Chapter 1
It was supposed to be the day that my boyfriend finally proposed to me. However, he ended up putting the engagement ring, worth 200 million dollars, on my foster sister’s finger instead.
It wasn’t until then that I finally realized my boyfriend’s true identity. He was a very powerful figure, an authority who had the means of disrupting the finance and economics of foreign countries at just the snap of his fingers. He was no other than the CEO of Frost Group—Hansel Frost!
However, when I first got to know him, he told me that he was dirt poor and broke and that he was ill with a bad kidney disease. He had told me that he was working as an Uber driver, but his earnings were insufficient to buy the expensive and imported medication he needed to survive.
I did all sorts of odd jobs to help him afford his medication. I worked as a food and parcel delivery person during the day and as a bar hostess at night. I’d even sold my blood regularly at the hospital in exchange for the medication that would help extend his life. I was planning to do this until he finally found a suitable donor for the kidney transplant surgery.
As I rushed in looking for him, wearing a white dress, with his precious medication in my hand, I finally realized that I had been taken for a fool all along.
Even the lipstick I was wearing wasn’t enough to mask the paleness of my lips after learning the painful truth. I watched as Hansel treated my foster sister, Violet Lovelace, with extreme love and care while I descended to become the laughingstock of the elite circle. Everyone simply laughed at me scornfully while looking at me with disdain.
Their hurtful words floated into my ear incessantly. However, Hansel did nothing to stop them. In fact, he even took the pills I’d just bought him using the money I got from selling my blood and dropped them onto the floor, one by one, while staring at me with cold, frosty eyes.
“100 thousand dollars for a bottle of pills must be a lot for someone as broke as you. But did you know, Elara? The company behind the factory producing these pills?
“I own that.”
Hansel grinned, his lips turning upward as he continued taunting me like the Devil.
My heart ached so much that I couldn’t say a single word. I didn’t know why he had to toy with me like that. But before I could ask him for a reason, his bodyguards grabbed me and threw me overboard from the yacht, where I then met my demise in the hands of the crooks who took my life.
Just a few minutes before I died, I made one final call, not to the police as I should have, but to him, the man to whom I’d given all of my love and care. I wanted an answer from him.
Even if all of my love and concern had been in vain, I still harbored a slight sliver of hope, somewhere in the depths of my heart, that he would save me, just this once, from certain danger.
“Hansel, please save me… Someone’s chasing after—”
“Fuck off, Elara Fairlight! Otherwise, I will make life in Allerton a living hell for you!”
He coldly interrupted my plea for help.
I was shocked.
The thug wanted to kill me. Even Hansel wanted me dead, and yet, here I was, still calling him and asking him for help.
How ridiculous.
I felt as if a thousand knives were stabbing into my heart. I bit my lip so hard that it bled. My voice was shaky as I stammered out in a low voice, “H-Hansel Frost, why are you treating me like this?”
“Why?” Hansel echoed, a hint of scorn in his voice. “Elara, do you know what the cheapest, dirtiest, and most worthless thing on earth is?”
I remained silent.
He spoke again, his words sharp and hurtful. “The so-called ‘love’ from dirty, shameless, broke-ass people like you!”
My heart felt as though a big hole had been blown right through the center of it. Fresh blood was pouring out. It hurt me so badly that I forgot I was supposed to be running for my life.
I then heard Violet’s kind and gentle voice on the other end of the line. “Don’t treat my foster sister like that, Hansel. She’s been so good to you all along. She probably had no other choice but to sell herself…”
Sell myself?
I hadn’t managed to read between Violet’s loaded yet innocent-sounding lines when Hansel’s words cut in like the frosty wind. “She’s nothing but a despicable bug at the bottom rung of society. Don’t you ever acknowledge her as your sister, foster or not. You’ll get tainted, too.”
I couldn’t stop myself from shaking anymore. I lost it and yelled, “Hansel Frost! You were the one who hid your background and toyed with my sincerity! So why are you still sitting high on your pedestal like a judge and crushing me like this?”
Hansel chuckled coldly and spoke in the coldest, frostiest, and most emotionless voice I’d ever heard. “I’ll whisper it to your grave when you’re finally dead, Elara Fairlight.”
Hansel wanted me dead.
My body convulsed. I felt as though my entire body had been plunged into freezing water. My phone slipped from my hands and fell onto the corner of a huge rock, smashing into pieces.
The thug running after me finally caught up to me. There was a cold, menacing glint as a huge knife was brandished into the air.
Then, I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen.
The thug had driven the knife straight into my body, causing blood to start pouring out. I looked up into the dark night sky and eventually fell into the ditch.
Tears blurred my vision.
I was going to die very soon, just as Hansel wished.
However, he had no idea that I wasn’t the only one dying that night. There was also another tiny life in my belly, the one that the thug had immediately killed with the first plunge of the knife.
I hadn’t even told Hansel about the child yet.
I used to wonder how joyous and happy Hansel would be after I’d told him that I was pregnant with his baby. However, I was more certain now than ever that everything was simply a figment of my imagination.
Hansel scoffed at my love and sincerity for him. Naturally, he wouldn’t care about the baby that someone as broke and dirt-poor as I was carrying.
Maybe it was for the best that my precious baby came together with me to the afterlife. At least we’d have each other as company.
I felt a little comforted as I thought of that. I didn’t even bother fighting back against my killer. I just looked up into the night sky and used the last of my consciousness to pray to whatever deities were listening.
If there was a life after this, I didn’t want to get involved with someone as cruel and heartless as Hansel again anymore.
However, when I finally regained consciousness, I realized that I had turned into a wandering ghost and was being led toward Hansel once more.
This was three days after my death.
There was a ribbon-cutting opening ceremony for the Frost Group’s new office building, Frost Tower, that day. A Rolls-Royce rolled to a stop right at the entrance, and a bodyguard dressed in black hurried over to the door.
He bowed slightly as he opened the door to the backseat, welcoming Hansel out of the car.
Plenty of reporters were already waiting there. As soon as Hansel stepped out of the car, their camera flashes immediately went off, bathing the area in a sea of light.
Hansel had a strong, domineering presence that demanded respect and attention wherever he went. His facial features were immaculately handsome, yet he had an arrogant air around him that forbade anyone from getting any closer to him if he didn’t allow it.
This Hansel was very different from the Hansel I knew—the one who had tricked me, lied to me, and toyed with my heart. It was as if they were two different people altogether.
Hansel used to always laugh whenever he was with me. He was never stand-offish. He had a friendly demeanor, and his presence was like a welcoming breeze of fresh air in spring.
As it turned out, a monster had been hiding beneath that innocent facade all along.
Although I was just a floating ghost of my soul, I still couldn’t stop myself from trembling in shock. This was Hansel’s true colors. His true self was so cold and aloof that it frightened me. I could still feel the fear creeping into my heart, even though I was dead.
I didn’t know why I was led to him after waking up as a ghost.
Hansel then started walking toward me.
