Chapter 1

Chapter 1

After the wedding banquet, Lu Yuzhi and I returned to our spacious apartment in the city center.

The moment I stepped inside, I kicked off my J-brand wedding shoes and collapsed onto the sofa, my feet aching.

“So this is marriage-endless toasts, smiling until your face goes stiff, and using up an entire year’s worth of social energy in one day.” I rubbed my swollen cheeks and complained through numb lips. “I am never getting married a second time. That was exhausting!”

I was so absorbed in grumbling that I forgot myself.

A quiet laugh pulled me back to reality.

For a moment, I could not decide whether to be more shocked that Lu Yuzhi-the man with the eternal ice-cold face-had laughed, or worried that I had acted far too familiar with him.

I stole a glance his way. He had just picked up the shoes I had sent flying in opposite directions and placed them neatly in the cabinet.

He had taken off his suit jacket, revealing a black waistcoat beneath. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, and when he bent and reached forward, the white shirt pulled tight over his muscles.

Magnificent.

There was no love between Lu Yuzhi and me, but there was a secret crush.

Mine. Entirely one-sided.

We had attended the international division of the same high school, though he was a year ahead of me.

He was exceptional-handsome, brilliant, and from a family whose standing needed no explanation.

He was also flawless in dealing with people, provided they never tried to get too close.

His manners were impeccable, but someone raised from childhood to be an heir naturally weighed every advantage and treated relationships as exchanges of value.

Anyone who tried to know him better would discover the distance built into him.

Even when he smiled warmly, reason and restraint always lay beneath it.

Our families had been close for generations, so when I entered high school, he took good care of me.

Study materials, club activities, overseas university applications-he guided me through every detail.

Whenever I complained that the IB curriculum was too difficult, for example, he would send me every set of notes he had compiled for himself.

At sixteen, I fell as naturally as breathing, drowning in his gentleness and consideration.

I had been a moth flying toward a flame from the start.

The confession letter I gathered all my courage to write vanished without a trace. It did not make so much as a ripple.

Soon afterward, he left for Stanford.

I heard that he had grown close to a girl from the domestic track at our high school. She was remarkable too-she won a full scholarship and went to the same university as him.

During the summer after my second year, I once saw him walking down the street with a girl whose hand was hooked around his arm.

I was sitting in a car. Their figures slid rapidly backward and disappeared in an instant.

By the time I rolled down the window and looked back, all I could see were their backs.

Back then, I had neither the right nor the standing to ask, much less the courage.

Now we were married. I had the right, the standing, and even the courage-but I no longer wanted to ask.

Lu Yuzhi had dazzled me in the springtime of my youth. Everyone who came after him was merely ordinary.

I went to Britain and did not apply to a single university in America.

An instinctive retreat.

It was as if loving Lu Yuzhi had exhausted everything in me. I shrank my heart into a tiny shell and sealed it shut.

With the “ex-boyfriends” who came later, my policy was simple: as long as no boundaries were crossed, I neither pursued nor refused nor took responsibility.

None of them could compare with Lu Yuzhi anyway. If one made me unhappy, I replaced him.

I did not even remember their names.

“I’m done. You can shower now.”

Lu Yuzhi’s voice drew me out of my memories.

Maybe it was because he had just showered and damp strands of hair rested carelessly across his forehead, but for one absurd moment, I thought his eyes looked impossibly soft when he gazed at me.

It had to be my imagination.

The thought of sharing a bed with him made me dawdle in the bathroom, as though wasting enough time could fast-forward me through the night.

I lingered until Lu Yuzhi thought something had happened and knocked on the door. Only then did I accept there was no escape.

Gritting my teeth, I dressed, rushed to his side, lay down, and pulled the blanket over my head.

The next second, he dug me back out.

“How can you sleep with your hair still wet?”

As he spoke, Lu Yuzhi picked up his towel and began drying my hair.

Before I had recovered from my surprise, the hum of a hair dryer filled my ears.

His movements were gentle and meticulous.

So gentle.

My hair was long and troublesome to dry, yet he showed no trace of impatience.

Perhaps the dryer was too warm. The tips of my ears began to burn.

The air felt charged, and my heart pounded wildly.

His distinctive scent embraced me from behind, carrying the warmth of his body.

For no reason at all, I felt safe.

We used the same shampoo and body wash, and he was still half an arm’s length away.