Chapter 1
“Ma’am, if we terminate the technology license, Hayes Enterprises might… go bankrupt.”
I paused, applying lipstick, and scoffed. “It’s getting cold. Use Hayes Enterprises’ money to buy winter clothes for all the orphans in the country.”
Assistant Liam was taken aback. He hadn’t expected the usually sweet little philanthropist, the ‘innocent do-gooder’ he knew, to suddenly go dark, aiming straight for their total ruin.
“Hayes Enterprises lacks morality. Helping them do good deeds and balance the scales, that’s incredibly generous of you, Ma’am!”
I touched the necklace at my throat, my eyes icy. “I want to see him go from Brighton’s wealthiest man to a beggar within a month.”
Just yesterday, I was happily decorating our wedding home.
But a message from my father hit me like a bucket of cold water, dousing my sweet dreams.
“That playboy hasn’t changed for you, sweetheart. Brandon Hayes has fooled you! He bought the Wildwood Estate as a wedding home for another woman. Go see for yourself.”
At the time, I thought Dad was lying. My emotion-detecting necklace around my neck had been glowing steadily.
The data showed Brandon Hayes liked me.
To prove Dad wrong, I went anyway.
But what I saw shattered my innocence.
I saw Brandon Hayes, the man who was supposed to become my husband in a month, with his arm around a beautiful woman’s waist, intimately discussing their love nest.
“Serena, all the furniture is in your favorite style. I personally oversaw the selection. Are you happy?”
Serena King snuggled into his arms. “You came to check in daily, of course it’s exactly to my liking.”
Tears instantly welled up in my eyes. Brandon had never once visited the wedding home he was supposed to share with me.
He’d only sent a designer, telling me to decorate it however I liked.
It turned out he felt his plan was nearing completion, and he couldn’t even bothered to pretend anymore.
Serena suddenly sighed. “Brandon, do you think we can get past your mom?”
Brandon’s voice was doting. “My mom dislikes you because you’re a celebrity. She thinks you’re marrying me for money.”
“Now I’m marrying an orphan who lives off odd jobs. In comparison, you instantly become the ideal candidate in my mom’s eyes.”
Serena rolled her eyes playfully in annoyance.
“Only a month left. Why don’t you tell your mom now?”
Brandon lowered his head and kissed her. “No rush. It’ll be safer to wait until the wedding day, when my mom has no other choice.”
Serena sounded a little uneasy. “But what if that woman causes a scene at the wedding?”
Brandon chuckled dismissively. “Aubrey is just an orphan girl. I can just pay her off with a bit of money.”
“What if… she doesn’t want the money?” Serena pressed.
“Then I have leverage on her. She won’t be able to cause any trouble.”
Leverage?
I remembered a few days ago, in the bathroom. Brandon had held me by the waist from behind. I’d glimpsed him holding his phone in the mirror…
It felt like a lightning strike. My heart was repeatedly pierced by countless fine needles, a pain that left me breathless.
I thought I had tamed Brighton’s notorious playboy, making countless people envious.
It turned out this love miracle was nothing but a meticulously staged act by Brandon to pave the way for his beloved.
I peered closer. Brandon was still wearing the “True Love Ring” on his hand.
That smart ring, capable of detecting true emotional fluctuations, was a pair with the True Heart Necklace around my neck.
I had spent two years developing it, designed to determine if someone was truly falling for another.
Tens of thousands of couples had passed its True Heart Test, and the data showed Brandon liked me.
Or rather, he liked my fake identity: Aubrey, the orphan girl.
But what was all this in front of me?
I never imagined that in Brandon’s heart, I wasn’t even a stand-in. At most, I was just cannon fodder.
…
“And Liam, put the True Heart project on hold.”
Assistant Liam grew anxious. “Ma’am, this is two years of your hard work! The marketing department estimates it could reach hundreds of millions in scale once launched.”
“Even if we don’t give it to Hayes Enterprises, we can sell it ourselves!”
I unclasped the still-glowing necklace, scoffed, and pressed the power button.
“It can’t even accurately measure the feelings of its own developer. Should we sell it and let people laugh at us?”
The physiological detection of technology, how could it truly measure the human heart? I had been foolishly optimistic.
From the 70th-floor window, the bright sunlight couldn’t penetrate my gloomy heart.
I vaguely recalled my first encounter with Brandon three years ago.
It was also a day of perfect sunshine.
Fresh out of college, I came to Brighton to meet up with my pen pals from the orphanage.
A little girl ran into the middle of the road. I rushed to scoop her up.
Suddenly, a large truck sped toward us. I, holding the child, was completely frozen with fear.
By the time I came to my senses, I was already back at the orphanage, carried by someone.
It was Brandon Hayes who saved me. He was kneeling, carefully applying ointment to the little girl’s scrapes.
He teased the little girl for being clumsy, his sharp, chiseled features breaking into a wild, uninhibited smile, exuding a playful swagger, yet inadvertently revealing a hint of tenderness.
After treating the little girl’s wound, Brandon pulled a lollipop from his pocket and offered it to her, ruffling her hair. “Don’t run off like that again.”
He noticed my gaze, walked up to me, and conjured another lollipop, handing it over. “What, big girl, do you want me to put ointment on your scrapes too? That’ll cost you, you know~”
My gaze followed the lollipop upwards. The man’s rugged, sharp features looked especially tender and lingering in the twilight glow.
In that moment, my heart was struck by Cupid’s arrow.
I wanted to stay in Brighton. When my father found out, he strongly objected.
He investigated Brandon Hayes, saying he was Brighton’s notorious playboy, constantly partying and surrounded by countless women.
But I deeply believed that the Brandon Hayes who would selflessly save someone at the orphanage was his true self.