Chapter 1

The screen went dark, and the crowd squeezed around me as everyone walked out.

Since I could not spot my father, who was supposed to pick me up, I called him.

“Hello, Jackie? Ah, I’m so forgetful! Your brother said he wanted lamb this morning, so I went to the grocery store. I forgot to pick you up.”

He kept apologizing. “Sorry, sweetie. You should call a cab.”

I did not want to be petty about this, so I agreed.

In any case, this was not the first time this sort of thing had happened.

I got into a cab and told the driver my address.

The driver was really enthusiastic. “Oh, hey, that’s the city’s best neighborhood. It has the best mansions. They cost so much when sales started.”

I chuckled. “Yes, they’re quite expensive.”

A mansion in that neighborhood cost 3 million for about 2,200 square feet.

After paying a down payment of 2 million, the monthly payments were about $20,000.

The cost had decimated all my savings from working in the bigger city of Savidad. Not only that, I was left scrambling every month to repay the housing loan.

The price of air tickets had gone up by $100, and I could not bear to pay so much. I ended up having to take a five-hour train just to get back to my hometown.

As I rubbed my numb legs, my phone rang. It was a text from my mother.

[I’m not home right now. Go to the hotel. I’ll see you there. The house hasn’t been cleaned up, so you should stay in a hotel.]

I typed out a reply. [I know the door codes and can get inside myself. I brought some gifts, so I’ll bring them over.]

I suddenly recalled a post I had seen online.

I deleted the message I had typed out and found the post again.

‘Thirty and unmarried…’ I thought.

It was the same circumstance I was in.

However, I only went home once a year, so that did not match the details of the post.

When I came home last year, it was hot, and I was thirsty, so I went to the fridge to get some lemonade.

When my sister-in-law, Naomi Carmichael, got home and noticed this, she immediately shot me a dirty look.

During dinner, she kept making pointed remarks.

“Young ladies should be more careful about their diets. What if your future husband can't support you?

“We’re in a small city, and it’s harder to make money here than it is for you in Savidad. Prices here are high, so it’s hard to make a living.

“Jackie, you take such good care of yourself. You must spend a lot every month, right?”

The whole thing irked me, so I went out and bought a dozen huge bottles of lemonade to shut her up.

It was that detail that kept replaying in my head and made it impossible for me to overlook that post.

One of the comments read, [Who bought the house? If it was the man, the sister-in-law has every right to stay at home.]

The poster replied in anger, [This is our house. She will get married one day, and then she will be considered part of another family. What right does she have to stay here?]

I let out a relieved breath. I was the one who paid for everything when it came to the house. I had paid every cent from the down payment to the loan repayments.

I bought it to give it to my parents so that they would have a nicer place to live.

I planned to return home and settle down in two years. When the time came, we could all live together.