Samantha's POV
For three years, I gave everything I had to help Ethan clean up the Jackson family business, just because he said he wanted to start a family.
I trusted him so much that I even put together the proposal myself.
I did everything. Picked the flowers, picked the venue, and made sure everything was perfect. Name it, and it was all on me.
I thought that after everything, he’d finally make things official between us.
But as I walked toward him, dress bunched in one hand and a smile stretched across my face like a fool’s, Ethan took the bouquet I had spent hours arranging—and handed it to someone else.
The whole room seemed to freeze. Dead silent.
Outside the window, the fireworks I had planned lit up the sky. Bright, loud, and all wrong.
They were meant to celebrate love. I just hadn’t realized it wasn’t mine.
For over ten years, I had been Ethan’s shadow—his fixer, his confidante, his lover.
Always there. Always behind the scenes.
But standing there, watching him with her, it finally clicked.
When Ethan said he wanted to start a family, he didn’t mean with me.
He meant her. Polished. Untouched. Raised the "right" way. Everything I wasn’t.
And as the last firework fizzled out in the sky, I stood there. Frozen. My hands were trembling, my breath caught somewhere between shock and heartbreak.
I looked up at him, my voice barely holding together.
“Why, Ethan?”
He didn’t even flinch.
“Everyone on Summerset Bay knows you’re just the mad dog I keep chained in the dark,” he said, flat, emotionless, like he was stating the weather.
Then he paused. Not long. Just long enough to make it hurt more.
“Now that the Jackson family business is clean,” he added quietly, “I need to marry someone pure. You’re too dirty. Too... tainted.”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move.
As if afraid I might lose control, Ethan gave a slight nod to the bodyguards. They didn’t hesitate. They grabbed me, held me down. In the struggle, my dress tore, exposing the scars carved into my skin.
Scars I’d earned helping him. Covering for him. Bleeding for him.
And then he turned to her.
Bethany White.
That girl. Sweet. Delicate. Untouched.
He reached out and gently placed a hand over her eyes.
“Don’t look,” he whispered, like he was shielding her from something grotesque. “You’ll have nightmares.”
That was it. That was the moment I knew.
Ethan Jackson didn’t need me anymore.
It was time to go.
——
Next thing I knew, I was back at Jackson Villa, locked in a bedroom like some kind of criminal. My head was still spinning from the night before when I heard Ethan’s voice.
“Sam, I shouldn’t have said all that.” His tone was low, almost gentle. “You did a great job with the proposal. Bethany liked it.”
I turned my head slightly on the pillow, still processing the bomb he had just brought to me.
After I broke down at the proposal party, Ethan’s bodyguards had dragged me out, hushed me away, and tossed me into this room. The message was clear. He wanted me to remain silent, stay in place, and avoid damaging his image.
If I behaved, I’d get a cushy and comfortable life.
But I said nothing. I waited until he came back.
When he finally opened the door, he crossed the room like nothing had happened and placed his hand on my waist.
His breath brushed my ear, warm and familiar.
My ear. That was the spot he used to love the most.
I shivered.
I had been by Ethan’s side for over ten years. Everyone in the inner circle knew it, even if no one ever said it out loud.
I was his right hand. His secret. His not-so-secret lover.
I remembered five years ago, clear as day.
We were in the middle of a deal with a major player in Summerset Bay. A big player made a disgusting offer, and he’d hand over control of a key port to Ethan if I spent the night with him.
“Just one of your subordinates,” he said, his eyes crawling over me. “One night, and in return, I’ll hand over a port. Seems fair, right, Jackson?”
He was balding, overweight, and reeked of sleaze.
Ethan didn’t even hesitate. He looked the man dead in the eye and flipped the entire table over. “My people aren’t for sale.”
After that, word got around.
In the underground world, they started calling me 'Jackson’s wife.'
No one dared touch me.
Someone brought it up in front of Ethan once. He didn’t confirm it, didn’t deny it. Just sipped his tea and glanced at me, soft, unreadable, like there was something only the two of us understood.
So when he told me he wanted to settle down and start a family, I believed it was finally my turn. That everything I’d done—every sacrifice—meant something.
But that’s not how the world works.
While I was helping Ethan scrub his empire clean—smoothing deals, laundering assets, setting up front companies—he was preparing for a life that didn’t include me.
And when he said he wanted to propose, I thought he meant me.
I cried. I was so moved.
But the truth was colder than anything I’d prepared for: the proposal was never for me.
It was for another woman.
Thanks to all the work I’d done, Ethan became the legitimate face of the Jackson empire. He became the unrivaled, polished, and clean CEO of Jackson Global Holdings.
And me? I was his disposable right hand. Too dirty and a liability to his emerging empire.
He found someone else. Someone purebred and well-behaved who would go with him to such events and galas.
Meanwhile, all I got was a label—the mad dog in the dark.
So, that night, as I lay in that locked room with his hand on my waist and his voice in my ear, I finally saw things clearly.
Ethan Jackson had never loved me.
Not the way I needed him to.
