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!"

After hearing what I had to say, Ethan lowered his eyes, looking almost pitiful. "I never had a first love who passed away."

Ethan continued and said, "I showed you all this because I wanted to ask you something. After everything Sean has done, do you still want to marry him? If you don't, I'll marry you."

His words made me speechless to the point that I did not even notice Sean entering the fitting room.

A familiar embrace finally snapped me awake. "Honey."

His voice was so charming that it made my skin crawl. "Anita just came back to the country. I only came with her to try on wedding dresses. She was joking when she said she was my girlfriend."

I said coldly from inside his embrace. "She just came back, and she's already trying on the dress we reserved for our wedding?"

The size suited her even better than it suited me.

Not to mention...

In the wedding photos Ethan had shown me just now, Anita was wearing this exact dress.

I struggled, but Sean held me even tighter. "Jealous again?"

He chuckled next to my neck and said, "How about I buy you a purse?"

Another purse.

At first, I had not understood why Sean was so obsessed with buying me purses when I did not care much about luxury purses. Not until I saw Anita's social media today, where I learned she was the one who liked purses. In fact, she liked them so much that she had an entire wall of them.

Before I could speak again, another pair of arms pulled me closer. "If my wife wants anything, I'll buy it for her."

Sean frowned and gave Ethan a look, telling him that he could stop the act at a time like this. But Ethan simply held my waist even tighter as if he did not see it.

Feeling the strength of his hold, I calmed down too. "I believe you haven't forgotten about the one-month-long contract, Mr. Green? Right now, I'm Ethan's surrogate girlfriend."

Sean grabbed my arm, his roguish smile full of helplessness. "Saying things like that just to make me angry again? Fine, this one is my fault. You can be mad, alright? But we're getting married one month from now."

"Sean, who's getting married?" Anita had not even reached us before Sean abruptly let go of my hand in panic. Cold mockery filled my eyes as I looked at Sean, naturally holding her hand.

"Ethan is, of course." As Sean spoke, he kept giving Ethan frantic looks.

This time, Ethan could see him clearly. "That's right. Blossom and I are getting married in one week."

Hearing that, Sean secretly gave him another thumbs-up.

Good man!

But the hostility Anita showed me earlier still told me she had known about my relationship with Sean all along.

"Honey," Ethan called out to me. "This salon isn't good enough. I'll take you somewhere else."

After we left, he immediately let go of my hand and said, "Sorry. I saw Anita glaring at you, so I acted on impulse and decided on my own."

I could not help but laugh softly.

A bookworm who could not read the room?

Those eyes of his were clearly eagle eyes trained on sensing emotions. I then asked, "When you said we were getting married in one week, were you serious?"

Ethan swallowed and hurriedly shook his head. "That was out of line. I'm sorry."

I shook my head with a helpless laugh, then looked up at him seriously. "I'm going to get married as planned in one week, no matter who the groom is. Ethan, will you marry me?"

-

The answer was settled when Ethan appeared at our wedding as the groom.

The wedding was held on Eme Island, which had the largest lavender field in the world.

I did not make it a big deal, but Ethan seemed to want to invite the whole world.

He even sent Sean an invitation.

But three days had passed since the invitation went out, and Sean had not made a single move.

As the makeup artist worked on my hair and makeup, I scrolled through social media out of boredom and finally learned why. Over the past few days, Sean had been taking Anita around the world to make up for the honeymoon she had missed.

Coincidentally, they were also currently on Eme Island.

I shook my head with a faint smile and blocked Sean on every platform. Then, I got up and walked toward the altar where Ethan was waiting.

This time, I, the professional stand-in, was going to be unprofessional and make the act real.

"Honey, when the one-month contract expires, and Sean finds out you're married, what kind of expression do you think he'll have?" Ethan asked. "I wonder if he'll really lose his mind?"

I lowered my head and looked at the wedding ring on my finger. "Doesn't matter. From the moment I put on this ring, I have nothing to do with Sean anymore."