1 Chapter 1(Before)

Li Lionel 

"Sign the papers. You know that when we first got married, it was only for pretense's sake." A soft voice that could cause even the strongest of men to fall on their knees spoke. 

Li Lionel looked at the smaller woman. She had golden hair and caramel skin, her eyes were wide almond-shaped with a retrousse nose, her lips were plump, as if begging for a kiss. His eyes fell on her form. He could not help but to react to her. The body he had made love to several times. The body he had seen countless eyes fall on with lust and envy.

He could not even help but to be constantly seduced by this damn vixen! 

If it was not for her parents, would he be stuck with her? 

If it was not for her parents, would he even spare her a glance? 

Was she not the one who sat and watched them constantly bully him without lifting a finger? 

He was born here and yet because he looked different they would treat him this way. 

It was quite laughable. The outer shell meant more than within.

Yet, because she looked like them, they accepted her even though her acceptance was funny. 

She is a foreign girl so they should befriend her and help her better integrate.

He knew her for fourteen years; from twelve to twenty-six. At one point, he had been foolish enough to love her. 

Ha! 

Foolish! 

Someone like her should be choked to death! 

Now, they had everything, they wanted to toss him aside? 

"Why?" He asked. Li Lionel is by no means a small man. He stood tall, close to seven feet, shying away by three inches. The girl who sat opposite him was five foot eight average for a girl in the Caribbean but tall for an Asian. 

The funniest thing is that she is Asian by birth but not descent while he is the opposite; Caribbean by birth but of Asian descent.

They are neighbours, grew up beside each other for the past fourteen years and married for five.

Their first night when he took her he could not help but to fall deeper. He had hoped that if she became pregnant with his child, she would be closer until he saw the contraceptive pills. 

Until he saw that year after year, there was no movement in her stomach. 

When his parents asked, he said he was not ready, but he knew she looked down on him. 

Her parents were wealthy. His parents were nothing in their eyes. 

Poor Caribbean Asians, who owned merely four restaurants and a six-bedroom house. 

While her family owned several jewellery, cosmetics and dipped their hands in several other businesses.

Why did she even marry him?

To torture him to the point that he would hate her?

What will they tell their friends? Will those four be happy that she will be free again?

Li Lionel clenched his fist and gritted his teeth as his chiselled jaw became even more prominent. Long, thin eyes with sooty lashes stared down at the composed woman.

There was a long silence before she spoke once again. Those words almost sent him to his knees.

"If you sign it, I will give you five million dinars. This currency is now the highest in the world and is five times the Caribbean dollar."

Li Lionel wanted to scream in her face if she saw him like that? To be used and tossed aside. 

In the end, he took her offer and left. He could not help but to wish that she would die painfully. 

His heart… it felt like it had been stomped on and kicked aside. 

Li Lionel lived. He made enough money that she could never look down on him within the next four years and after he, on a whim tried to look for her, he heard she died three years ago from cancer. 

He felt as though he had been struck, his heart squeezed in his chest. He felt that what he had heard was a lie.

But she looked fine, he had thought and investigated. 

Later he found she had cancer for years and even donated her eggs. 

It is a pity only five were usable, but she had specifically left one for him and a note. Opening it slowly, his hands trembled while his vision became blurred.

'I know that you hate me. I don't mind, why waste any more youth on a dying woman. If I did scare you so deep you become unwilling to pass on your genes then do me this one thing and give my parents a grandchild. If you have no desire to, that is fine, I wish you all the best.'

A thirty-one-year-old man held the letter and cried. 

Fuck! 

He reached into his pocket and took out the ring, and looked at it. 

Then he looked at the letter. 

So all of that time… he began to laugh and then stood, knowing what he should do now. 

In the end, he found a surrogate and had her carry the child. When it was born, he could not help but cry. He could not help but to break down holding the only thing left of her. A child he had wanted for so long with her but now she is gone.

Twenty-five years later he passed on everything to their son and died.

How he died?

He gave up on life. He had thought, if there is no her, the woman he had loved then hated and loved again. He had no reason to live. Their son is grown and stable, now it is his turn to meet his beloved woman.