Chapter 1

Xavier Delgado has Asperger's.

He doesn't know how to love someone.

Six years together, and I got used to his coldness, his indifference.

Until I saw a file on his computer.

The file was called "Beloved List."

I opened it, and it was packed with Cicely Butler's name, line after line.

Send Cicely abroad to study.

Buy Cicely a house.

Video-call Cicely every night.

……

Each item got a checkmark once it was done.

One line was highlighted in yellow: No matter what happens, Cicely comes first.

I sat there a long time, until my eyes burned, before I closed the computer.

So it wasn't that he didn't understand love.

His love just never stirred for me.

By morning, I'd sent my mentor a reply.

【Professor, I'm willing to join the "Nine Heavens" project.】

Professor Whitmore: 【Joining the team means erasing your identity, and no contact with the outside world for five years. If you've made up your mind, I'll submit the application today.】

He confirmed it once more: 【You really don't want your boyfriend anymore?】

No. I don't.

Six years. Even a stone would've warmed up by now.

I'm just done. I can't love anymore.

1

At four in the morning, I got a call from Leslie Mann, Xavier's best friend.

"Ma'am, you'd better get down to the police station. Something happened to Xavier."

I took off my glasses and rubbed the space between my brows, worn out. "Half an hour."

I spent three minutes clearing the research papers off my desk, then went back to the bedroom to change into something to go out in.

On the other end, Leslie kept pushing. "Hurry, please! When Xavier loses it, you're the only one who can hold him back."

Irritated, I tossed the phone aside.

Before Cicely came back to the country, I never could have put the word "losing it" together with Xavier, because Xavier was calm and rational to a frightening degree.

I zoned out while cutting vegetables once and nearly took off half my palm. Xavier saw my white face and the blood all over the floor, and not a flicker crossed his expression. He called 911 for me and turned back into his room.

I got off work late one night and was too scared to go home alone, so I called and asked if he could come get me. Before I even finished, he cut me off, his voice cold. "Quinn Chandler, you're an adult. You should be capable of solving your own problems."

Then a homeless man followed me. I got help in time, but it left a deep mark on me. For a while I was afraid of the dark and couldn't walk anywhere at night.

When my father had a sudden heart attack and was rushed to the hospital, I begged Xavier to pull some strings, to get a specialist for my dad. He looked at me the way you'd look at a child who doesn't understand how the world works. "Quinn, everyone's life and death is fixed. There's no point forcing it. If they can't save your father, then it was simply his time."

That was also the fiercest fight we'd had in our whole relationship.

I smashed the figures he'd spent years collecting and stood in the wreckage, calling him cold-blooded and heartless.

His face went grim, but he never lost control. He bent down to pick up the broken pieces and said only four words to me.

Completely unreasonable.

Something jammed up hard in my chest, and in a burst of fury I screamed at him. "Xavier, we're through! I want to break up! You're just a robot with no feelings. You don't care about me, and you don't care about my family."

Maybe the word "break up" struck a nerve.

He stared at me a long time, expressionless, then his thin lips parted. "Suit yourself."

That same night I packed up and moved out.

The next afternoon, my dad was out of danger.

Louisa Delgado brought Xavier to the hospital to apologize to me.

She slapped him twice, right in front of me. "Xavier, Quinn is the person you're meant to spend your whole life with. How could you treat her like this!"

The clear marks of her fingers rose on his cheek, and the corner of his mouth split and beaded with blood.

He kept his lashes lowered, his face still blank.

"I'm sorry, Quinn."

Louisa held my hand and said every kind thing she could.

"Quinn, Xavier's been like this since he was a boy."

"It's not that he doesn't love you. He's just sick."

My mother urged me too.

"Mom can tell Xavier has you in his heart. Your dad likes him as a son-in-law too. Give him one more chance, and just talk through whatever the misunderstanding is."

I lost my head, and gave a small, faint nod.