Chapter 3

Emma Carter POV

Adrian stopped. He turned his head slightly, a faint crease appearing between his brows.

“I don’t want anything. Not money, not a title, and not for you to return my feelings right now.” My voice trembled. Tears burned in my eyes, but I forced them back. I had lowered myself into the dirt. “I only want you to give me a chance.”

Adrian turned around and studied me.

“Please try being with me. Even if it has to be a secret relationship.” I dug my nails into my palm, using the pain to stay clearheaded. “If she never comes back, or if she returns and you still can’t let her go, then when that day comes, I’ll leave on my own. I won’t cling to you. Adrian, give me five years. Please.”

I thought even stone could be warmed if someone held it long enough. I thought my companionship could overcome a distant first love.

Adrian stared at me for a full ten seconds.

Those ten seconds lasted longer than a century.

Finally, he looked away, pushed the bank card toward me again, and gave me his answer.

“Suit yourself.”

From that day on, my life split in two.

By day, I wore a white coat and was the emergency department’s flawless Ms. Carter.

By night, I was the woman waiting in this villa for him to summon me to his bed.

Five years.

More than eighteen hundred days and nights.

We kissed in the hospital break room during overnight shifts. We lost ourselves in the back seat of his Maybach. We left countless reckless traces against the massive windows of the villa.

There were no flowers, no dates, and no public promises. No one knew about our secret relationship. Even the head nurse, who knew everyone’s business, thought I was a work-obsessed woman who had no interest in dating.

I endured his hot-and-cold behavior. I grew used to the way he showered immediately afterward, obsessively washing away my scent. I had even helped him deal with wealthy socialites who tried to get close to him.

I became his shadow, dreaming that one day habit would turn into love.

Until a few days ago—Adrian’s thirtieth birthday.

I had traded shifts with a coworker two weeks in advance. I bought the rare vinyl record he had always wanted and taught myself to make a low-sugar mousse cake. I decorated the villa to feel warm and romantic, then prepared a table full of his favorite dishes.

I sat at the dining table and waited from evening until midnight.

The clock on the wall reached twelve.

My phone suddenly lit up.

It was a notification from my priority list on Instagram.

Adrian had never posted on Instagram before. His messages were always about work or family. Yet at midnight, he uploaded a post.

It was a photograph.

Beneath a sky bursting with fireworks, Adrian wore a casual jacket I had never seen before. He held a woman in a white dress tightly in his arms and kissed her with deep tenderness.

Her face wasn’t visible, but her slender silhouette and the softness overflowing from Adrian’s eyes cut into my nerves.

The caption was only one short sentence:

[The best birthday gift is getting back what I once lost.]

All the color drained from my face.

For five years, I had thought I’d finally warmed that stone.

But he wasn’t a stone.

He simply didn’t radiate warmth toward me.

Serena was back.

I sat at the table and stared at the mousse cake collapsing in front of me. Like a drowning person reaching for the last piece of driftwood, I called Adrian.

Beep… beep… beep…

Every ring felt like punishment.

The call connected.

“Hello?”

The voice on the other end wasn’t Adrian’s cold one. It was a sweet, lazy female voice tinged with irritation.

I opened my mouth, but my throat felt glued shut. Not a sound came out.

“Hello? Say something!” Serena turned her head and called out, “Adrian, who’s this Emma Carter? She calls you in the middle of the night and then just sits there like a mute. How annoying.”

After several seconds of silence, Adrian’s low, indifferent voice came through the speaker.

“She’s a nurse at the hospital. No one important. Ignore her. Turn off the phone and watch the fireworks.”

No one important.

Five years.

More than eighteen hundred days and nights.

Countless moments of intimacy. Countless times working side by side.

And in the end, I was “no one important.”

I didn’t hang up. I listened to the call disconnect with a series of beeps, then slowly curved my lips into a silent smile.

Tears fell in heavy drops onto the cold dining table.

So the five years that belonged to me had been a joke from the very beginning.