Chapter 1

After Silas Sterling and I began our long-distance relationship, he sent me a blind box every month. Each one was his way of replacing the companionship he could not give me, helping us get through the long years apart.

Two years ago, Silas made me a promise.

"Once I take over my family's company, I'll bring you home. I'll make sure you can stand proudly by my side."

For that single promise, I waited in a city more than 1,200 miles away through hundreds of lonely days and nights. Then, inside the 773rd blind box I opened, I found a first-class plane ticket to Sutherland.

On the flight, I could barely contain my excitement. My obvious happiness made the young woman beside me smile. She cheerfully showed me a photo of herself with her fiance, her face glowing with joy.

"We're getting married in three days."

The moment I saw the wedding photo on her screen, my fingers froze on the boarding pass I had been absentmindedly stroking.

The groom-to-be in that picture was the very man I had traveled more than a thousand miles to see.

Chapter 1 The Promise

My excitement turned to shock. I tightened my grip on my phone and quickly hid the photo of Silas and me behind the darkened screen.

Compared to the wedding portrait, the photo on my lock screen was just like our relationship. It had to stay hidden.

After the plane landed, I tried calling Silas the entire way from the airport to his company headquarters, but he never picked up.

The receptionist glanced meaningfully at my suitcase. Her polite tone carried a hint of contempt. "Miss, Mr. Sterling's office isn't a hotel. Not just anyone can walk in."

The robotic voice on my phone repeated that the call could not be completed. Her words stung, and I froze for a moment. Just as I was about to explain, I heard Silas' indulgent voice behind me. "Slow down."

Seraphina Shaw skipped through the front entrance and threw herself into his arms with a pout. "Silas, come with me to get my hair done."

Silas skillfully declined the phone call that kept vibrating in his hand. He had already opened his arms and caught her effortlessly.

The way they stood with their arms linked felt like a hand twisting around my heart, squeezing so tightly I could not speak.

The receptionist shoved me aside and muttered under her breath, "Can't you see the real girlfriend is here? Why are you still standing around?"

I stumbled from the shove, lost my footing, and fell to the floor.

People passing through the lobby slowed down, whispering to one another as their eyes fixed on me. Burning with humiliation, I covered my face.

Silas looked over, surprise flashing across his eyes when he saw me.

Seraphina noticed me too. "Huh? We meet again."

I forced a smile and watched them walk toward me, looking utterly disheveled.

Seraphina helped me to my feet. Silas gave me a small nod, as though I were nothing more than an old college classmate. "Claire, it's been a long time."

His distant tone pierced my heart like a needle. I looked at him and found it hard to breathe.

Seraphina glanced between us curiously. I looked at Silas almost pleadingly. He met my eyes for a brief moment before taking Seraphina's hand. "Go wait in my office. I'll walk her out."

I was left standing there alone.

…

Inside Silas' office, there were little decorations everywhere that looked like they belonged to a young woman.

The secretary brought me a glass of water. Before leaving, she quietly picked up the framed wedding photo from his desk and carried it away.

Their intimacy kept replaying in my mind as I stared blankly out the window.

Silas and I came from completely different worlds. He was the heir to the Sterling family, while my father had abandoned me, my mother had died, and I had paid for college with student loans.

After graduation, Silas' mother, Phoebe, fought desperately to keep us apart.

To avoid losing me, Silas cut ties with his family. They cut off all his financial support. He was dragged home, forced to kneel and was punished by his family, yet he never gave up.

It was only after the Sterling family made sure I could not even get a single interview that he finally gave in.

The night before I left Sutherland, he stood in this very office, wrapped me in his arms, and promised that one day he would let me stand proudly by his side.

Lost in the memory, I suddenly felt those same arms wrap around my waist. He pressed a kiss to my cheek.

My eyes burned.

After a long silence, Silas finally spoke. "Don't come to the office again. There are too many people around, and your identity makes things complicated. She's just a business partner. I just took over this office, and I need her family's support."

Hearing the lie with my own ears, I closed my eyes as tears slipped down my face.

Pain filled Silas' eyes as he coaxed me softly. "Just give me a little more time, okay? Everything I'm doing is for our future. You understand, don't you?"

"But she told me you're getting married."

Silas fell silent for a moment and looked away. "It's just a way to buy some time. I'm going to marry you."

Standing in the same place where he had once made me that promise, I felt my heart waver.

But this time, all I felt was fear. I did not dare believe him anymore.

Chapter 2 The Wedding Invitation

Back at the apartment we used to rent, Silas helped me make the bed.

As he worked, I caught sight of the tattoo on the inside of his arm—a string of numbers I had never seen before.

His phone was lying on the table. I woke the screen, swiped past the wallpaper of him kissing Seraphina on the beach, and entered those numbers.

The phone unlocked.

Silas walked out of the room, his brow immediately furrowing with suspicion. "Were you looking through my phone?"

I lowered my eyes and quietly said, "We're breaking up."

The power suddenly went out, plunging the apartment into darkness.

"Breaking up?" Silas asked in disbelief. "Because of Seraphina? I already told you, she's just a business partner. Everything between us is strictly business. I'm doing this for my career—for our future. You've always been so understanding. Don't do this."

I stared into the darkness, my voice barely above a whisper. "Silas, I'm not going to be the other woman."

He froze.

"The other woman?" he shot back angrily. "How is that even the same thing?"

A custom ringtone cut him off.

He answered the call and walked toward the door as he listened. All he had time to say was, "Wait for me to come back," before hurrying out.

He forgot I had night blindness. In the dark, I was practically blind.

I sat there for a long time before fumbling around until I found my phone.

The first thing I saw was Seraphina's latest social media post. "What do you all think? Would Silas make a good husband?"

The photo showed Silas setting dishes and desserts on a dining table. It looked so warm. So bright.

My stomach lurched, and I could not stop retching.

After I got my plane ticket, I had been so excited to see him that I had forgotten to eat.

Clutching my aching stomach, I crouched down and reached for the lamp socket in the corner.

It was empty.

Back then, Silas had installed little night-lights in every corner of our apartment. Later, I took them with me, and they had kept me company through countless nights while we were living apart.

Now I had finally come to his city. Yet there was still a distance between us that I could not cross.

…

The next day, Seraphina invited me to a coffee shop.

With a grin, she said, "Silas always tells me how much you helped him back in college. I wanted to thank you in person."

Distracted, I nodded while scrolling through the project details in my inbox.

In the middle of incessant chatting, Seraphina answered a phone call. "Next month's blind boxes? Just pick whichever collections are the hottest right now."

I paused. "You like blind boxes?"

"I'm helping Silas with them," she said. "He said he owes someone a small favor."

So that was it.

About a year ago, the blind boxes Silas sent me had changed from the characters I loved to whatever franchise was trending.

It turned out he had not been picking them himself.

I had believed those monthly packages were proof that he was doing everything he could to stay by my side.

But to him, he had only been repaying a favor.

I let out a bitter laugh.

Tilting her head, Seraphina pulled a wedding invitation from her purse and slid it across the table. "Silas asked me to give this to you myself. You have to come tomorrow."

On the invitation, the bride and groom's names were printed side by side. It looked exactly like the wedding invitation I had imagined countless times.

Only one thing was different. My name appeared below them, listed among the ordinary guests.

I accepted the invitation.

At the same moment, a notification popped up in my inbox. "It's confirmed that you'll be in charge of this project."

After parting ways with Seraphina, I stopped by the hamburger shop downstairs and ordered a hamburger.

The fried chicken cutlet in the bowl was much bigger than I remembered. But I couldn't taste anything.

The owner was counting the register when she looked up and gasped. "It's you!"

"You remember me?"

She clapped her hands and laughed.

"Of course I do! Back then, your boyfriend had to scan three different payment apps just to scrape together enough for a hamburger. Then he begged me to use what little he had left to buy half a chicken cutlet because you'd worked all day and needed something nourishing. That silly boy. Why didn't you two come together?"

That day, Silas had only smiled as he watched me eat. He kept saying he wasn't hungry.

Then, as he watched me, his eyes gradually turned red. In a trembling voice, he murmured, "I'm going to marry you someday."

Thinking of the wedding invitation in my bag, I shook my head. "He's getting married. And I'm leaving too."

Chapter 3 The Other Woman

Outside the hotel ballroom, I unexpectedly ran into Silas and a group of his friends.

"What a perfect match. An arranged marriage that turned into true love. They were made for each other."

"What about the one in Southport? Haven't you two gone two years without seeing each other?"

"Let's not talk about her."

The way they talked about it, Silas and Seraphina looked so sweet together, so perfectly matched that the arranged marriage barely warranted a mention.

And me. I was nothing more than the "let's not talk about her" that followed a brief silence.

I stepped outside, and Silas looked up and spotted me. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting something to eat."

He reached out to touch my face, but I turned my head away.

He let out a quiet sigh, transferred me some money, and said, "Make sure you eat well. You've lost so much weight these past two years. After you're done, go buy yourself some new clothes. I'm here for a business dinner. I've been busy these last few days, so be good. I'll come see you once I'm finished."

I obediently lowered my head and paid for expedited processing on the ticket-purchasing program that was still waiting in line.

Five minutes later, a notification popped up. "Ticket Purchase Successful."

The wedding began.

Silas wore the Windsor knot I had always told him suited him best. Gone was the calm, composed man I knew. His hands trembled slightly as he began to speak.

As if I wanted to torture myself, I listened to every single word.

For the past two years, Silas had always said it was not time for us to meet. Again and again, he left me alone with the dead tone of a disconnected call and an empty chat window.

But as long as I believed that one day we would stand beside each other again, I endured it all.

When I struggled to adjust to life in a new city, Silas was having a romantic first encounter with Seraphina at a gala.

When I worked late into the night because I wanted to become someone worthy of him, Silas was making a grand confession of love to Seraphina on a tropical island.

When I held our photo and cried because the loneliness had become unbearable, Silas was setting off fireworks with Seraphina at the highest point in Sutherland before pulling her into a kiss.

Before I even realized it, tears were rolling down my face again.

"See that? Even the mistress is getting emotional."

Startled, I looked up.

Several unfamiliar faces stood before me. When they saw me looking, they sneered.

"Oh, so she knows we're talking about her."

"Silas and Seraphina were already engaged back then, but she just wouldn't stop chasing him. They shipped her off to Southport, and now she's back to crash the wedding."

"The mistress is crashing the wedding? Now this is going to be entertaining."

I stood there in a daze as their words washed over me.

Onstage, Seraphina's face was already wet with tears. Holding the microphone, she choked back a sob while Silas smiled and squeezed her hand.

"Silas and I dated for five years and were engaged for three. We finally made it to today. A few days ago, I met someone who shares a very special connection with both Silas and me. So I'd like to invite her to bring us our wedding rings—"

Before Seraphina could finish speaking, gasps erupted throughout the ballroom.

The giant screen began playing a slideshow of intimate photos. Holding hands. Hugging. Walking into and out of hotels together. Everything was there.

The couple in every photo was Silas and me.

The next second, a spotlight landed on me.

A member of the wedding staff approached, bowed politely, and held out a tray with the wedding bands gleaming under the lights.

Every eye in the ballroom turned toward me.

Without much hesitation, I picked up the rings and walked onto the stage.

Silas watched me draw closer step by step. The disbelief on his face slowly darkened into furious anger.

I picked up the bride's ring and held it out to him.

Someone in the crowd suddenly shouted, "Having the mistress deliver the wedding rings? That's priceless."

Silas slapped the ring out of my hand and clamped down on my wrist. "You planned this, didn't you? You came back this time just for this?"

I stood on the stage beneath everyone's gaze.

They whispered among themselves, and every single time I heard the word "mistress," it pierced my ears like a steel needle driven into my spine.

Before my mother died, she had screamed the name of my father's mistress until her voice gave out, dying with hatred in her heart.

I hated mistresses more than anything.

Later, when my father remarried, he forced me to my knees at the wedding and made me call that woman Mom.

Even then, I bit my lip until it bled.

But the humiliation I felt now was far worse.

Back then, Silas had kicked the door open, punched my father to the ground, then unleashed a furious tirade at the mistress before taking my hand and leading me away.

Now, in front of everyone, he violently shoved me to the floor.

His face was cold and expressionless.

"I have absolutely no relationship with this woman. Two years ago, she kept harassing me, so I gave her some money and told her to leave Sutherland. I had no idea she'd come back, get close to Sera, and show up at the wedding to cause trouble. Mom, Dad, Mr. and Mrs. Shaw, Sera… I'll make this right."

I lay trembling on the floor.

Silas called the security guards over. They hauled me to my feet and dragged me away.

As I passed Seraphina, I could see that tears still shimmered in her eyes, but her gaze was perfectly clear.

She whispered, "Thank you for making the trip."

The blind box with the plane ticket. The chance encounter on the flight. The invitation that had been deliberately given to me.

In an instant, everything connected in my mind.

Seraphina had known all along. She had orchestrated every bit of this.

Silas personally escorted me outside.

Before leaving, he grabbed my arm and lowered his voice. "For the sake of the Sterling family and the Shaw family, I didn't have a choice.

"I know you've been wronged, but what you did this time really went too far. Do you have any idea how this could've ruined everything we've worked for?

His tone softened again, as if nothing had changed. "Go back and wait for me. I'll come find you after I've taken care of everything. I promise this won't affect us."

He helped me into a taxi, told the driver to take me back to my apartment, then turned and walked away.

Watching his retreating figure, I rolled up the window and said to the driver, "Take me straight to the airport."