The Night I Won an Award, My Lover Sold Me OutChapter 1

The night I won the Best Actress award, Luca sent me to an investor's bed.

"It's just one night. It’s fine, Zara. Please, help me."

I was drugged and disoriented, so my body felt heavy and powerless. I could not even summon the strength to say no.

After it was over, Luca gently cleaned the traces from my body.

He held me tenderly and whispered, "Don’t be afraid, Zara. I’ll marry you, I promise."

I clung to those words, telling myself they were enough.

But later, a rising starlet asked him, "You’ve been with Zara for ten years. Were you really willing to hand her over to someone else? That Grant Yates, who’s even rumored to have a pregnant wife? Just the thought makes me sick."

Luca chuckled playfully, "What are you saying? Are you trying to trap me? I don’t care if she sleeps with a hundred Grants. As long as it brings me resources for you, you’re the one I can’t bear to lose. Are you happy now, my jealous little girl?"

So that was it. I was nothing more than a bargaining chip exchanged for his lover’s career.

Devastated, I chose to withdraw from the industry. When the news about this reached Luca York, he came straight to my door.

His tone turned cold as he said, "Zara, if you don’t want your nudes plastered all over the internet, you’d better drop this idea."

Perhaps the despair in my eyes unsettled him because he softened slightly. "I said I would marry you, didn’t I? So stop causing trouble."

Marry me, he said? I laughed bitterly, but he remained unmoved and walked away without hesitation.

Days later, the internet exploded with rumors. Everyone kept talking about an actress who slept her way to the top.

When Luca called to deny responsibility, I could actually hear the nervousness in his voice.

I told him calmly, "It’s okay. It doesn’t matter whether you did it or not."

After all, in seven days, I would be out of his life for good.

——

I did not need to see the vicious comments online to guess how cruel they must be, so I simply turned off my phone.

My agent, Zoe Lane, scolded furiously, "You’ve been in this industry long enough. How could you still make such a careless mistake and let someone take those kinds of pics?"