Chapter 1

My hand trembled, and the phone slipped onto the bed.

My boyfriend, Matteo Hogan, didn't wake, but he instinctively shifted closer to me and mumbled my name in his sleep, "Leah…"

If this had been the old me, I might have thought he loved me to pieces.

But now, it just felt incredibly absurd.

I knew exactly who this childhood friend of his was. It was Sierra Cline, who was now with Tatum Smith, a senior from my college.

I had met Sierra before, and Matteo had mentioned her to me as well. He only told me they were very good friends.

As for Tatum, he had confessed to me once back in college, but I barely knew him, so I turned him down.

When I later found out Sierra and Tatum had gotten together, I thought it was just a coincidence and genuinely wished them the best.

Only now did I realize it wasn't fate at all. It was a game Matteo had meticulously rigged, and I was nothing more than an irrelevant NPC.

Taking a deep breath, I kept scrolling through the post, which documented his unrequited love for Sierra.

"I've loved her since I was ten, but she never had eyes for me. Of course it killed me to see her with someone else, but I couldn't bear to see her heartbroken either, so I chose to step back.

"When she got rejected and locked herself in her room crying for three days, I was so full of rage. I hated that she didn't love me, and I hated that someone could just reject a woman that perfect.

"But most of all, I hated my current girlfriend. Who was she to just effortlessly take away everything my beloved wanted? So I decided to help her out. I'd date my current girlfriend, and then dump her after a year."

Everything clicked. I finally understood why Matteo's eyes always held those strange, unreadable emotions whenever he looked at me.

Yet he had been so good to me—so perfect that I never had any reason to doubt him.

Our one-year anniversary was just a week away, and I had been happily planning how to celebrate the milestone.

I had wanted to surprise him, thinking it would make him happy.

I never could have imagined that our entire relationship was a total sham, driven entirely by revenge.

The comments section was in an uproar.

"Have some shame. How do you even post this with a straight face?"

"What did your girlfriend do to deserve a scumbag like you? Let her go."

But a few people saw it differently.

"He didn't cheat, and he treats her well. How does that make him a scumbag?"

"Am I the only one wondering why he couldn't get the childhood friend after years but locked down the girlfriend instantly?"

Matteo had replied to that one, "When you love someone, you walk on eggshells. You're terrified of saying the wrong thing, and you'd never risk hurting them.

"But with my girlfriend, it was just a game of calculating affection points and using a few tactics. Naturally, it was easy. If anyone's curious, I can share the methods I used."

The comments, of course, begged for details.

So Matteo replied below, "It's simple. Figure out what she needs most.

"I did my homework before making a move. My girlfriend grew up in a single-parent home, struggled financially, and was deeply insecure.

"She had plenty of guys pursuing her in college, but most of them acted superior because of her background, so they could never actually get close to her. But I showed up in the place she was most familiar with, so of course she would let her guard down."