CHAPTER 230

ARIA’S POV

“Would you consider being my girlfriend?”

I’m immediately alarmed by Ethan's request. This isn’t what I had expected and I stare at him, perplexed. Ethan’s expression changes drastically, as if he knows what is coming or maybe he regrets his words.

My initial reaction is to refuse, but before I can say anything, Ethan quickly clarifies that he needs me to pretend to be his girlfriend for his ex-girlfriend’s engagement party. The oddness of the request leaves me with more questions, and I sigh, then I ask the most obvious one.

“Why?”

“I didn’t have a great love story, you know?”

Ethan starts narrating his past in detail with a heavy heart. He tells me about a girlfriend he loved deeply in college, someone he believed was his forever. He gave her everything, planning a future together, even intending to propose after graduation.

But one morning, he woke up to find her gone, along with all his money and valuables. She had disappeared without a trace. Ethan spent years searchin