Chapter 3

Six years ago, Alex Maxwell went deep-sea fishing, got caught in a storm, and his yacht capsized.

He was swept into the waves, drifted to the fishing village, and was unconscious.

I was the one who rescued him and brought him home.

But when he woke up, he had lost his memory; he couldn't remember who he was.

I took him to the nearest town to report it to the police, get his fingerprints and DNA taken, and put up missing person posters, but there was no result.

The countryside was cut off, and medical care wasn't great.

Alex Maxwell’s amnesia didn't get better after several visits to the town hospital, and I didn't have enough money to take him to a big city to see a brain specialist.

He had no money and couldn't find his family, so he stayed with me in the fishing village.

Life in the fishing village was simple and fulfilling.

Alex Maxwell was tall and handsome, and his temper was incredibly gentle.

No matter what I asked him to do, he never complained.

As time passed, the villagers would joke that I had picked up a capable and handsome husband.

And as we spent every day together, we gradually fell in love.

A year later, just as we promised ourselves to each other, he suddenly recovered a small segment of his memory.

He remembered his name and his home address.

He said he had to go back to find his family, then return with them for our wedding.

Before he left, Alex Maxwell planted a peach tree outside my house.

He said, “This peach tree… it’s a promise, Aria. A symbol of our future home, our family. Before it blooms, I’ll be back. Aria, wait for me.”

But spring came and went, then came again. I stood under the peach tree, waiting for five years, but Alex Maxwell never returned.

It wasn't until a month ago that I found out the man I had been waiting for so long was Alexander Maxwell, the powerful head of the Maxwell family in the city.

And I, once recognized by the Hayes family, was to marry Blake Maxwell, Alex’s nephew, as the Hayes family heiress.

I didn't want to marry Blake Maxwell.

That’s why I brought my daughter back to the Hayes family, to make a public appearance.

She was my and Alex Maxwell’s daughter, my only comfort during those five long, quiet years of waiting.

I would never allow her to be a secret, a hidden existence.

And I would certainly never let anyone call her a “bastard” or a “mongrel.”

I knelt down, wrapped my arms around my daughter, and gently soothed her.

“Don’t be scared, Luna. Mommy will take you to find Daddy. We’ll see Daddy very soon.”

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