Chapter 1

A strange man dropped to his knees in front of me, begging me to give him my fiancée.

“I really love her. I can’t live without her. Please, give her back to me.”

“Is he your ex?”

“No. Who the hell are you?”

My fiancée looked just as confused as I was.

I believed them when they said they didn’t know each other. I assumed the man was mentally unstable.

But later, I saw my fiancée grab his hand and beg him to forgive her.

I stepped out of the fitting room when a seemingly mild-mannered man suddenly rushed over and dropped to his knees in front of me.

“Please give Claire back to me. I’m begging you.”

“You two will never have a happy ending. Claire and I are destined to be together.”

“Please. I’m begging you.”

He knelt at my feet without a shred of dignity. He looked absolutely pathetic.

If he hadn’t been trying to steal my fiancée, I might have felt sorry for him.

I noticed that he’d said “give her back” instead of “give her to me.” Raising an eyebrow, I looked at Claire, who was standing there just as stunned as I was.

“Your ex?”

The man turned toward Claire and looked up at her with tearful eyes.

“Claire!”

Claire hurried over to my side and anxiously explained that she didn’t know him at all.

“Who are you?”

Her cold tone seemed to hurt him even more. He stared mournfully at her hand linked with my right arm and murmured, “How could you forget me?”

The commotion had drawn a crowd outside the store.

“What’s going on? Is the wife kneeling to the mistress? A male mistress, too. You don’t see that every day.”

“Not necessarily. The one standing looks more like the wife to me.”

“Listen to what that guy is saying. Maybe he has amnesia and forgot he found someone else.”

Within minutes, the spectators had come up with countless ridiculous stories.

“Security! There’s a lunatic here. Get him out of here!”

Claire called security and watched the struggling man with open disgust.

“Claire! You’ll regret treating me like this!”

The guards hauled him to his feet. Just before they dragged him away, he turned and gave Claire one last desperate look.

Claire rolled her eyes.

“What a freak.”

Then she tugged on my arm, looking utterly wronged.

“Ethan, you have to prove that I’m innocent. I really don’t know that lunatic.”

Normally, I would have found her adorable like this. I would have rubbed her head and let her cling to me.

But this time, I gently pulled my arm free.

“Did you drag me out here just so I could watch another man lose his mind over you?”

Claire realized I was genuinely angry. She immediately called her assistant.

“Pull up the mall’s security footage from today. Find out which mental hospital that man who knelt in front of Ethan escaped from.”

The mall belonged to Claire’s family. Getting the footage would be easy. With the power her family held, tracking down one man would be even easier.

I was curious about what kind of connection he had to Claire.

Whether she had been cheating on me or the two of them still had feelings for each other, I would end things the moment I confirmed it.

I, Ethan Carter, couldn’t accept a relationship built on divided loyalties.