"Dear passengers, we’ve arrived at the station. Thank you for riding with us..."

The second Serena Whitmore stepped onto the ground of T City, she stretched hard, then took a deep breath like she wanted to pull the whole city into her lungs. "Ah! I’m finally back!"

Dragging her suitcase with one hand, she pulled out her phone with the other and got ready to call her boyfriend, Derek Hayes.

She had come back in secret this time. Derek had no clue at all. Just thinking about the look on his face later—shocked first, then crazy happy—made the corners of Serena’s lips lift without her even noticing.

The phone rang for quite a while before it finally connected. Before she could even say a word, Derek hurriedly coaxed, "Serena, I’m busy right now. I’ll call you later, okay? Be good. Love you."

The sharp busy tone that followed froze the smile on Serena’s face on the spot. She lowered her phone and glanced at the screen, confused.

Derek’s voice had sounded a little hoarse, like he was holding something back with a lot of effort.

Serena felt a bit disappointed, sure, but she talked herself out of it pretty fast.

They’d been together since college. Derek had always treated her well. Maybe this time he really was tied up with something.

She shrugged, flagged down a cab, and headed to her best friend’s place.

Serena had always kept a spare key to Scarlett Willow’s apartment. She quietly unlocked the door, planning to give her bestie a surprise.

"Derek... easy, that hurts..."

The room inside was full of heat and tension, and that soft, teasing voice drifted out like a kitten’s paw scratching at someone’s heart.

Serena knew that voice way too well.

It was Scarlett.

But the man’s voice that came right after made Serena feel like she had been dumped straight into an ice hole.

"You little tease, don’t you like it best this way?"

"If Serena finds out about us, what do you think she’ll do?"

"Relax. That idiot won’t notice a thing. We’ve been spending her money and living the good life all these years, and she’s still daydreaming about marrying me. Once she’s all used up, I’ll dump her without a second thought. Then the two of us can take the money, move somewhere else, and live it up."

Scarlett lightly smacked him in mock annoyance. That tiny gesture seemed to fire Derek up even more, and soon the room was filled with one unspeakable sound after another.

Serena’s ten fingers clenched so tightly they almost cramped. No matter how hard she tried, she still couldn’t wrap her head around it.

The two people she trusted most had teamed up to betray her.

Was it really just because she had no one to rely on since she was little, so people got to grind her kindness straight into the dirt?

Serena Whitmore suddenly kicked the door open.

Click. Click.

In a split second, the filthy photos of the two of them were saved to her phone.

Before they could even snap back to their senses, Serena was already gone from Scarlett Willow’s place.

She had just come out of a bar, a bottle still clutched in her arms. She drank as she walked and cried at the same time, her chest tight and bitter. All those years of love, all that sincerity—seriously, she had fed it all to the dogs.

She dropped down right in the middle of the road and cried her heart out.

Luckily, it was late and there weren’t many cars around. Even so, Serena’s stunt still forced one car to stop.

A man’s long, straight legs came to a halt beside her. His thin lips parted slightly.

"Move."

"Okayyy!"

Still hugging the bottle, Serena shut her eyes and obediently rolled around on the spot.

That move actually made the man pause. A flicker of interest crossed his face. He stood there watching her for a few seconds. Seeing that she was no longer blocking the way, he lifted his foot to leave.

Then the weight on his leg made him stop again.

He looked down with a frown at this bizarre woman.

Serena wrapped herself around his leg and cried even harder, wiping both tears and snot all over his pant leg.

If anyone had been standing nearby, they would’ve been totally stunned by her guts.

She was hugging Dominic Sterling, the man in charge of Sterling Group. And not only that—she was actually using his custom suit like a tissue.

Who in their circle didn’t know this? Dominic Sterling, the ruler of Sterling Group, was the kind of man even ghosts would avoid. On top of that, he had a seriously brutal cleanliness obsession.

Dominic’s brows drew together slightly, his voice low and icy.

"Woman, I’ll give you one chance. Get lost."

"Waaah—no, don’t!" Serena cried and hugged him even tighter. She sniffled, then rubbed herself against him again. "I’m so hot. I wanna take my clothes off!"