A week before the wedding, Sean Green begged me to date his best friend.

"Honey, just one month. I'll come get you when it's over. You know better than anyone how to be a surrogate girlfriend. Please do this for me? Help him get over the regret of losing his first love so young."

I said nothing and nodded without hesitation, but I was not doing it for him. Before I got together with Sean, I was indeed famous in high society as a surrogate girlfriend. So, when Sean pursued me, I did not believe him. I thought it was just another game some nepobaby had come up with until I rejected him for the ninety-ninth time.

"Sean, I'm not some decent woman. I love money, and I've been a surrogate girlfriend for a lot of people. If you want me to act as one, we'll do this properly, and you can name a price."

I tried my hardest to look arrogant, but he pried open my clenched hand and pressed a black credit card into my palm. His eyes were full of heartache as he said, "I have money. All you need to do is be yourself, my girlfriend, and my future wife. No one will ever make you a stand-in again."

I believed him.

At least, until a few days ago, when I saw his chat with his friends.

[Now that the real one is back, the surrogate girlfriend doesn't seem so appealing anymore, right? Aren't you afraid she'll actually sleep with him since you're handing her off to someone else? Or run away with him?]

Sean replied: [She won't. She loves me to death.]

[Besides, it's not like I'm not going to marry her. I just want to make up for my regret when Anita's back this time.]

[Ethan Foster is my best friend. He knows where the lines are. He won't touch her.]

But Sean did not know that the best friend he was talking about had long since lost all sense of restraint with me.

The moment I agreed, Sean came out of the bedroom carrying a suitcase. It was as if he had packed it a long time ago. He then said, "I'll take you there now."

There was a hint of coldness in my eyes. Was he really that eager to hand his own fiancée over to someone else?

Sean pulled me into his arms and rested his chin on top of my head as if he had noticed my mood. Then, he said, "Honey, I just want you to go sooner so you can come back to me sooner, too."

Then, he held my face and laughed softly. "You're overthinking things again, aren't you? If it weren't for my best friend, I would never let you go back to your old work."

He gently urged me into the passenger seat and said, "I'll have someone sort through the rest of your things and send them over after packing them up. Just be yourself when you're at his place and treat it like your own home."

He was so considerate that he seemed nothing like the Green family's usually cold and retrained heir.

In the past, he would never have cared so much about me. He had only tossed me a credit card and said, "I show my love with money. Spend as much as you want."

Back then, I had taken that as the most romantic confession in the world. But after seeing his group chat with his friends last night, I finally understood.

Money had never meant much to Sean. When he gave me money, it was no different from him paying his employees. It had never meant anything more than that.

In the car, Sean's phone screen lit up. It was another message from the group chat: [You're really willing to hand a woman like Blossom White over to someone stiff like Ethan? Look at those long legs, that big chest, and that slender waist…]

Sean replied without a care: [Do you want her too? I need to keep Anita Sanders company this month. I won't ask about Blossom during this time.]

So, he would quietly let any of his friends have me during this month if they asked? I could feel the bitterness spread in my mouth. So bitter that I could literally taste it in my mouth.

With a cigarette between his fingers, he gave an amused glance at the message asking whether he loved me.

[Love a surrogate? I think she's filthy.]

So, while he said he did not mind and did not care, he had always thought I was filthy to the core, deep down.

Dim light fell across the side of his face through the car window, and I quietly traced his features with my eyes.

This was going to be the last time.

Noticing my stare, Sean put down his phone and patted the top of my head. "What is it? Is my little fiancée nervous?"

His smile was charming as he said, "Relax. Just treat it like when you used to be a surrogate girlfriend."

After that, he said so many tender words that sounded nothing like him for the first time.

"Honey, you can't let this fake relationship with my best friend turn real. I'll lose my mind."

"Honey, you're the only one I love."

In the past, no matter how hard I tried, I could not get him to say "I love you" even once. Now, for Anita's sake, those words poured out of him as if they cost nothing.

Every time I asked Sean to say he loved me, he would only say, "Do I have to say those words for it to be real love? I'm marrying you, not someone else. Isn't that enough?"

Was it enough?

Even the brilliant sunlight could not clear the grayness from my eyes.

When I did not answer, he suddenly kissed me at a red light.

"I'm not abandoning you, Honey." He said, his warm breath brushing the tip of my nose, but I no longer reacted the same as before, as I hummed back numbly.

In the past, he would scold me for treating life as a joke if I so much as poked the back of his hand when he was driving, even when the car was stopped. But now, Sean still kept kissing me as if his life depended on it, despite the cars behind us already honking one after another.

With five seconds left before the light was going to turn green, he finally let me go as he caught his breath and stepped on the gas. He said, "You're the only woman I've ever wanted to marry in this life."

The street outside the window slid past us.

When we reached Ethan's door, all my things had already been packed and left in the yard. I could tell that he really could not wait to kick me out and make room for Anita.

I took the suitcase from his hand and walked into the mansion, deliberately avoiding his touch.

"I'm going," I said.

But this time, I would not look back.

Meanwhile, the sound of the car engine faded quickly behind me without a hint of hesitation.

The heavy weight pressing on my chest shattered completely too.

Ethan silently took the suitcase from my hand. He did not go into the mansion first. Instead, he walked beside me and turned to study my expression. "You're upset? Relax. I won't touch you unless..."

He paused, as if weighing whether he should say the rest. "Unless you agree to it."

At that, I raised my brow slightly. I could not hide the surprise in my eyes.

Since when did Ethan know how to read people? I had met him a few times at Sean's birthday parties.

If memory served, he was someone stiff and could not understand subtext nor read the room. Whenever he opened his mouth, the mood would frequently become awkward. Fortunately, he was quiet enough that he barely said three sentences in an entire party.

I had once asked Sean why he invited someone like that and let him ruin the party's atmosphere. Sean said, "He's a bookworm who hasn't shown much emotion since he was little. I've gotten used to it after spending so much time together over the years. Besides, Ethan's family has been old money in Wishford for over a century, and they're third on the Forbes list.

"As the current head of his family, he's already doing me a favor by showing up to events like this."

Would someone with that kind of status and power care whether a surrogate girlfriend like me agreed or not?

I smiled faintly and sneered at myself coldly. This was just another game the nepobabies had come up with, just like Sean had back then.

I shook my head and smiled indifferently. "What wouldn't I agree to? Do whatever you want."

Even if Sean really had given me to someone else, what could I do? The rich and powerful had plenty of tricks up their sleeves.

Seeing Ethan open his mouth without saying anything, I changed the subject first. Not embarrassing the client was a basic skill for someone like me.

"Didn't you want to pay tribute to your late first love by having me try on wedding dresses in her place?" I stopped in front of the bedroom. "Get it arranged."

His dark eyes seemed to hold back some secret as he looked at me. In the end, he simply nodded and left.

I knew that look well.

Every client had looked at me that way. It was feelings mixed with pain and restraint…

His eyes hid a story of love he could never tell anyone.

Ethan moved quickly.

The next afternoon, his Maybach stopped outside a private bridal salon.

When I walked in, the first thing I saw was not rows of luxurious wedding dresses, but Sean and a woman clasping hands.

Seeing me arrive, Sean raised a brow with a roguish smile and reached for a cigarette out of habit. But when his eyes stopped on the woman beside him, he forced himself to put the cigarette back in the box.

"Ethan's wedding is coming up, so I invited them to try on wedding dresses with us," he explained to the woman beside him.

As for me, he ignored me completely.

Only after that did Sean finally seem to notice me. "So, this is Ethan's wife? Pretty."

Ethan's wife...

He said it so matter-of-factly.

Unfortunately, Ethan did not seem to want to play along, and his expression stayed cold as he said nothing.

True.

Being willing to clean up Sean's mess was already more than enough for someone at his level.

But then his voice came from behind me, "I don't like other people casually judging my wife's looks."

After saying that, he extended his arm around my waist and pulled me into his embrace.

The gesture made Sean raise his brows in surprise. He secretly gave Ethan a thumbs-up, quietly applauding him for his good acting. Then, he took Anita's hand and went to pick out a wedding dress.

"Aren't you going to introduce us?" I spoke suddenly, my eyes lingering on Anita's makeup-free face, which already looked about sixty percent like mine.

In the past, whenever I worked as a surrogate girlfriend for a client, I had to deliberately copy the other woman just to look even thirty percent similar. However, Anita and I looked so much alike without any makeup at all.

No wonder Sean had gone so far to pursue me.

Sean lowered his head and smiled, his roguish charm surrounding him. I used to love him most when he looked like this, but now, I only found it disgusting. "A very dear old friend."

Anita met my gaze without the slightest hesitation and corrected him. "His girlfriend."

The word clearly threw Sean into a brief panic as he quickly urged, "Go try on the dresses. Stop chatting already."

I clenched my fist and walked into the fitting room, using the pain to hold back my emotions.

Suddenly, a shadow fell over me, and my clenched hand was warmed by someone holding it.

"Don't make yourself sick with anger," Ethan said as he held out his hand. "Pinch me instead."

When he saw I was not interested, he slowly pried my hand open and gently held mine. Then, he held his phone out to me. "Sean sent me a message. Do you want to see it?"

I looked up somewhat impatiently. "You're letting a mere surrogate look at your phone?"

"Yeah," He said with a nod, his voice very soft. "You can look through it whenever you want. As much as you want."

"Enough!" I shook him off, my eyes cold. "How long are you rich people going to keep playing these games? When the woman you loved died, your first thought wasn't to stay loyal to her. It was to spend money on a stand-in. After you find one, you put her on a pedestal when you're happy, then throw her into the bin once you get bored."

Despite being six-foot-three-inches, Ethan kept his head lowered while I scolded him, making it look as if I were the one bullying him.

When I finally paused to take a breather, Ethan carefully hooked his finger around my pinky. "Do you feel a little less angry now?"

He held his phone out to me again. "I didn't lie to you. All the passwords are your birthday. You can even look at my browser history."

I felt how ridiculous everything was. As if possessed, I took the phone and entered the password, and… it really was my actual birthday. Because of a staff error, my official birthday was listed two months early on official records.

Even Sean did not know that.

Suspicious, I opened the chat records and scrolled through them as I asked, "You contacted Sean first?"

At first, Sean had been asking another friend in the group chat to take me. It was Ethan who had messaged Sean privately first: [Alex has no boundaries. Let Blossom stay with me.]

Scrolling further, I saw the messages Sean had just sent: [Help me cover up the girlfriend thing and keep Blossom calm.]

[Anita is already married overseas. If I can't marry Blossom, who looks so much like her, I'll lose my mind!]

Lose his mind?

I found it laughable.

Trying to make up for his romantic regrets with a married woman… It would probably make her husband lose his mind instead.

I exited the chat and returned the phone to Ethan, and I asked, "Your best friend asked you to cover for him, and you sold him out just like that?"

Or was this another coordinated game among the nepobabies?

"Don't worry. I won't ruin Sean's fun, and I won't become devoted to you just because of this little show of goodwill," I said.

Ethan was calmer than I had imagined. First, he screen-recorded the chat and sent me a copy. Then, he opened his photo album and Anita's social media, comparing them and showing me things that mattered.

He then said, "This is Anita's marriage certificate. These are her wedding photos. Her husband has been trying to have a baby with her this entire year."

I frowned, finding the whole thing peculiar. I then cut Ethan off directly and asked, "What exactly are you trying to do by showing and telling me all this? Do you just want to gossip?"

But no matter how I looked at him, Ethan did not seem like someone who liked digging up dirt on someone else.

"I just don't want you to be this upset," Ethan said. But how could such a simple answer come from Ethan?

Using my birthday as his password, giving me open access to his phone, and showing me his chat records with his best friend...

Every move he made made me frown deeper, confused. I asked, "Why exactly? These things should be shown to the woman you love, not me. I'm just the stand-in!"