In university, Leon was a star in the sports faculty. Not only was he handsome and popular, but he was also an amazing basketball player. I, on the other hand, was known as the beauty of the art faculty, so it was no surprise that people tend to associate both of us as an item.

After hearing about him again and again, I gradually developed an interest in him too. Then, during a basketball game, he made a slam dunk, and I was mesmerized.

We exchanged contact, went out to dinners and movies, and started dating like any other couple. By our junior year, we were officially together. He was very kind and caring to me, and it felt like I was his entire world.

The year we graduated and started our internship, however, he reconnected with Charlotte.

Charlotte was just as attractive as I was, but the difference lay in that she was a far more bold and expressive person. More importantly, she was also Leon's childhood best friend, so they had a shared history, one I could never be part of.

At first, Leon would gladly recount their past stories to me, but later, he started to dismiss me by claiming that I wouldn’t understand their past connection. It was like a wall had gone up between us—one made of memories that didn’t include me.

Eventually, I asked him if he ever had feelings for Charlotte.

He responded by patting my head and assuring me with a warm smile, “If there had been anything between us, why would I be with you?”

Now that I thought about it, he had most likely said it just to brush me off.

He held me in his arms and comforted me for a long time. He swore he’d take me home to meet his family soon.

I got tired of crying by then, and my stomach was starting to growl.

Leon looked at me tenderly, “Hold on. I'll cook something for you.”

With that, he pulled out some ingredients from the refrigerator to make me a sandwich.

I sat on the couch and looked at him from behind. For a moment, I couldn’t tell if this was reality anymore.

Then, his phone rang. After he answered it, his face tensed up, and he rushed out of the kitchen.

“Anna, please make the sandwich yourself. Something urgent came up, and I have to go now. I might not be back tonight. No need to wait up.”

With that, he grabbed his coat and rushed out of the house before I could even get a word out.

I went into the kitchen and stared at the half-made sandwich on the plate, suddenly losing my appetite.

Back in bed, I slept for two hours until I jolted awake from a nightmare. The first thing I did was check my phone, and that was when I saw a text from my best friend, Lily Jordan.

“Anna, when did Charlotte and Leon get married?”

I scrolled through her previous messages and found out the true reason Leon left the house in a hurry.

Lily was a nurse and had just admitted a man who had been wounded in a traffic accident. When the family members were sorting out the paperwork, she heard them mentioning that Leon was the man’s son-in-law.

I chuckled at the thought. It turned out the reason he left was because of Charlotte.

After that, I gathered myself mentally and went to work.

My father ran a large company. Thanks to my degree being directly related to the family business, I smoothly transitioned into the company after graduation and became the department manager within a couple of years.

As soon as I arrived at my office, my assistant brought me a document.

“Miss Rain, we need your signature on this project. All the paperwork’s complete.”

I opened it and went through it briefly. It was a joint project with Parker Corporation, but I had the impression that Parker Corporation wasn’t a good fit for that project.

“Has my father approved it?”

“No,” my assistant responded, a little taken aback. “Wasn’t it you who told me that any projects that involve Parker Corporation should be conducted with their best interest in mind?”

I certainly remember saying that at one point.

At the time, I had assumed that it was only a matter of time before I married Leon and became family, so it made sense to support each other’s business. However, now that our relationship had deteriorated, I had to reevaluate the financial situation.

“We can proceed this time around but forget about what I said last time. From now on, the priority when it comes to project selection is our company's profit.”

After a busy day of work, I was tired and starving. Thankfully, Lily had suggested grabbing dinner at the restaurant across from the office.

After we agreed on the time and place, I packed my belongings and headed downstairs.

We entered the restaurant together. Since it was dinner time, the restaurant was packed, but we managed to get the waiter to give us the only empty seat in the corner.

Just as I was about to order, I heard a familiar voice.

“Anna, what a coincidence running into you here.”

I turned in the direction of the voice and found Leon and Charlotte sitting in front of us.

Leon looked a little uncomfortable when he saw me, but he managed to come up with a convenient excuse in time, “I was just about to call you to join us, and here you are.”

Charlotte greeted me with a smile, “Anna, why don’t we sit together? There’s more than enough room!”

I noticed two new customers stepping into the restaurant, and after thinking about it briefly, I got Lily to move over to their table.

While Leon called the waiter over and asked for two extra sets of utensils, I inspected the dishes on the table. Nearly every dish contained spice.

I was very fond of spicy food, but Leon had a sensitive stomach, so I avoided cooking spicy food to accommodate his palette. In time, I stopped eating spicy food entirely. However, Charlotte, on the other hand, was very fond of spicy food.

I watched Leon take one bite after another without so much as a wince. My heart was so broken that I was completely numb to it all.

Then, Charlotte whispered something in Leon's ear, which got him to turn to me.

“I’ll be right back. Enjoy your food, girls.”

As soon as he walked away to look for the waiter, Charlotte's expression shifted. The smile on her face had disappeared.

“Annabelle, I’m sure you know that I’m going to get married to Leon very soon, yet you still cling to him. Don’t you feel embarrassed?”

She made sure to flaunt the diamond ring on her finger as she said that.

Incensed, Lily tried to get up to defend me, but I managed to hold her back just in time.

I grabbed a tissue to clean my lips before meeting Charlotte’s gaze.

“Charlotte, I don’t think stealing someone’s boyfriend is worth bragging about. Would you like me to expose you to the world?”

“You…”

Charlotte was about to say something when something suddenly caught her eye and made her pause. Then, without warning, she grabbed a cup of water on the table and splashed its contents all over herself.

I was confused as to why she had done that when I heard Leon’s voice.

“Charlotte, are you okay?”

Leon stepped forward urgently and helped pat her dry.

I observed the way his fingers stroked across her cheeks and chest from time to time in an intimate way.

Charlotte whimpered with tears in her eyes, “Leon, it was Annabelle. She’s jealous of me and…”

Lily, enraged, was about to blow up in anger at that point. I was also about to say something when the ground beneath us trembled and I could see the water in the glasses shaking.

Someone cried out, “It’s an earthquake. Run!”

I reacted quickly by taking Lily’s hand and evacuating the restaurant.

Just as we were about to make a run for it, Leon carried Charlotte in his arms and ran past me, even tackling me to the floor.

“Don’t worry, Charlotte. We’re going to be fine.”

The situation had descended into chaos. I was trampled on several times before Lily managed to pick me up on my feet, and we managed to scramble out together.

As soon as we stepped outside, I spotted Leon nearby with Charlotte wrapped tightly in his arms.

He sounded relieved. “I’m glad we managed to make it out safely…”

Then, as if he just remembered me, he glanced back at me, his eyes meeting my cold, indifferent gaze.

He averted his gaze and stated hesitantly, “Anna, everything happened so suddenly, I didn’t mean…”

Lily could not take it anymore. “Enough of that! If that quake had been worse, you could’ve killed her when you knocked her down!”

Leon pursed his lips and stayed silent. Lily was going to keep going until I shook her head to tell her to stop.

Then, I shot an icy look at Leon. “Don’t bother explaining. Charlotte must have been frightened, and isn’t her dad in the hospital too? You should be with her.”

After that, I never contacted Leon again. Likewise, he stopped contacting me as well. That was when I met Luke Goldberg, a blind date my mother had gotten for me.

Luke’s parents were urging him to get married, while I was recovering from a heartbreak. However, we clicked immediately and talked about getting married right away.

As the wedding date drew closer, I got busier with the wedding preparation. One day, the designer called and told me to try on a customized wedding gown, so I went to the studio during my lunch break.

I had just stepped out of the fitting room after changing into the wedding gown when, coincidentally, Charlotte stepped in.

The moment she saw me, she remarked with a disdainful sneer, “You don't even have a spouse, but here you are, trying on wedding gowns!”

I ignored her and checked out the dress in the mirror. From the reflection in the mirror, I spotted Charlotte’s expression drop.

“Annabelle! Are you getting a wedding gown to crash my wedding?”

She immediately charged at me with a pair of scissors she somehow swiped and proceeded to cut my wedding gown into pieces. The clerk tried to stop her, but it was no use. Throughout the frantic scramble, I focused on protecting my undergarments.

At one point, Charlotte, in her rabid state, lost her balance and tumbled to the floor. She hit her head against the edge of the stairs. There was no blood, but a spot on her head became swollen.

She sat on the floor and groaned from the pain. Meanwhile, I pulled the tattered fabric to cover myself while glaring at her.

The moment I was about to say something, the door swung open. Leon charged in angrily and shoved me to the floor.

“Annabelle! You are more evil than I thought!”

Then, he picked up Charlotte from the floor, his eyes red and heartbroken.

Charlotte sobbed in his arms. “Leon, she didn't push me down on purpose. Please don't blame her. Ow… My head hurts.”

Leon glared at me, furious. “She better not have done it on purpose! Annabelle, if something happens to Charlotte, I won’t let you get away with it!”

With that, he marched off with Charlotte in his arms.

The clerk tried to console me and offered to explain the situation to Leon, but I turned down the offer. If Leon cared at all, he would’ve noticed that I was the one with my dress all torn up.

In fact, if he bothered to check the surveillance footage, he would know what happened. However, he did not care, so what was the point of getting the clerk to talk to him anyway?

It worked out just fine for me too, for that severed the final bit of affection we had toward each other.

Time passed in the blink of an eye, and it was the day of the wedding. Luke was clad in a black suit that made him look more handsome than ever.

He was a man of a higher class than Leon. He looked poised and aristocratic, but the moment he saw me, his features softened.

I, however, was a little overwhelmed. My confusion and uneasiness about the future made me very nervous.

As if he had read my mind, Luke took my hand and comforted me, “Don’t worry, I’m with you.”

He held my hand the entire time, and the wedding went smoothly. Eventually, I no longer felt as restless anymore.

Meanwhile, Leon was at his wedding. He was very restless and could not shake off the bad feeling in his guts.

He knew me well and found it suspicious that I had been completely silent on such a big day. I hadn’t sent him any texts lately either.

His anxiety was at an all-time high. Before the ceremony began, he even made a point of telling his friends to be on the lookout so I wouldn’t ruin the wedding.

That was when a mutual friend of ours went up to him and patted his shoulder to assure him. “Annabelle is getting married today too. I don’t think she’ll show up here.”

With that, he took out his phone and showed Leon the wedding invitation I sent him.