I, Calista Summers, have been in a secret relationship with Vernon Grayson, the boss of the biggest mafia organization in Merdico for five years.

To others, Vernon is the epitome of a perfect gentleman, cold yet aloof, attractive yet abstaining from women. With a net worth in the tens of billions, he holds a lot of power. He has also kept himself scandal-free since the start of time.

However, not many know that I am his only exception.

I am the team captain of the cheerleading squad at Duke City College. I am known to be brave, straightforward, and passionate about everything.

Vernon is a whole decade older than I am. He is mature and dangerous, but those are the exact qualities that draw me to him every time.

He always lets me rest my head in his lap while in the back of his limited-edition Rolls-Royce, kisses every inch of my body before the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office, and takes my breath away in hidden toilet cubicles at major public charity galas.

And every time, he's so gentle with me that I keep mistaking his doting on me as his love for me. Yet, he can also get cruel and merciless with me, making me beg and whine at his mercy.

As for me, I was really falling for him because Vernon never lets any other woman get close to him. He chooses me every single time, and I believe that's what true love is.

However, things change when his first love, Samara Horton, returns from Urop.

Vernon starts showing me his cold, aloof side that leaves no room for argument. He stops being gentle with me, his mask falls away to reveal his true colors, and he no longer treats me as his equal who shares his world.

At that moment, I finally realize that I am nothing more than a dirty secret he needs to keep hidden from the rest of the world. I am but a pawn that he can easily cast away at his convenience.

I choose to put an end to our secret relationship altogether.

I leave, taking nothing of his with me except for the baby in my womb.

The baby is his heir, but he doesn't even know that he exists.

Today was my last date ever with Vernon Grayson.

As usual, he hugged me from the back after we did the deed and gently nipped my earlobe with his lips. His fingers traced over every inch of my exposed skin beneath him.

His voice was low and sultry as he referred to me by my nickname.

"Callie…"

I felt like I was about to fall for him once again when I heard him. I dearly wanted to believe that this was true love.

I used to think that a person would have to be very deeply in love with someone else for them to be so gentle and patient with them in bed. I also firmly believed that his self-control and attention to details meant that he saw me as his one and only.

That was because I simply couldn't fathom why a man would ever waste his precious time on a woman whom he didn't even love.

However, Vernon hadn't been spending the night with me for the past two months. No matter how late it was, he would still insist on going home, and that was because someone else had appeared in his life once more, and she was none other than Samara Horton, Vernon's childhood friend.

The sky was as dark as ink. I was just about to fall asleep in Vernon's arms when he suddenly withdrew his arm. At once, I felt my chest go hollow.

I watched as he turned his back on me, put on his tie, and shrugged on his coat. When he turned, he bent over the bed and chastely placed a kiss next to my lips. Then, he carefully set down the latest limited-edition designer handbag by the bedside table.

He smiled casually at me. "I thought you'd already fallen asleep. Don't forget to use the handbag."

A second later, the door closed behind him, and my room descended into a cold silence afterward.

At that point, I'd completely given up on him.

It reminded me of my parents back when I was a little kid. After their divorce, neither Mom nor Dad wanted custody of me and kept pushing me to the other.

I cried hard as I tugged at their pant cuffs, begging for them to take me away, but they just shrugged my hands off and shoved me toward each other. Then, they turned their backs on me and formed new families of their own.

Neither Mom nor Dad spared me a backward glance.

From that day onward, I learned to stand on my own two feet. I had to take care of myself.

I was only six years old when I faced the loneliness, the danger, and the helplessness of life on my own.

I forced myself to be strong and resilient. I forced myself to be independent. I made sure to build a tough armor around myself to protect myself from harm.

My armor was close to perfect during my childhood and teenage years. However, on the night of my 18th birthday, the first crack started to form in my carefully-crafted armor.

I'd just gotten off work from the graveyard shift and was on my way back to my dormitory when I ran into a group of drunk street thugs. Just as they were about to force me to my wits' end, Vernon suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

After chasing off the thugs, he gathered me in his arms even though my knee was bleeding from earlier.

His hug threw me completely off guard. It felt like the strange yet familiar warmth of a father's hug—big, strong, and safe.

Vernon brought me to his home and cleaned up my wounds for me before handing me a bathrobe.

I thought he would take advantage of me. After all, the hero would always expect something in return from the damsel in distress that he'd just saved.

However, Vernon just poured me a glass of warm water and said, "Go to sleep."

Nothing happened.

The next day, he sent me back to school.

Just before I left, he handed me his business card and said that I was free to look for him if I ever wanted a new job or needed his help.

I never forgot the warmth he showed me that night. It was precisely the warmth I'd felt from that night that pierced right through my armor and melted it away completely.

I eventually became his personal assistant. I was also the only woman who was ever allowed to sleep with him after that.

He turned hundreds of other women away and chose me, Calista Summers, instead.

Over the next five years of our secret relationship, Vernon gave me all the love and care that I'd been missing since my childhood. He made it all up to me.

On my birthdays, he would be like a father to me, bringing me to amusement parks and buying me beautiful dresses so that I could relive my childhood and fill it with only pleasant memories again.

During vacations, he would be like a lover to me, taking me to see the first snowfall in Burleigh, the giant windmills in Hallington, and the beautiful sunrise in Mt. Snoozy.

Every hotel we ever stayed in would remember our delighted squeals and laughter during the day, as well as the traces of our lovemaking during the night.

I let myself drown in his love and attention, as if I'd finally found my happy place, the place where I'd belonged.

Two months ago, I had a present for him.

It was a pregnancy test kit with two clear red lines showing in the indicator. I was pregnant, and it was the proudest secret I'd ever kept from him. I wanted to surprise him with it at our fifth anniversary dinner.

I even planned it so well that we could get married on the day of my college graduation. The future looked bright and hopeful to me.

However, I waited for him that night at the restaurant from 8:00 pm until midnight, when the place had to close for the night. And yet, Vernon never appeared.

He had sent someone over to deliver a bunch of 99 red roses and a matching set of precious ruby jewelry to me worth millions of dollars, but they felt so cold to me, like they were mocking me.

The next morning, I saw him making the headlines in the news.

"Top Mafia Boss Spotted Welcoming Girlfriend at Airport Last Night".

The accompanying photo showed Samara wearing Vernon's coat over her shoulders as he opened the backseat door for her. He even had a hand against the top of the car so she wouldn't bump her head against the edge.

His eyes were so gentle that they looked completely foreign to me.

The gentle look in his eyes was far more authentic than the gentleness he'd shown me over the past five years.

I moved out of the mansion that day.

When I left, I knew that I had to put up my armor once again. I'd come to understand that there wasn't anyone in the world who could be my safe place, even if that person used to make me think that he loved me.

I stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows and watched as the Rolls-Royce slowly left the hotel. I knew then that Vernon and I were over.

I wiped away the tears from my eyes. My phone then buzzed with an email from my lecturer, Dr. Jessica Flemington.

All the paperwork had already been settled. I would be joining the final batch of researchers and heading toward the Doctors without Borders Research Center in Litzerland at noon tomorrow.

I'd be there for the next ten years, and that would be when my new life would finally begin.

Dr. Flemington knew about my pregnancy and my secret relationship. So, she made sure to buy a business-class ticket for me, wanting me to feel comfortable during the entire journey.

I stared at the screen, my fingers shaking as they hovered above a countdown timer I'd set in my calendar app.

I would finally be leaving this city in exactly 18 hours.

I would finally be leaving him and all the dreams that never once belonged to me.

As soon as dawn broke, I hailed a cab and went over to Vernon's mansion. I still had some data sheets and my thesis there with him, and I needed to retrieve them.

It was 9:00 am, and he was sitting at the table eating breakfast.

I pushed the door open and walked in, catching him off guard. He was stunned.

Samara was seated next to him. She grinned widely at me and said, "Oh, you must be Vernon's personal assistant. You haven't had breakfast yet, have you? Come here and try this tuna sandwich he made himself. His cooking skills have improved so much over the past five years."

I froze in place.

For the past five years, Vernon had not once made me a single meal. I was always the one busying myself in the kitchen, and he would also only eat a few bites of my cooking once in a blue moon.

But now, he was "improving his cooking skills" with her around.

So, those glimpses of his gentleness weren't really reserved for me after all.

I felt my eyes heating up and tearing up. Still, I had to pretend that I was fine.

"I won't be joining you for breakfast. I'm just here to pick up some documents for the meeting later," I said.

I went into the study, where my thick thesis and other research materials were lying neatly in a stack on my desk. I stuffed everything into a bag like I was picking up the last few shards of my dignity.

Just as I was about to leave, Samara suddenly pushed the door open with a coffee mug in her hands.

"Wow, you're taking so many documents with you? Vernon's so strict with you, isn't he? You're still so young, but he's making you work very hard."

She smiled innocently at me, but every word she said was dripping with sarcasm. She then continued, "When I was your age, all I had to worry about was shopping, traveling the world, and attending concerts wherever I wanted. I never had to go through any hardship like you."

She paused for a while and added nonchalantly, "Oh, he even wrote my graduating thesis for me. He's really good at it! Maybe you should get him to help you too!"

There was a condescending look in her eyes as she challenged me.

I inhaled deeply, wanting to leave, but that was when I saw something in the trash—another pregnancy test kit, with two clear red lines showing on the indicator.

My heart sank into my stomach.

Samara followed my line of sight and saw what I was looking at. Her smile froze for a brief second. However, she quickly recollected herself and pretended not to care. "Oh, how did that end up here? I should have thrown it in the bathroom trash instead."

She then grumbled lightly, "Vernon, that rascal…"

I felt as though someone had torn my chest wide open at that moment.

Tears gushed into my eyes, but I held them back and rushed down the stairs as quickly as I could.

"Why are you crying?"

Vernon stopped me at the door. He looked at me and frowned lightly, reaching up to try and wipe my tears away.

"How many times have I told you? You don't have to cry. You can just tell me if something's wrong, or if anyone did something terrible to you. I can solve everything for you, whether it's about money, power, or anything else. There's nothing I can't do in Duke City."

I hugged my bag tighter and shook my head. "Nothing. It's just about my thesis."

The look in Vernon's eyes turned deep, his gaze so sharp as if he could see right through me. I forced myself to calm down, not daring to show him even a hint of the uneasiness I was feeling inside.

If he knew that I was pregnant with his baby and planning to leave him, he would never let me go.

Just as the tension began escalating beyond my control, his secretary, Baxter Newton, walked up to him.

"Mr. Grayson, these are the wedding proposals from the wedding planners, and also the final draft of the wedding dress that you designed—"

Wedding? Wedding dress?

I felt my breathing slow to a stop.

"Shut up!" Vernon cut in coldly, giving me a cold glance, as if worried that I'd hear Baxter. However, when he saw that I didn't react in any way, he heaved a sigh of relief and waved Baxter away, dismissing him.

"Calista, I'll pick you up later after your last research experiment," he said firmly.

After taking two steps away, he stopped and added, "Actually, you don't have to work so hard, you know. The cert is just another piece of paper. I can get one for you easily, whether it's for a Master's, a PhD, a professor title… Nothing is too hard for me."

"I want to do it myself," I replied firmly and stubbornly. This was the only pride I had left in myself.

Vernon went quiet and didn't try to talk me into it again.

On the way back to campus, I finally couldn't stand it any longer and let the tears blur my vision completely while in the cab.

A wedding.

A wedding dress.

A baby.

They all belonged to Samara.

Meanwhile, I was just his dirty little secret.

Once again, I was reminded of how stupid and naive I had been to completely take off my armor back then.

It had simply been because the little girl who'd been abandoned by her parents when she was six years old had been craving for paternal love. That was the only reason I let myself drown in the love and care Vernon showered me with, ever since he saved me at 18.

But now, the countdown had already begun.

I would be gone in just 18 hours' time.

And this time, I wasn't looking back.

After getting back to my dorm, I took out my documents and stuffed them into my suitcase. I had fewer than seven hours left. With each document I put away, I kept reminding myself that time was ticking, and I had to leave at the end of the countdown.

I took the company keycard and boardroom access card to Grayson Group. As I stepped into the building for the final time, I could feel a huge weight on my chest.

Since I had made up my mind to leave, I had to make sure not to leave any traces.

Just as I'd reached the office, however, I heard a few hushed voices whispering to each other.

"Did you hear the news? Mr. Grayson is getting married, and his bride is his childhood best friend!"

"I always thought that Mr. Grayson had the hots for his assistant, Ms. Summers. After all, they always spend every waking hour together, whether it's lunchtime, working overtime, or going on business trips."

"Don't be dumb! Ms. Summers is an orphan. Mr. Grayson is way out of her league! The Graysons run the biggest mafia organization in the country, and every marriage must of course only be political!"

"Samara Horton comes from a family of financial tycoons from Waltz Street. If she marries into the Grayson family, the company will be brought to a whole new level altogether!"

I felt my heart being ripped out of my chest. I did my best to lift my head high and pretend that these gossips didn't get to me. Still, I couldn't stop the tears from gathering in my eyes. Although I'd never been formally introduced as Vernon's girlfriend, I still naively used to think that I was his one and only.

I passed my resignation letter to the Human Resources department. The department head, Joanna Dyson, looked at me in shock.

"Aren't you about to graduate from college? You'd be confirmed as an official employee once you're done with this internship. Why would you give up on such a wonderful opportunity like this?"

"I'm going overseas to further my studies," I answered calmly, as if I'd already thought it through for a long while.

Joanna stared at my resignation document and suddenly narrowed her eyes as she singled out a signature on it. That was because Vernon had also signed my document, confirming my resignation.

Of course, Joanna would never know that I'd tricked Vernon into signing it by pretending it was one of his business procurement documents. If he knew that he was signing my resignation letter, he would never have allowed it to happen at all.

The entire office descended into a loud hush. A few colleagues lowered their heads and remained silent for a while, while a few others looked at me with confusion in their eyes.

I could feel that they were just feeling sorry for me. Something told me that they all simultaneously guessed correctly that I was the third wheel in the relationship who'd now been discarded.

When I left, one of my colleagues whom I used to be closer to, Connie Belrug, ran out after me and grabbed my hand. Her eyes were a little red at the edges.

"You should have woken up sooner, Callista. Mr. Grayson is the most dangerous person in the entire Duke City. He's also the most sought-after bachelor in the country. His marriage can only be part of a political merger between powerful families. You… You never stood a chance."

She paused for a while, as if worried that I was going to crumble, then continued, "You should leave him. That's the only way to preserve yourself."

I smiled at her, neither disagreeing with her nor bothering to explain anything to her. I just bade her goodbye.

…

With only an hour left before my departure, I was already at the airport, waiting.

I dragged my suitcase with me and went into the nearest convenience store to buy a pack of lemon drops. After getting pregnant, I found out that I was craving this sour candy a lot. It also somewhat helped with suppressing the bitterness I felt in my chest.

Just at that moment, my phone screen lit up with a video message from an anonymous number.

Samara was featured in the video, wearing a beautiful wedding dress and smiling widely before the mirror. Meanwhile, Vernon was bent over next to her, patiently puffing out the train behind her and rearranging them nicely.

Vernon, the cold, aloof, calculated mafia boss who could make anyone in the underground organization or the business industry shake in their shoes, was now behaving so gently and lovingly with Samara like he was a prince from a fairytale.

"The groom is such a genius! He actually designed the wedding dress all by himself, and the design is even more stunning than anything our own designers can—"

The video ended right there, cutting the sales associate off mid-sentence.

I stared at the screen with my heart in my throat. I could feel a tight, stabbing pain in my chest. Obviously, this was a video that Samara had purposely sent to me.

She didn't even need to say a word to me. All that was needed was just the look in her eyes and this anonymous video to tell me that Vernon had always belonged to her.

My hands shook. Finally, I couldn't stop the tears from blurring my vision once more.

Soon, the airport announcer announced that it was time for us to board my flight, interrupting me mid-cry. I inhaled deeply and prepared to board the plane.

I gritted my teeth and smiled bitterly as I turned off my phone before throwing it away in the trash can.

Deep breaths.

The countdown was over. It was time to board my flight.

I didn't want to see Vernon Grayson again for the rest of my life.

The final boarding call was announced.

Just at that moment, a cold, icy hand suddenly wrapped itself around my wrist.

I immediately jerked backward to look and felt my heart stop.

It was him—the one person I dreaded seeing the most.