Chapter 1

"The contract's up. Here's the access card and the car keys." I set the two items side by side on the cold marble coffee table, and they clinked sharply.

On the sofa, Lorraine didn't even look up at me. Her eyes stayed on the English document for her cross-border merger, and she only let out a faint "mm" through her nose.

"I've moved all my things out. Just one suitcase," I said.

She finally turned a page, her tone perfectly flat. "Noted. The final payment's already been sent to your card. We're square—goods delivered, money paid."

Those words—goods delivered, money paid—were like four cold needles driven into my eardrums.

I turned around, dragged the old suitcase that had been with me for three years, and walked toward the door. No goodbye, no looking back.

The moment the door closed, I took out my phone, found the contact labeled "Landlord," pressed and held it, chose "Delete Contact," and in the confirmation box that popped up I tapped "Delete" without a second's hesitation, then went ahead and switched on "Add to Blocklist."

All in one smooth motion.

Goodbye, Lorraine. Goodbye to these three years I sold off.

01.

Three days later, I got back to my old home in the countryside.

When I pushed open that creaking wooden door, what greeted me wasn't my mother's warm hug but a solid kick to my shin.

"You rotten little wretch! Whose girl did you do wrong by? She's chased all the way to our house!" Mom stood with her hands on her hips, her face full of fury, her voice loud enough to rattle the tiles off the roof.

The kick sent me stumbling, my head buzzing, and I had no idea what was going on.

Whose girl had I wronged?

For three years I'd played Lorraine's "husband," living like a glorified housekeeper. Forget a girl—I hadn't so much as taken a second look at a female mosquito.

Three years ago, my father's leg was crushed when a falling steel bar hit him at a construction site, and it developed a serious infection. He urgently needed three hundred thousand for surgery. For a family like ours, which couldn't even scrape together thirty thousand, that was an astronomical sum.

I ran to every relative we had, but everything I managed to borrow didn't even cover a fraction of it. All I got were sighs and averted eyes.

Just when I was out of options and about to sign that extremely risky clinical drug trial agreement, Lorraine found me.

At the time, she'd just taken over the family business and her position was shaky. She needed a "married" status to fend off the union her family had arranged, and she needed a clean, obedient "husband" to shut up those old men on the board of directors.

Our agreement was simple. I'd play her husband for three years, live in her villa, and accompany her to all the necessary family and business occasions. In return, she would cover all of my father's medical expenses, and once the three-year agreement was up, she'd give me another five hundred thousand as compensation.

The agreement had one clause in bold: Party B (myself, Colin Harding) shall not develop any feelings toward Party A (Lorraine Fox) beyond those stipulated in the contract, nor interfere with any part of Party A's private life.

I signed. I traded three years of my youth for my father's health.

For those three years, I did my job faithfully.

Her four-hundred-square-meter villa was always kept spotless by me. She had a thing about cleanliness and didn't like outsiders, so all the housework fell to me. From wiping every crystal drop on the chandelier to ironing her hundreds of shirts in all their different fabrics, I did it more carefully than any housekeeper would have.

Her stomach was bad, and it always ached after she drank at business functions. I taught myself to make all sorts of gentle healing broths, so no matter how late she came home, there was always a bowl of hot soup waiting in the thermal pot in the kitchen.

When she had to attend business dinners, I was her most presentable escort, taking her drinks for her, handling those slimy business partners on her behalf, smiling as I accepted everyone scrutinizing and sizing up her "husband"—even when those looks were full of contempt, calling me a pretty-boy kept man living off a woman.

Once, the wife of Mr. Lambert, a major partner of the company, heard some gossip somewhere and pointed right at my face and cursed me in public at a cocktail party, saying I was a worthless man who'd gotten ahead by leaning on a woman.

Lorraine just frowned at the time, feeling I'd cost her face.

It was me who took a wine glass, walked up to Mrs. Lambert calm and unbowed, and said with a smile, "Mrs. Lambert, my wife's ability is plain for the whole industry to see. Her success is her own doing, not anyone else's. As for me, it's my honor to be the man behind her. Let me toast you—to my wife having such an excellent partner as your husband."

Those few words protected Lorraine's face and flattered Mr. Lambert at the same time, and the whole disturbance quietly dissolved.

Afterward, Lorraine only said flatly, "Sharp enough."

No praise, no thanks.

She took everything I gave for granted, because it was part of the agreement. I was a commodity with a price tag on it.

Once, I had a bad cold with a fever of thirty-nine degrees, and lay weak and drained in the little room on the second floor of the villa. I texted her to say I probably wouldn't be able to make dinner.

She replied with just two words: Order in.

That night, listening to her and her younger brother Clifford laughing cheerfully over dinner downstairs, smelling the pizza takeout, wrapped up in my blanket, I felt that four-hundred-square-meter mansion was as cold as an icehouse.

I never longed for her feelings; I was only carrying out a contract.

But a human heart isn't a machine. Even the coldest stone, held for three years, should have picked up a little warmth. But Lorra—