Chapter 1

Everyone was waiting for Tristan to propose to me—his deaf first love—with that rare pink diamond.

He had rehearsed the proposal hundreds of times. The entire world was convinced we would end up together.

But a sudden earthquake hit, and I vanished, losing all contact.

By the time I crawled my way back to survive, he had completely forgotten about me.

For his stepmother’s daughter, he smashed the cake I spent all day baking. For her, he went crazy and cried.

"Listen, Sera. I don’t care how much I loved you before. Right now, Melanie is my only girlfriend."

Heartbroken and exhausted, I decided to let go.

Yet, when I finally walked away, the cold, ruthless man knelt on the wet sand, grabbing my hand, begging.

"Don’t leave me, Sera. Without you, I’ll die."

My eyes held nothing but icy indifference. I let out a cold laugh.

"The moment you chose to abandon me, Tristan, you were already dead in my heart."

On Tristan’s birthday, he invited his friends to a private VIP club at the mountain peak.

By the time I arrived, there were no seats left.

One of his friends led me over to him. "Hey Tristan, where should Sera sit?"

Tristan glanced at me as I stood outside his luxury car.

He spoke carelessly.

"Let the deaf girl squeeze in with you guys. I have to go pick up Melanie."

"But man, we’re all driving convertibles and we’ve all got girls. She can’t sit on our laps."

Tristan scoffed, irritation in his voice. "Then let her sit on your laps!"

Without another glance at me, he slammed the gas pedal of his silver Bugatti, leaving me in a cloud of dust.

Recalling the lip-reading of that conversation, my lips curved into a bitter smile.

They didn’t know I could read lips perfectly.

I didn’t know how long it took before I finally pushed the doors open to enter the club. The first thing I saw was Tristan gently wiping tears from Melanie’s face.

"Don’t cry, Melanie. No one is going to drive you away from me. You’re the one who saved my life."

"I won’t believe a word they say."

When Tristan spotted me, his eyes instantly narrowed into a harsh glare.

He had clearly had too much to drink, his face flushed red with alcohol.

I quietly retreated to a corner, pulling out a hangover cure from my bag, waiting. Because of my hearing loss, the world was blissfully quiet.

The old Tristan used to hate places like this. He used to love curling up in a quiet corner with me, reading books, avoiding the loud crowds.

Someone nudged me forward.

"Sera," Tristan called out.

I held out my hand to give him the medicine, but he suddenly grabbed my wrist and pulled me close.

"Where is your hearing aid?"

His hand brushed against the device hanging behind my ear.

Understanding his silent demand, I quickly put it on. The very next second, Tristan grabbed the back of my neck and slammed my face straight into the customized birthday cake on the table.

The waiter gasped. The entire room fell dead silent.

The cake was beautiful. I had spent a whole day learning from a pastry chef just to make it for him.

"Aside from playing the victim and clinging to me like a pathetic beggar, what else can you do? Did you think making this stupid cake would make me love you again?"

"Keep dreaming."

The greasy frosting made it hard to breathe. After a sharp, painful buzz in my ears, the whispers and mocking laughter of the crowd flooded in.

Melanie had started crying earlier because someone whispered she had stolen her sister’s man.

But it was the truth. She had taken advantage of Tristan’s amnesia to steal my place.

My heart went cold. "I was the one who saved you, Tristan! Not her!"

On the day of the earthquake, despite being severely injured and facing constant aftershocks, I dug through the ruins with my bare hands for a day and a night to pull him out. I stayed by his side without food or water until I passed out.

While I was unconscious, Vivian's daughter discovered Tristan had amnesia. She forged evidence to make herself the hero, and everyone in her family helped her spin the lie.

"Is it fun to lie like this? Tristan, you were abroad when it happened. How could you have saved me?"

"They fabricated everything to trick you. You can look up the records, Tristan! Don't believe her!"

Tristan sneered. "You are completely insane."

He turned his back on me. "Even if I am being tricked, I’m happy to be."

I used to organize Tristan's birthdays every year. Tears pricked my eyes as I remembered the year we first met.

We were ten. He was an rebellious, unacknowledged illegitimate son. He was only dragged out of the slums because the primary heir of his family had died in an accident.

In that dangerous, hostile high-society circle, he was sensitive and cold to everyone. Except me. He was only gentle with me.

The year we officially started dating, he held a slightly ugly, homemade cake with trembling hands, his eyes red. He said, "Sera, let's spend every single birthday together from now on, okay?"

I smiled and asked, "What did you wish for?"

"To stay by Sera’s side forever. Until the end of time."

My thoughts snapped back to reality. Melanie looked terrified. "Tristan, don't be like this. Sera is only making up these lies because she can't let you go."

The smugness in Melanie's eyes was barely hidden. She looked at my ruined, pathetic state, unable to suppress her joy.

"Sera, I know you lost your hearing because you saved me when we were younger. But my family gave you a massive financial settlement for that. Let me make this clear: I will never marry you."

Wiping the frosting from my face, I let out a hollow laugh.

Seeing my miserable state, he scoffed. "Clean yourself up and get out."

In the restroom, I used wet wipes to frantically clean the cream off my clothes.

It wouldn’t come out.

This dress was a gift from Tristan.

After I accepted his confession, he had wrapped me in his arms, clumsy but incredibly gentle.

"White suits my Sera best."

I used to protect this dress with everything I had. But now, the person who ruined it was Tristan himself.

Melanie walked in to wash her hands, her face smug with provocation.

"How does it feel to have your face smashed into your own cake?"

"Save your breath, Sera. If he wanted to remember you, he would have by now. I’m the one who saved him during the earthquake. His life belongs to me."

I lowered my gaze.

"I guess if you tell a lie enough times, you actually start believing it."

I had saved Tristan’s life more times than I could count.

When he was depressed and starving himself, when he tried to end his life with a shard of glass, when his family's enemies targeted him and tried to drown him in the river... I was the one who pulled him through the darkest times of his life.

Melanie shook the water off her hands. "He will never remember you. Stop wasting your energy. No one cares about you anyway—not Dad, and definitely not Tristan."

"Just admit it, Sera. You’re just a pathetic, unlovable loser."

My father, Arthur, knew exactly how deeply Tristan and I had loved each other. Yet, in the face of this lie, he chose to side with Melanie.

"Your sister said she’d kill herself if she couldn't be with Tristan! She’s young and foolish, but are you senseless too?"

To the public, he was always the righteous, fair businessman. I never expected him to say something so heartless to me.

"How do you expect me to be sensible? I’ve given up everything she wanted. Am I supposed to hand over the man I love to her too?"

In the middle of the night, Tristan suddenly decided to take everyone to a nearby private island for an overnight trip.

They grilled, watched the stars, and admired the bioluminescent bay, leaving me completely ignored in the corner.

A woman walked over to me, her tone demanding. "Sera, Tristan said he lost his watch. He wants you to go find it."

"His watch?"

"Yeah. It probably fell in the woods over there."

She looked me up and down with deep disdain. "He also said, if you can't find it, you don't ever have to show your face in front of him again."

I looked at the pitch-black, silent woods. "Okay."

But by the time I found the watch and walked back, everyone was gone.

Only a small blanket was left behind, weighted down by a note with Tristan's handwriting.

[Sera, stay on this island and think about what you did.]

When I was finally brought back to the city, I ran a high fever for three straight days.

My assistant, Hazel, fed me medicine with a long face, her eyes wide as she frantically signed to me.

"It’s not worth it! You almost died for him so many times, and your health is completely ruined. Even if he lost his memory, he has no right to treat you like this!"

"Why do you insist on staying by his side? I don’t get it."

I reached out and touched her ear, feeling the edge of her hearing aid.

"I don’t get it either. But he will remember. He has to."

I drifted into a hazy sleep until a phone call woke me up.

"Sera."

The line was silent for two seconds. "Starlight Hotel, Room 1309. Bring my watch over. And buy some cold medicine on your way."

He was sick?

It was pouring rain outside. After waiting fifteen minutes without any Uber picking up my request, I grabbed an umbrella and ran out. Half an hour later, dripping wet, I knocked on Tristan’s hotel door.

He opened the door wearing a bathrobe, leaning against the frame while smoking. His collar was open, revealing red scratch marks on his chest.

Tristan looked down at me coldly, then turned to the person behind him with a smirk. "See, Melanie? I told you she’d run over even in a storm. You lost the bet."

Looking at Tristan, every cell in my body went numb with cold.

"Here is your medicine and your watch. I’m not feeling well, so I'm leaving."

Melanie called out to me.

"We’re sisters, after all. I’m so sorry we made you run errands in this weather. Come in and dry off."

There wasn’t a shred of apology in her voice.

Tristan frowned at my dripping wet figure. "If she tells you to come in, come in."

"Wait a second. Why are you bringing your bag inside? If anything goes missing, Tristan and I won't be able to explain it."

What could I possibly steal? I let out a mocking laugh.

But when I finished drying off and walked out of the bathroom, I saw Tristan playing with the voice recorder from my bag.

"Sera, I didn't realize you were this sick. You actually sneakily recorded my voice?"

He pressed play.

"Sera, goodnight."

"I love you."

"I’ll always miss you."

The audio cut off. Tristan gripped the recorder tightly. "Did you seriously think you could wake up my memory with these fake, edited clips?"