My Fiancé's Scandals Never End, So I Married His Uncle Instead-Chapter 1: A Troublesome Fiancé

As evening fell, the sweltering heat had yet to fade.

Celia Sterling, dressed in a vintage Port Sovereign-style gown, sat in the garden, propping her head up lazily as she watched Declan Norwood with keen interest. She was devastatingly beautiful, yet there was nothing frivolous about her. Her aura was one of pride and intensity, tinged with an innocence untouched by the world.

Declan Norwood was madly in love with her.

At that moment, he was laying out a series of luxury items before Celia Sterling, eager for her praise. He had made a special trip to Port Sovereign just to acquire them at auction.

Her phone beeped several times. Her friend, Quinn Sinclair, had sent three consecutive text messages:

"Celia, your fiancé cheated on you! And with your future sister-in-law, of all people!"

"Holy shit! I heard Declan Norwood threatened to kill anyone who told you about this."

"That bastard Declan had the trending topic taken down so fast. I only managed to grab two screenshots. Take a look."

The screenshots were crystal clear.

The first was a high-definition photo from inside a lavish nightclub. In it, Declan Norwood had a beautiful woman on his lap and was personally fastening a priceless necklace around her neck.

The second photo showed Declan with his shirt wide open, leaning in to gently bite the woman’s neck. The hazy lighting cast his rakishly handsome profile in shadow, creating an intensely intimate atmosphere.

And the female lead in this scandal was none other than the red-hot superstar, Summer Sutton—the secret lover her own brother, Kian Sterling, kept in Port Sovereign.

For the Sterling Family, this wasn’t just gossip. It was a scandal.

Celia Sterling looked up, stunned, and stared at Declan Norwood for several seconds. Not understanding, he raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Babe, why are you looking at me like that? Is there something on my face?"

Celia didn’t answer. She just lowered her gaze, picked up her phone, opened a web browser, and searched for the trending topic.

Sure enough, the trending topic had been scrubbed clean.

Even Declan Norwood’s name had become a blocked term; searching for it returned a blank page.

’But she had already seen it.’

’She couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened.’

Celia Sterling put down her phone and looked at Declan Norwood again, who was sitting right in front of her.

In the circle of wealthy heirs, Declan Norwood was an infamous scoundrel. Black diamond earring, skull necklace, a rakish charm, and a wild, untamable air—to top it all off, he was born with a pair of incredibly bewitching peach blossom eyes. A single glance from him could captivate half the socialites in the Capital Circle.

Four years ago, Declan Norwood had indeed caused a storm of scandalous affairs in the Capital Circle. Countless women fought viciously over him, but the man at the center of it all would only ever say one thing:

"I like novelty. I’m happy to fool around, but I won’t take responsibility."

But then, while attending the coming-of-age ceremony for Miss Celia Sterling of the Sterling Family, he fell in love at first sight with the delicate, soft-spoken, and dazzlingly beautiful girl.

Of the eight great magnate families in the Capital Circle, the Norwood Family was one, and the Sterling Family was another.

It was a match of equals.

But the current head of the Sterling Family, Kian Sterling, was famous in their circle for doting on his younger sister to an almost fanatical degree. Someone with a reputation as notorious as Declan’s would never have met with his approval.

But Declan was relentless. For an entire year, he sent a constant stream of priceless gifts to Celia while shamelessly pestering Kian Sterling. After proactively handing over several major projects to him, Declan finally got Kian to relent:

"Are you clean?"

Declan paused for a moment, then replied with a perfectly straight face, "My virtue remains intact."

Kian Sterling’s expression eased slightly. "She’s only nineteen. You can date for three years. During that time, you are not to touch her. After three years, if she is still satisfied with you, I will consider allowing you to marry her."

From that day forward, the promiscuous rake Declan Norwood became a man who abstained from all women.

To be precise, all women other than Celia Sterling.

In front of Celia, however, he was clingier than superglue.

And he’d been stuck to her side for three years.

The clingier he got, the more he couldn’t seem to leave her side.

He would even grow anxious if a single day passed without seeing her.

Celia had never imagined that this man, who had practically welded himself to her side, could have his affections shift so suddenly.

And now, this very man, rumored to have found a new love, was wearing a custom vintage rock-and-roll T-shirt. He was ingratiatingly opening one exquisite gift box after another, his voice soft and gentle.

"Babe, this is that Star of the Blue Sea you mentioned last month. It’s a collector’s piece from Aethelred’s auction house in Port Sovereign, and I managed to snag it. I also won the bid for two purple diamonds. I want to have them designed into our wedding rings. The wedding is in three months, so there should be plenty of time."

Celia gave a noncommittal hum.

Seeing she wasn’t particularly excited, Declan paused for a moment before gesturing to the other items.

"The showrooms in Port Sovereign had a lot of beautiful things this time. I bought all of these based on your preferences, babe. See if there’s anything you like."

Celia’s eyes swept over the dazzling array of luxury goods. Each one was priceless. Among them was the Star of the Blue Sea, a legendary gem in the diamond world, which had reportedly sold for 180 million Hong Kong Dollars.

’This man truly spared no expense when it came to her.’

"Shouldn’t there have been a royal necklace as well?" Celia asked impassively. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Declan was turning the two purple diamonds over in his hand, contemplating the design for their wedding rings.

At her words, he froze, an almost imperceptible hesitation.

"You mean the Holy Heart Pearl?" He let out a calm "oh." "After I won the bid, I remembered the story behind it isn’t very auspicious, so I just gave it to someone. It’s not like it was anything valuable, anyway."

A necklace with a final price of thirty million, and he spoke of it so dismissively.

If she didn’t happen to know that the companies under his control were currently facing a multitude of problems and unstable cash flow, she might have actually believed his lies.

At a time like this, forget spending thirty million on some irrelevant woman—he’d probably feel the sting of spending even three million.

Celia forwarded the screenshots from Quinn Sinclair directly to him. "The ’someone’ you mentioned... was it Summer Sutton? Holding her on your lap and fastening it around her neck yourself—is that what you call ’just giving it away’?"

Declan Norwood’s peach blossom eyes fixed on the screenshots, his expression stiffening now that the scandal he had worked so hard to suppress had been exposed.

Celia pressed on, "Or perhaps you’d like to have a wife in Port Sovereign and another in Metropia, enjoying the best of both worlds?"

This time, Declan’s answer was decisive. "Babe, don’t let your imagination run wild. You’re the only one I’ll ever marry."

"That won’t be happening," Celia said softly. "I have a thing about cleanliness; I can’t be with someone unfaithful. Declan, let’s pick a time to call off the engagement."

For a rare moment, Declan panicked. He subconsciously twisted the engagement ring on his middle finger, then quickly composed himself.

He tried to explain. "She’s really no one important. My good-for-nothing friends in Port Sovereign heard I was getting married and threw a bachelor party for me. This Miss Sutton just barged in. It was all just for show."

"Biting her neck is ’just for show’?" Celia scoffed. "Or is it that for you, it only counts as betrayal if you actually sleep with them?"

This time, Declan seemed to realize that making excuses was pointless. He paused, then humbly admitted his fault.

"I’d had a few drinks, and that woman... Sutton... she looks so much like you, babe. I don’t know what came over me, I just lost my head. But I swear, it didn’t go all the way. Babe, if you’re really upset, I’ll even kneel on a durian for you."

After saying his piece, he thoughtfully packed the glittering jewels on the table back into their boxes and pushed them in front of her. His tone shifted, now a mix of pleading and pressure.

"As for calling off the engagement, let’s not even talk about it. Babe, you know that several major projects are dependent on the union between our families. If we suddenly call it off, those projects will stall, and the losses for both families will be incalculable."

’He wasn’t wrong. In marriages between powerful families, the business interests at stake were too immense. The actual feelings of the couple involved were the least important factor in the alliance.’

’Calling off the engagement was going to be incredibly difficult.’