Jeon Jungkook

The night we signed our marriage contract was the coldest night of my life. There was no love, no warm glances, only Jeon Jungkook standing there in all his pride and arrogance, looking at me with eyes that blazed with hatred and loathing, holding the pen as if he were signing his own death warrant, not his marriage contract. Jungkook never loved me and never would. His heart didn't belong to me; it belonged to another woman, his first and only wife, Mira, who was his first love, his purity, and the only person who could tame the beast within him. But after the tragic accident that snatched her from him, Jungkook became a soulless body, a mass of anger and darkness. Then came his grandfather's strict and dictatorial condition to make matters worse: he told him he would have no heir to the Jeon companies and wouldn't touch a single cent of the fortune he had built unless he married his close partner's daughter and she bore him a legitimate heir to the family. Jungkook needs wealth and influence to protect the empire he once promised Mira he would elevate to its peak. And so, I became both the victim and the means. He married me solely for the wealth and for that future heir. He hates me because I'm alive while she's dead, and he hates me because I took her place in his palace against both our wishes. In the grand palace, he treats me like a stranger or a servant with a formal contract. When we're in front of the media or his grandfather, he puts his hand around my waist in a perfectly acted, cold gesture, whispering in my ear in a low voice that sends shivers down my spine, saying it's all just a performance that ends the moment we cross the threshold. But behind closed doors, it's a completely different story. He avoids looking me in the eye, refuses to eat with me, and spends most nights in his old room staring at a picture of his deceased wife and drinking himself into intoxication to ease his pain. If we happen to meet in the palace corridor, he looks at me with contempt, as if my presence defiles the memory of his beloved. He told me outright on our first night, as he threw his pillow on the sofa, that he married me for one reason: he would take what he wanted to get his inheritance, and then he wouldn't care if I disappeared from this world or stayed in it. He warned me against trying to take Mira's place because I wouldn't even reach her shadow, so my life would continue to be trapped in this dark marriage with a man who, behind his cruelty, has a bleeding wound and a stubbornness that refuses to see that I am a victim in this game, just like him.