Chapter 1

I ended the call as soon as I agreed to the arranged marriage Dad had set up for me and stared blankly at my phone.

It had been seven hours since I sent the message, yet Clara Cooper, my girlfriend, still hadn't responded. In the past, even when she was mad at me and refused to speak to me, she had never gone more than three hours without responding to my messages.

I wouldn't have thought much of it if Clara had simply become more distant with me, but I happened to pick up Clara's phone yesterday and noticed that her chat with Thomas Zimmerman, her assistant, was pinned to the top.

She replied to him so quickly that there was barely any time gap between his messages and her responses. She was clearly responding to him the second he sent the message.

Just as I thought about this, I instinctively scrolled through the messages Thomas had sent to provoke me earlier, with one of them being a message Clara had sent him.

"Those nine years I spent with Hunter were nine years he stole from you! You're the only one I want to marry! We're clearly childhood sweethearts, Thomas! How could I possibly love Hunter? You can rest assured that you're the only one I'm going to marry, Thomas!"

I had been with Clara for nine years—four years studying at college, then five years getting her company off the ground. She had never once brought up marriage during that period. I used to throw fits and start arguments over it in the past.

She initially said, "I'm still trying to establish myself in my career, so getting married and having a family now would only hold me back. Why can't you just try to understand where I'm coming from, Hunter?"

Yet, when things got better, she changed her tune. "Is getting married really that important to you? Why are you so concerned with something so superficial, Hunter?"

It turned out that, regardless of how her career was going, I had never been the person she intended to marry.

I heard the lock turn at the front door. Clara came in, walked right past me without even looking my way, and went straight to the bathroom.

I glanced at the date on my phone and realized our ninth anniversary was coming up. Clara had always been attentive whenever my birthday or our anniversary was near, especially when we first started dating. She would tiptoe around the subject and ask what I liked or if there was anything I needed.

She gave me a fountain pen engraved with my name, a game console I had wanted for a long time, a watch too expensive for me to buy myself, and many more. Every gift she had given me back then had been something she had chosen with care.

Yet, as time went on, Clara remembering the date at all became something to be grateful for. Her gifts became increasingly perfunctory. She would give me a gift set for my birthday and another for our anniversary.

I had once opened the gift set and caught the look of surprise on her face. I figured she had no idea what was packed in the gift set.

I thought back on everything that had happened, finding the whole thing ridiculous and pathetic. I felt ridiculous for expecting anything from this relationship and pathetic for giving it my all.

It didn't matter anymore, though, as there were only 15 days left of our nine-year relationship.

It was 11:00 pm by the time I washed up and got ready for bed.

Clara was already lying in bed when her phone rang. She immediately got up and went out onto the balcony to answer the call. She came back a few minutes later and said, "I have to go on a business trip since something suddenly came up at work."

She couldn't even bring herself to look me in the eye when she said that.

I merely hummed in assent, lowered my gaze to my book, and asked, "Are you going to be back by the 18th then?"

"You mean the day after tomorrow?" Clara froze briefly, then seemed to realize what I meant. She came closer and said, "I'll definitely be back on the 18th. It's our ninth anniversary, after all. How could I possibly forget that?"

"Alright," I said with a faint smile. I had no intention of celebrating the anniversary with her. I just wanted to break up with her on that day and put an end to these nine years together.

Clara left at 12:00 am, just as the date changed to a new one on my phone. There were exactly 14 days left before I returned home for my arranged marriage.

Thus, the days went by, and the 18th soon arrived.

I heard nothing from Clara. I saw Thomas' travel vlog instead. I noticed a slender, graceful figure walking past in the background while he flashed an arrogant grin at the camera. I recognized at a glance that it was Clara. She was actually wearing the dress I bought her for our eighth anniversary last year.