Chapter 1

The moment Nicholas Theognero saw her he was smitten and knew he couldn't let her go no matter what, she was like a breath of fresh air in his chaotic world and he wished to keep her for himself. She was the only thing that made perfect sense to his messed up world, she was the motivation he needed to wake up and go to work every morning. When she smiled at him he felt like he was in heaven and he didn't want anyone else receiving that smile from her.

When Nicholas hired Katherine Dayazeilo, he had not even seen her face she had only send in her resume and he made a decision without meeting her and the moment they met face to face he regretted hiring her. Katherine was the temptation he had been avoiding the whole of his married life, of course, he had encountered far more beautiful women than her. None of them had been able to arouse the manly desires which he thought he had lost since marrying Bethany, his wife.

Nicholas had been married for two years, and in all that time he never experienced the marital bliss all his friends had been talking about. In all those years he had never been with a woman which is ironic since he claimed to be married. Immediately after their marriage, his wife had made excuses not to sleep with him right from their wedding night.

Nicholas was been understanding and tried to help her open up to him and tell her problems. Bethany had continued lying to him right up to their first marriage anniversary where he had found out that she had been having an affair with someone she had claimed to be her brother. Someone he had let into his house thinking he was helping his brother-in-law only to find out that he had been lying to when Nicholas found them in their matrimonial bed.

To make matters worse Bethany's real motives to marrying him were revealed to him and by then it was already too late to get out of the marriage. Nicholas had tried everything he could to annul the marriage but with no avail; his lawyer had advised him to get a prenuptial agreement right before his marriage. Being the lovesick puppy that he was he had refused to do that claiming that he was too in love to ever think of leaving Bethany.

Right from the start, Bethany had been clued to his side since the time they had been dating, she had been the perfect girlfriend always treating him well and not neglecting him. She had even proposed they stay celibate till the time they got married. Right about two months after they started dating she started bringing around Danny who she claimed to be her brother.

Bethany told him that Danny was the only family she had since they had lost their parents to a car accident about five years prior. Nicholas didn't mind having Danny around since he became like a brother to him and always confided in him on different staff concerning Bethany.

Before he knew Danny started living with them when they moved in together and being the fool in love that he was Nicholas never even investigated if it was true that they were siblings. He was too blinded by what he thought was love to see what was really going right under his nose.

Bethany always had an excuse to hang around her brother and he never objected it since he wanted so much to make her happy. It even went to the extent of hiring Danny in his company since Bethany claimed to want her brother to be able to settle down and have a good life. Nicholas brought in Danny and before he knew it he was a key player in the day to day running of his business.

Nicholas proposed to Bethany after four months of dating and many advised him to wait to say that it was too soon and that he didn't know Bethany that well. He never listened; He wanted Bethany as his wife as fast as possible she was everything he had been looking for in a wife. Nicholas fought with his friends who kept opposing his relationship with her; He never understood why his friends despised Bethany so much. If only he knew what he was getting himself into, regrets kept haunting him from time to time after his marriage.

Nicholas regretted not listening to his friends; he regretted meeting Bethany who had taken far away from his friends. He had been so stubborn and irrational not wanting to listen to their opinion and in the end, they too gave up and left him alone.

On the day of their wedding Bethany had shown up ready to marry him and he was happy to finally have her as his wife. Right after the ceremony, they had flown out to their honeymoon, and that is where he sensed that his perfect wife had been hiding something from him. The first night Nicholas had been so eager to finally have Bethany as his only for her to claim that she wasn't ready to give herself to him.

This became a trend till the end of their honeymoon and Nicholas was starting to notice that her behavior was also changing; she would get mad at him at the slightest provocation and refused to talk to him for days.

Things did not get better after they came back from the honeymoon; Nicholas learned that Bethany has a deadly temper. She started throwing things at him, anything she could get her hands on. By the second month of their marriage Nicholas had regretted ever taking the step to date her let alone marry her, he was becoming like a punching bag for his wife.

Right about that time, Danny found a place of his own and he moved out so he didn't witness the cruelty of his supposed sister, Bethany started staying out late and always coming home drunk. She always asked for money and when he didn't give in to her demands she would insult him, all kinds of insults, she even claimed that he wasn't a real man since he couldn't arouse her enough to sleep with him.

Many times the neighbors had to come knocking on their door to find out what all the noise was about. Nicholas wanted so much to hit her back every time she assaulted him but he could not bring himself to hit a woman even if the woman was the devil reincarnate. He suspected that his wife slept around since she wasn't too shy to tell him about all her adventures, but he never had solid proof with whom.

Nicholas turned in to a person he himself didn't even know, he was depressed and didn't want to call his former friends since he knew that he is the only one who got himself in the trouble. There was no use bothering them, his work started suffering too and soon he was at the edge of losing his company. Nicholas became a monster to his employees and he was feared by most of them. Many resigned and refused to work with a tyrant like him.

Nicholas later found out that someone was buying out shares from his company and looking at taking over and that was the wake-up call he needed. He had worked too hard to lose his company to some maniac who wanted to ruin his life. After digging deeper he found out that it was Danny who was doing this with the help of his sister Bethany.

Right about that time he met Katherine, it was love at first sight for him and he couldn't control his feelings. Nicholas tried to avoid her all he could, to an extent of even transferring her to another department from being his Vice-president.

Katherine was a soft-spoken person, she always smiled and laughed when they were together, Nicholas wished that some of her joy could rap off on him but on reaching home he would go through the torment by Bethany and all the joy would have gone.

All hell broke loss when Bethany got wind of him always working closely with Katherine and she came purging into his office to warn him that if he even thinks of leaving him she was going to take him for all that he is worth.

Nicholas had to suppress his feelings for Katherine since she didn't want any problem befalling him, he was knowledgeable enough to know that Bethany was a lunatic and she didn't want her hurting Katherine because of her unfounded jealousy.

That is when he decided to seriously consult his lawyer about a separation only to be told that he was already too far gone. Bethany was spewing all kinds of lies claiming that Nicholas had been abusive all through their marriage. This infuriated him since she had been the one to abuse him; many times he had to make excuses as to where he got his injuries.