, Lili?"

She knew what Liesel was like. Liesel would give Jacob a taste of his own medicine if he dared to do anything to her. There was even a chance she would set the Sharp residence on fire.

Liesel checked her IV bag. She'd had a high fever for three days now, and the back of her hand was swollen from the constant IV drips she'd been on. She wasn't in the mood for that nonsense.

"No," she replied. Then, she shut her eyes to get some rest.

It was close to 10:00 pm when she took a cab back to Viewpoint Residences. The fever had taken its toll on her, so she soon drifted into a restless sleep. Jacob returned at some point, which woke her up.

"Did I wake you?" he asked while rolling up the sleeves of his ironed shirt. The dim light made his skin glow, adding a hint of iciness to his already cold demeanor. He looked down at her with an indifferent gaze. His voice was as alluring as always, though.

"No." Liesel's voice was a little nasal because she'd just woken up. She explained lazily, "I wasn't sleeping too soundly after taking my meds."

He frowned slightly. "Are you sick?"

She chuckled softly. She'd been sick for a while now and had mentioned it in her texts to him when admitting defeat. Yet he looked like he'd only just noticed.

She poured two glasses of water and handed one to him. "How are things at Norton City? I heard from Brook that there seemed to be some trouble with it. You—"

Her throat felt dry and uncomfortable; she wasn't in the mood to chat. Still, someone had to back down—it had been nearly two months since they'd seen each other.

However, Jacob cut her off. "Let's divorce."

She stared at him and almost lost her grip on her glass. Her throat seemed to hurt more now.

He didn't explain himself. All he said was, "You can ask for whatever you want. I won't shortchange you."

Liesel's heart clenched, but she soon regained her composure. "We can discuss this if this is because you left to pick Natalie up two months ago."

"It's not." He looked at her, his gaze aloof. "This is a loveless marriage, Liesel. There's no point in keeping it going."

It was true that the marriage alliance between the Ford and Sharp families had never been the one Jacob had hoped for. Liesel was the eldest daughter of the Sharp family, but he'd never wanted to marry her.

Their accidental encounter that night was the only thing that had made him choose to take responsibility for her.

Liesel lowered her eyes and said slowly, "Alright. All I want is the house at Northview Garden, and I won't quit my job after the divorce."

Her mother, Heather Mallone, had left the house for her. For whatever reason, it had ended up in the Ford family's hands and become one of her wedding gifts.

As for her career, she'd worked hard and built a network within Ford Corporation. She couldn't allow the divorce to wipe her efforts away.

Jacob didn't object. He looked at her and said, "Okay. Anything else?"

"No." Liesel shook her head. "If it bothers you, I can move out tomorrow."

He seemed surprised by how accommodating she was. He cautioned her calmly, "Make sure you've thought this through, Liesel. I don't want there to be anything between us after the divorce."

"Don't worry about that." She smiled.

He seemed to want to say something else, but his phone rang. He answered it and hung up shortly after. Then, he said, "I have something else to do. I'll get a lawyer to talk to you about the divorce."

Soon after he left, Liesel saw a trending topic on him and Natalie showing up together somewhere. In hindsight, fate was such a twisted thing.

Back then, Heather could not tolerate even the slightest flaw in her marriage. After learning about Natalie's existence, she forced her husband, Jeffrey Sharp, to send Natalie to the countryside so she could grow up there.

Less than two years after Heather's death, Jeffrey had remarried, turning Liesel into a joke. Natalie had also been brought back from the countryside.

Fate loved playing jokes on everyone—no one would've expected Natalie to be the one who held Jacob's heart.

…

Liesel only woke up the following noon. Her cold was much better now. A lawyer brought her the divorce agreement, making sure to go through the allocation of assets.

Jacob truly hadn't shortchanged her. Aside from the house at Northview Garden, he'd also given her some other real estate. The lawyer said, "Sign here if you don't have any objection to the clauses, Ms. Sharp."

Liesel nodded and signed the agreement without hesitation. The divorce would take some more time to finalize, though.

Jacob was busy, so Liesel didn't get to see him at all. She reminded the lawyer, "Please tell Mr. Ford to expedite the finalization of the divorce if he's not too busy. Dragging this out won't do any of us favors."

After settling the divorce, Liesel moved out of her and Jacob's marital home. Chelsea heard about this and invited her out for coffee.

"You know about Natalie, right? She studied hard in the countryside after being banished by your mother and later got into a good university. Jacob ran into her at Alden University when he went there to give a talk." Chelsea snorted.

She continued, "I heard Natalie was really in awe of him; it helped that she was so hardworking and optimistic. Your father was desperate to matchmake them, you know. But here's the question—why would someone as wonderful as her not realize what a bitch move it is to ruin someone's marriage?"

Chelsea had always been defensive of people she counted as her own, and she scorned those who knowingly got involved with people who had significant others. The fact that Natalie was an illegitimate child only made Chelsea despise her more.

Liesel looked unfazed, though. "It's all in the past now. Jacob and I are already divorced, so she's not really ruining the marriage."

She chuckled. She had mixed feelings about the whole thing. "Besides, it's not like Jacob and I ever had feelings for each other."

She lowered her gaze and suddenly remembered the first time she and Jacob had met. The year Heather had died, she'd caused one of Jeffrey's business deals to fall through. She'd been overjoyed and had dragged Chelsea out for a celebration.

After the celebration, she'd refused to let go of a handsome man she'd latched onto. They'd both had too much to drink and had ended up in bed. It was only later that she'd learned he was Jacob Ford, her fiancé.

Rumor had it that he'd never wanted to marry her, but he'd looked at her the following morning and said, "I'm willing to take responsibility for this, Liesel. What about you?"

He'd proposed marriage. Liesel had looked at him, and a rare moment of rashness had taken over her. She'd said, "Let's do it."

To tell the truth, there wasn't anything bad about Jacob. He didn't love her but had never played the field or slept around with other women. He was also calm and level-headed, considerate and gentle. She didn't even have any complaints about their adventures in bed.

But things had changed after he'd run into Natalie at Alden University two months ago.

Chelsea looked at Liesel while feeling bitter. The latter hadn't said anything, but Chelsea knew how she felt. Judging from Liesel's personality, there was no way she would've settled for Jacob for so long if she didn't have feelings for him.

"Maybe you should go back to Shifter Corporation, Lili. Why continue suffering at Ford Corporation? I feel nauseous at the thought of those two pieces of trash being there."

Liesel had always been prideful and stubborn. After Heather's death, she'd used whatever she'd inherited to set up Shifter Corporation, wanting to compete with the Sharp family's company.

However, she'd left it in the hands of Heather's friend, Jonathan Shifter. The outside world only knew it as Jonathan's company.

"Marriage is marriage, and work is work," Liesel said. "I'm not going to give up on my career over a failed marriage."

That was what she thought—it was also what Jacob had promised her. But when she headed to work the next day, she discovered she'd been transferred from her position as his secretary to the project department manager.