Chapter 2

After a long silence,

Gu Zeyan reached out.

His fingertip brushed the corner of my eye.

“You’re starting to get fine lines when you smile.”

Fine lines around my eyes?

That was perfectly normal.

I told him,

“I’m thirty-two.”

Actually, once I turned thirty, I’d begun to accept that aging was part of life.

Gu Zeyan, apparently, hadn’t.

He rubbed his fingertip hard over the skin.

Then he withdrew his hand.

“It doesn’t look good. You ought to get some treatments.”

With that, he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

We’d always shared a bed without sharing our dreams.

Today, though, something was different.

When I woke again, the space beside me was empty.

Gu Zeyan had left a message with the butler.

“Madam, Mr. Gu is busy. He won’t be home for the next few days.”

Gu Zeyan wasn’t coming home.

I heard he’d taken a young intern to Hawaii on a business trip.

Something had upset the girl there, and she’d flown home by herself.

Gu Zeyan abandoned a major contract.

He chased her back to China.

Everyone was talking about it.

Even someone like me, trapped in a villa most of the time and almost cut off from the world, heard the news.

The housekeeper worried on my behalf.

After all, Gu Zeyan’s feelings had changed so quickly.

All that love had poured out like a flood breaking through a dam.

It left nothing but a ravaged wasteland behind.

The housekeeper said,

“Madam, you have to hold on to Mr. Gu’s heart.”

How was I supposed to do that?

I was no longer young and beautiful.

Not the way I’d been at twenty-five.

Back then, Gu Zeyan’s sister had fallen in love with my boyfriend, Song Yu.

Gu Zeyan doted on his sister. When he came to deal with her romantic rival, he’d intended to buy me off.

Instead, by some bizarre twist, he fell in love with me at first sight.

After that first meeting, Gu Zeyan took the same path as his sister: forcing his way in and taking what he wanted.

Gu Zeyan took me for himself.

His sister got my boyfriend, Song Yu.

The two of them hit it off at once.

Looking back now, though, the man certainly got the better deal.

Gu Zeyan’s sister was still passionately in love with Song Yu. She’d even used her position to give his business talents room to flourish.

And I, who’d always outperformed Song Yu in school and in ability, was trapped here, dependent on someone else’s whims.

Once he stopped loving me, he could simply kick me aside.

I touched the corner of my eye and said,

“But I’ve got fine lines here.”

Time had carved them with such cruelty.

The housekeeper said nothing more.

She knew my rival was a twenty-two-year-old girl with a face still full of youthful plumpness.

Gu Zeyan hadn’t come back to this villa for half a month.

I heard he was madly in love.

For the girl, he’d made an exception and hired a graduate of an ordinary university.

For the girl, he’d interrupted a major company meeting.

For the girl, he’d bought a villa as large as mine and said he wanted to hide her away in it.

Gu Zeyan’s love was always so ostentatious, so predictable.

I’d seen it all before.

He’d given it to me.

Now he was giving every bit of it to someone else.

I had been a little luckier, though.

Gu Zeyan had been younger then, and I hadn’t had to be a mistress.

Only a little luckier.

Being discarded still seemed inevitable.

I’d prepared myself.

Instead, Gu Xingwan, who’d once found fault with everything about me, came over.

She stopped Gu Zeyan as he was about to leave after picking up a few things.

Gu Xingwan’s eyes brimmed with tears.

She looked heartbreakingly fragile as she cried.

“Don’t go. If you get divorced, what are Song Yu and I supposed to do?”

Gu Zeyan wasn’t a good husband, but he was certainly a good brother.

He soothed Gu Xingwan gently.

“Don’t worry. Xu Wen isn’t young anymore.”

Gu Xingwan didn’t understand. She kept crying.

Gu Zeyan patiently reassured her.

“Xu Wen has nothing. All she ever had going for her was her face.

“Now even that’s gone downhill.

“Xingwan, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Besides, you and Song Yu have been married for eight years. Hasn’t he always doted on you? It’s time you let the past go.”

Gu Xingwan was still sniffling.

“But I took Song Yu from Xu Wen. I’m scared they’re still hung up on each other…”

Gu Zeyan reached out and wiped away her tears.

“I dealt with it for you once. I can deal with it again.”

His voice was firm.

It would have been lovely if those words hadn’t been aimed at me.

As for Song Yu…

Perhaps he’d loved me once.

We’d grown up together. Childhood sweethearts.

But Gu Xingwan’s love was too domineering for him to withstand.

When Song Yu rejected her, she sent people to warn him.

They beat him, and he still refused.

He held me then, drawing in sharp breaths from the pain.

But he fought back his tears.

“Ah Wen, trust me. I won’t let go.”

He meant it when he said it.

But Gu Xingwan soon found another weakness.

The Song family’s small company was crushed until it teetered on the brink.

Uncle Song, overwhelmed by anxiety and anger, collapsed and was rushed to hospital.

Song Yu chose to give in.

He walked toward Gu Xingwan’s flashy red sports car.

He didn’t look back.

“Xu Wen, I’ve failed you.

“But with their power pressing down on us, neither of us has a choice.

“We’d better not see each other again.”

The wind scattered his words.

And with them, all the promises we’d made over the years.