Chapter 1

I said nothing for a long time. Only after a long silence did I manage to speak.

“In five days, I’ll return to Harbor City to marry you.”

My childhood friend, Olivia Sullivan, raised her tone in a way that made her smugness on the other end of the line easy to imagine. “It’s a deal.”

After hanging up, my gaze lingered on Autumn Hill’s wedding gown video. The two people in the frame were kissing passionately. It was almost as if the man she had gotten engaged to yesterday was the one in the video, not me.

Right at that moment, Autumn called. When I answered, her voice sounded uneven and breathy. Mixed with her voice was the heavy panting of a man.

“The wedding… dress video… turned out great. This time… you don’t need to bother covering it up for me.”

With that, the call was abruptly cut off.

My hand dropped listlessly to my side. We had been in love for five years, yet in the end, the only person trapped by it was myself.

Autumn and I first met at a university charity fair. I was selling my paintings, and she mistakenly thought I was an impoverished student and wanted to sponsor me.

When I turned down her financial support, she tilted her head with a smile and said, “Then I’ll buy all your paintings.”

Afterward, Autumn often came on campus to look for me just to buy my artwork. I really was strapped for cash back then. Having run away after a falling out with my family, I was completely penniless.

To protect my pride, Autumn quietly tripled my hourly wage at the place where I worked part-time. She also slipped a brand-new cafeteria card under my desk.

I never found out exactly how much money she loaded onto that card. All I knew was that whenever I ate, I no longer had to worry about whether meat dishes would cost a few extra bucks.

When a gang of thugs cornered me, she showed up with her private security.

Shielding me behind her, she said, “He’s under my protection. Try taking another step forward.”

Realizing they had crossed someone they couldn’t afford to mess with, the thugs fled in panic.

Autumn bent down, and using her handkerchief, she tenderly brushed my injuries and asked, “Does it hurt?”

I stared at her blankly, completely entranced. “Why are you so nice to me? Autumn, what do you want from me?”

Her eyes were glistening as she smiled. “I want you, Mark.”

My ears flushed instantly. Long before my heart admitted it, my body had already betrayed my secret affection for her.

After that day, we became a couple. As soon as we graduated from college, Autumn brought me into her company as an intern. She taught me the ropes on how to manage the business and entrusted me with important work.

Even when I ran a high fever and was delirious from exhaustion, Autumn stayed by my side all night, swapping cold towels to bring my temperature down. When I opened my eyes in a daze, I saw her eyes filled with tears because she was worried for me. Back then, I truly thought I had found true love.

The reason I had run away from home in the first place was that I refused an arranged marriage. Even though I was an only child, my father cared far more about my commercial value. He flew into a rage and told me I was kicked out of the family if I didn’t marry Olivia.

Caught between my father and me, Olivia proposed a bet to ease our father-son tension. “Mark, I’ll give you five years. If you can find true love within the next five years, our engagement will be canceled. Otherwise, you’ll come back and be with me.”

When I left, I was confident that even without my status as the heir of Harbor City’s wealthiest family, I could still find true love, and I thought I had found it.

As I smoothed the stray strands of hair by Autumn’s ear, I made a silent vow that I would marry her and bring her back to Harbor City. I wanted my father to acknowledge her existence and give her the grandest, most glorious wedding in the world.

To make that day come sooner, I poured all my energy into expanding and strengthening her company, all so my father would place fewer obstacles in her way. However, I never thought that Autumn would cheat on me.