Chapter 1

To win the woman crowned Miss Harborcrest, Rowan Sinclair, heir to Westhaven's most powerful family, spent 9.9 billion dollars building the most extravagant estate atop Paxton Peak for Ava Hartley. Yet barely a year into their marriage, Ava fell from the mountain while saving Rowan, leaving no trace behind. For three years, Rowan traveled between Harborcrest and Westhaven 99 times, searching for her with the desperation of a man losing his man. And at last, fate relented. In an unremarkable fishing village along Bayshore, he finally found her. She stood barefoot on the sand, wearing a sun-bleached cotton dress, so luminous that she looked like a fallen spirit made flesh. Roman lifted a trembling hand to her cheek, his voice breaking as he whispered, "Ava, I finally found you." Ava's memory was still shattered, but when she saw the grief and relief brimming in Rowan's eyes, her quiet heart cracked open. However, the moment she pushed open the door of the villa on Paxton Peak, every warm illusion shattered. "Rowan!" A soft, graceful silhouette swept toward him, the custom white dress Ava had once loved flowing around her as she rushed straight into his arms. The woman lifted her face. The fresh marks on her neck were impossible to ignore. Her gaze landed on Ava, innocent and cruel. "Who is this lady? A new housemaid?" Ava's heart tightened, though her expression did not move. She had once been the proudest woman in Harborcrest. Even with her memory lost and her life reduced to rubble, her dignity remained intact. Rowan's brow twitched almost imperceptibly, yet his arm instinctively shifted to shield Lia behind him. His tone was the easy protection one used with someone familiar. "Lia, don't be rude." He turned to Ava, his voice calm and flat. "Ava, this is Lia Merritt. I wasn't home much while searching for you. My mom relied on her company." Then, he added with a dependency he failed to notice himself, "During the three years you were gone, I had several breakdowns and nearly followed you to the grave. If Lia hadn't supported me and talked me through it, I wouldn't have survived. "She can be a little spoiled, but she isn't a bad person. Now that you're back, just treat her well with me." Ava looked at the way he stood in front of another woman, protecting her so naturally, so effortlessly. And suddenly the broken pieces of her memory surged back like a tidal wave. She remembered Rowan shielding her countless times just like that. Facing the relentless flashes of Harborcrest paparazzi, he had wrapped her tightly in his arms and declared, "Ask me anything. Don't frighten my wife." At the family banquet in Sinclair Manor, when relatives questioned her background, he had walked out with her hand in his. "I married her, not her pedigree." On an empty street at night, when a reckless motorbike nearly hit her, he had thrown himself in front of her without a second thought, taking the scrape across his own arm while checking again and again that she was unhurt. He had once been her fortress, the source of every sense of safety she possessed. But now he stood before someone else, shutting her out completely. Ava suddenly felt that her three years of brutal survival, her desperate return for a half-remembered man, had been nothing but a bitter joke. "I'm tired. I'll go upstairs and rest." Her voice was calm, unreadable, as she walked toward the stairs. Rowan stepped ahead and opened the door to the guest room. Ava stopped short. "What happened to my master bedroom?" she asked, her eyes lowered, her voice turning cold.