“For two years, Gracie Waller lived as the secret, contractual wife of billionaire heir Chas Hamilton, quietly managing his life and enduring his cold indifference. With only thirty days left on their agreement, Chas's childhood sweetheart, Anabella, returned. To frame Gracie, Anabella deliberately tipped a bowl of boiling soup over Gracie's right arm, then fell to the floor crying that Gracie had maliciously attacked her. "Have you lost your mind!" Chas roared, scooping Anabella into his arms without a single glance at Gracie's melting skin. At the hospital, he demanded the city's top micro-surgeon for Anabella's slightly pink finger, while Gracie sat alone in the trauma room with severe second-degree burns. Later, to catch a feigning Anabella, Chas callously dropped Gracie onto a concrete floor, leaving her back covered in massive, bleeding bruises. Yet, he still ordered his heavily injured wife to the kitchen to cook a steak dinner for his sweetheart. Gracie didn't shed a single tear. She didn't understand how the man she thought had saved her life years ago could be so blindly cruel. Two years of playing the obedient, submissive wife had finally been burned away by that boiling liquid. The last shred of her lingering attachment was completely dead. Staring at his demanding face, Gracie calmly untied her family-crested apron and dropped it straight into the trash. She accepted a Chief Technology Officer position at a rising tech firm, locked her bedroom door, and watched her offshore countdown timer hit twenty-nine days. The submissive facade was over, and she was finally walking away.”