Chapter 1

I gave nine years of my youth to the wrong person.

Tristan Ford said Sophia Moore was just an ordinary friend, yet he held her daughter at the doctor's office and let the child call him daddy.

Before we even broke up, he had already proposed to Sophia.

He didn't know that the girl who'd worked three jobs for him in that basement apartment, who'd miscarried after drug trials for money, was the long-lost heiress of the Hawthorne Group.

She was the long-lost heiress of the Hawthorne Group.

Later, when he knelt in the rain begging me to come back, I laughed.

"Tristan Ford, do you think I take in trash?"

Chloe POV

"I had a few drinks, can't really drive..."

The voice on the other end of the phone was slightly hoarse.

I gripped my phone so tightly my knuckles turned white, cutting him off with rapid-fire words. "Tristan Ford, don't tell me you're planning to spend the night at your ex-girlfriend's place tonight?"

Silence on the other end for a moment.

Then the man's voice dropped, clearly displeased. "Sophia and I are just ordinary friends. Don't let your imagination run wild."

"Am I imagining things, or are you hiding something?"

Tears fell onto the back of my hand without warning, scalding hot.

"Tristan, have you forgotten you have a girlfriend now? Staying overnight at another woman's house in the middle of the night. Have you even considered my feelings?"

My voice shot up sharply, my throat feeling like I'd swallowed broken glass.

"Is it really because you can't drive after drinking, or do you just not want to come home? You want to stay there with Sophia?!"

These past few days, I'd been in denial.

Like a thief afraid of the light, I'd been secretly checking Sophia Moore's Instagram and Twitter.

One evening, I went to bring Tristan stomach medicine. Outside the VIP lounge door, I heard his elite friends mocking me. They called me a clingy old hag throwing herself at him. But I didn't have the courage to push open the door and confront them.

Yet I was the one who'd been Tristan's girlfriend for nine years.

I struggled desperately to control the fragility and humiliation inside me.

But my throat couldn't help releasing a faint, suppressed sob.

He clearly heard it.

After a long silence, Tristan spoke with obvious irritation. "I'll come home now, okay?"

The call disconnected.

Listening to the dial tone, I felt no happiness at all.

I could hear Tristan's impatience. He was only compromising because I'd forced him to.

What he really wanted was to stay there with Sophia.

I walked to the living room like a lost soul.

I didn't turn on the lights.

I just sat on the sofa, watching the New York night outside the window gradually fade, waiting from darkness until dawn.

The door never opened.

Tristan didn't come home.

At that moment, I already had a vague premonition that Tristan and I probably had no future.

But I was so unwilling to accept it.

Nine years together, my entire youth. How could I just let it go?

If Sophia hadn't gotten divorced and come back to New York, if she hadn't shown up with that child, we'd be at City Hall right now, getting our marriage license. We'd be planning a small ceremony.

I picked up my phone and checked the date.

Friday.

The wallpaper was a photo from our junior year when we became official.

Back then, I was young and bright, smiling so radiantly.

But Tristan in that photo looked indifferent, his lips curved in only the slightest arc.

I'd once seen the way Tristan looked at Sophia.

It was on Stanford's campus. Tristan held Sophia's hand, smiling so tenderly, his eyes seemingly full of stars.

That's why I was so wary of Sophia.

Because I knew Tristan had once loved Sophia unreservedly, with his whole heart.

Did Tristan love me?

Nine years, and Tristan had never once said he loved me.

I walked into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror.

Dark circles under my eyes, haggard expression-this face wasn't young anymore.

I took out my makeup and layered it on to cover the exhaustion, forcing myself to produce a smile.

Tristan had promised me we'd go to City Hall today.

Even though a voice inside me was screaming: Tristan won't come.

I still went out.