Honestly, I think the portrayal is a bit of a mixed bag, but that's what kept me reading. Initially, the protagonist, Eliza, seems like every other contract bride trope—naive, pushed around, defined entirely by the domineering CEO's whims. Her growth isn't a straight line; it's messy and sometimes frustrating. She makes stupid mistakes, trusts the wrong people, and her backbone takes a while to solidify. That felt real to me, more real than some instant-badass transformation.
What I found compelling was how her 'growth' is actually a process of unlearning. She stops seeing herself as just a substitute, a placeholder, and starts claiming the life she's accidentally built. It's less about becoming a corporate shark to match the CEO and more about discovering her own worth independent of him. The moment that clinched it for me was when she finally told him off not with a grand speech, but by quietly starting her own design business using skills he'd overlooked. The power shift was subtle but total.