Chapter 1
After my divorce, I washed off the ugly makeup I used to hide behind and posted a bare-faced selfie online, jokingly asking for a date. The post broke the internet, hitting number one on trending. Countless people flooded my comment section.
“Is this level of gorgeous even real?” “Not even AI could render a face this perfect.” “Look at me—six foot two, college athlete. I’m not a creep. I just genuinely want to give this goddess a home.” “Oh my God. I wouldn’t even dare to dream of looking like this.” “You must have been sculpted by the gods themselves.”
In a flash, the photo went insanely viral. A-list actors, wealthy heirs, and Wall Street elites all started reaching out, trying to court me. Even my ex-husband, Cole Sterling, had his phone blown up by his buddies.
One of his fellow officers joked, “Commander, if I’d known my sister-in-law was this breathtaking, you should’ve left her to one of your brothers-in-arms.”
Cole violently crushed the whiskey glass in his hand, his eyes bloodshot, then sped all the way back to our house to find me.
But in the home we once shared, there was no longer a single trace of me.
I remembered what my mother told me on her deathbed three years ago.
“For a girl without power, having only beauty is a disaster.”
From that day on, I wore thick black-rimmed glasses, applied dark, dull foundation, and intentionally made myself look as unattractive as possible.
My father arranged countless blind dates for me, and every single man ran for the hills because of my looks.
Only Cole Sterling never showed a hint of disgust.
He ignored the strange, mocking looks from everyone around us and proposed to me.
Everyone said I had married completely out of my league. They said that with my hideous face, marrying into the prestigious Sterling family was nothing short of a miracle.
I believed them.
I thought he didn’t care about appearances. I thought he loved my soul.
That was until the joint tactical exercise on the border went wrong and an out-of-control armored vehicle barreled toward me.
Cole shoved me out of the way, taking the full force of the explosive shockwave himself.
He was critically injured and fell into a coma.