Chapter 1

When my boyfriend, Charles Jansen, came home, a gentle smile still lingered on his face.

But when he saw the ring box I was holding, he froze. "Who said you could touch my things?"

Three days ago, I found this diamond ring while I was cleaning the house.

At first, I thought that Charles had finally come to his senses and was planning to propose. Overjoyed, I had bragged about this to all my friends.

Charles was indeed planning to propose—just not to me.

If this had happened in the past, I would have cried and thrown a tantrum. I would've questioned why he still couldn't forget Yvonne Cross.

But now, I simply handed the box back to him, my expression calm. "I found this while cleaning. I thought it was for me."

My reaction stunned Charles. It took him a while to finally take the box. "I shouldn't have raised my voice earlier. Sorry about that," he said. "This is a custom order for a client. It's very important."

"I do remember your birthday," he continued gently, ruffling my hair. "Your gift is on the way. I promise it will be a nice surprise."

I watched as he turned and walked back into his room, my eyes stinging with tears.

My phone was vibrating incessantly in my pocket.

When I checked it, I found out that I had been added to a group chat containing about a hundred people. The group chat was named "Charles' Proposal Planning Committee".

I stared at the name of the group chat and couldn't help but laugh in disbelief. Charles was brainstorming ideas to propose to his first love, and he had had the gall to add me to the group chat.

"What kind of proposal would Yvonne want? What do you think, guys?"

Charles' message was the first to pop up, igniting a heated discussion from the other group members.

Fireworks, balloons, drones—countless romantic ideas poured in.

I slumped onto the couch, staring at the flurry of messages as pain formed in my heart.

After a while, someone finally remembered me.

"Uh, what about Cindy?"

The barrage of messages abruptly stopped.

Everyone knew that Charles had been dating me these past few years while Yvonne was aboard.

Charles brushed off the question with a simple sentence: "I was just playing around with her. Ignore her."

He was just playing around with me?

My fingers tightened around my phone. I could hardly breathe.

Laughter erupted in the group chat.

"Charles. It's been seven years. Aren't you tired of her yet? Maybe you should teach us your tricks."

"Yeah, you should. Cindy's devoted to you. Why don't you just marry both of them?"

Charles' response to that was to send an eye-rolling emoji. "I only kept her around because she stuck with me for a long time. She's not wife material. She doesn't deserve to be married to me."

I stared at his reply. I recognized every word, yet when read together, they made me dizzy. At that moment, seven years' worth of memories surged into my mind.

Seven years ago, Charles had saved me from being harrassed by some men. At the time, he had appeared to me like a guardian angel. I had fallen for him at first sight.

I'd always known that he had a first love who had gone abroad. Nevertheless, I threw myself, heart and soul, into loving him.

Charles did not reject my advances. In fact, he allowed me to stay by his side.

He brought me to his gatherings and introduced me to his parents, but he had never publicly admitted that I was his girlfriend.

My friends had told me, more than once, that he wasn't worth it. They told me that staying by his side like this, without him ever acknowledging me, was humiliating.

But they had never seen how anxious Charles had been when I got sick. They'd never known the warmth he hid beneath his icy facade.

"You won't understand. Charles is just shy. He loves me!" I told them confidently. I had been so sure that he would marry me one day. I had been so stubborn that it was almost laughable.

But now, I was tired.