Chapter 3

After saying that, he extended his arm around my waist and pulled me into his embrace.

The gesture made Sean raise his brows in surprise. He secretly gave Ethan a thumbs-up, quietly applauding him for his good acting. Then, he took Anita's hand and went to pick out a wedding dress.

"Aren't you going to introduce us?" I spoke suddenly, my eyes lingering on Anita's makeup-free face, which already looked about sixty percent like mine.

In the past, whenever I worked as a surrogate girlfriend for a client, I had to deliberately copy the other woman just to look even thirty percent similar. However, Anita and I looked so much alike without any makeup at all.

No wonder Sean had gone so far to pursue me.

Sean lowered his head and smiled, his roguish charm surrounding him. I used to love him most when he looked like this, but now, I only found it disgusting. "A very dear old friend."

Anita met my gaze without the slightest hesitation and corrected him. "His girlfriend."

The word clearly threw Sean into a brief panic as he quickly urged, "Go try on the dresses. Stop chatting already."

I clenched my fist and walked into the fitting room, using the pain to hold back my emotions.

Suddenly, a shadow fell over me, and my clenched hand was warmed by someone holding it.

"Don't make yourself sick with anger," Ethan said as he held out his hand. "Pinch me instead."

When he saw I was not interested, he slowly pried my hand open and gently held mine. Then, he held his phone out to me. "Sean sent me a message. Do you want to see it?"

I looked up somewhat impatiently. "You're letting a mere surrogate look at your phone?"

"Yeah," He said with a nod, his voice very soft. "You can look through it whenever you want. As much as you want."

"Enough!" I shook him off, my eyes cold. "How long are you rich people going to keep playing these games? When the woman you loved died, your first thought wasn't to stay loyal to her. It was to spend money on a stand-in. After you find one, you put her on a pedestal when you're happy, then throw her into the bin once you get bored."

Despite being six-foot-three-inches, Ethan kept his head lowered while I scolded him, making it look as if I were the one bullying him.

When I finally paused to take a breather, Ethan carefully hooked his finger around my pinky. "Do you feel a little less angry now?"

He held his phone out to me again. "I didn't lie to you. All the passwords are your birthday. You can even look at my browser history."

I felt how ridiculous everything was. As if possessed, I took the phone and entered the password, and… it really was my actual birthday. Because of a staff error, my official birthday was listed two months early on official records.

Even Sean did not know that.

Suspicious, I opened the chat records and scrolled through them as I asked, "You contacted Sean first?"

At first, Sean had been asking another friend in the group chat to take me. It was Ethan who had messaged Sean privately first: [Alex has no boundaries. Let Blossom stay with me.]

Scrolling further, I saw the messages Sean had just sent: [Help me cover up the girlfriend thing and keep Blossom calm.]

[Anita is already married overseas. If I can't marry Blossom, who looks so much like her, I'll lose my mind!]

Lose his mind?

I found it laughable.

Trying to make up for his romantic regrets with a married woman… It would probably make her husband lose his mind instead.

I exited the chat and returned the phone to Ethan, and I asked, "Your best friend asked you to cover for him, and you sold him out just like that?"

Or was this another coordinated game among the nepobabies?

"Don't worry. I won't ruin Sean's fun, and I won't become devoted to you just because of this little show of goodwill," I said.

Ethan was calmer than I had imagined. First, he screen-recorded the chat and sent me a copy. Then, he opened his photo album and Anita's social media, comparing them and showing me things that mattered.

He then said, "This is Anita's marriage certificate. These are her wedding photos. Her husband has been trying to have a baby with her this entire year."

I frowned, finding the whole thing peculiar. I then cut Ethan off directly and asked, "What exactly are you trying to do by showing and telling me all this? Do you just want to gossip?"

But no matter how I looked at him, Ethan did not seem like someone who liked digging up dirt on someone else.

"I just don't want you to be this upset," Ethan said. But how could such a simple answer come from Ethan?

Using my birthday as his password, giving me open access to his phone, and showing me his chat records with his best friend...

Every move he made made me frown deeper, confused. I asked, "Why exactly? These things should be shown to the woman you love, not me. I'm just the stand-in!"