In the seventh year of my long-distance relationship with my girlfriend Quinn Summers, I quit my job without telling her and traveled more than six-hundred miles to Oceanton.

I only wanted to surprise her and ask her to marry me.

When the receptionist heard I was looking for Quinn, her expression slightly shifted. "Our CEO Ms. Summers is still in a meeting. Please wait a moment."

I was surprised. Quinn had never told me she had been promoted.

During our video call last week, she had even complained about how stressful work was and how far away a promotion felt.

When I turned around, I heard the receptionist whispering to her coworker. "So… This is the guy Ms. Summers is keeping on the side? Seriously, he has some nerve, coming all the way to the company."

"If Mr. Gomez finds out Ms. Summers is cheating during their marriage, this is going to be very bad."

I was about to turn back and tell them they had the wrong person. Quinn was not married, and I was her real boyfriend of ten years. But before I could speak, a man in a black suit walked in from the revolving door.

The receptionists immediately fell silent and greeted him with deep respect. "Mr. Gomez."

The man was on the phone, his voice low and gentle. "Honey, I'm downstairs. You must come with me to your prenatal checkup today!"

A clear female voice came through the phone, agonizingly sweet. "I know, honey. The meeting's almost over. Wait for me at the guest lounge."

I had listened to that voice for seven years. I knew it far too well.

It was my girlfriend, Quinn.

There was a soft thud as my backpack fell to the floor. When I crouched to pick it up, a prenatal report slipped out and fluttered down beside my foot.

It said the mother was twelve weeks pregnant. Under the "Mother's Name" bracket was Quinn's full name.

All this time, Quinn had told me she was busy and could only answer my calls once a week.

There was a time when Quinn finally agreed to a video call, and I saw a hickey on her neck.

"It's just a mosquito bite," Quinn explained at once. "Have you ever seen anyone else around me during all these years?"

I believed her. I even apologized and said I was being too suspicious. Now she had become someone else's wife. She was even carrying his child.

The man took the prenatal report from my hand and thanked me with a smile. When he saw me standing there, frozen, he asked, "Are you here to see Quinn too?"

I nodded.

"Then let's go up together. My wife always takes forever in meetings."

The words "my wife" hit me without warning, driving straight into my heart and leaving it bleeding.

In the guest lounge, the man finally introduced himself. His name was Hector Gomez, and he was also the head of the Gomez family based in Oceanton.

"My wife talks tough, but she's softhearted. She always says she's busy, but she still comes with me to her prenatal checkup every time," Hector said, grinning ear to ear as he looked at the report in his hand. "She's been working overtime a lot lately. She says she wants to earn enough money for the baby's formula. The whole company belongs to her family, but she still makes up excuses like that to humor me."

I clutched the backpack in my hand and forced down the anger in my chest.

Quinn had told me she was just an ordinary employee, that she was always being pushed around at work and could barely hope for a promotion. For seven years, she had always used the distance between us as an excuse and kept putting off getting married.

So, after I finished my last project at the end of the year, I quit my job and came all the way to Oceanton, hoping to marry Quinn.

Footsteps echoed outside the door. Then, several men in suits passed by the guest lounge and greeted Hector one after another. "Mr. Gomez, waiting for your wife again?"

When Quinn walked into the guest lounge, her coworkers beside her immediately teased her. "Ms. Summers, your husband is here to check on you again!"

Hector stepped forward and held her waist naturally, his tone faintly distressed. "Honey, what meeting took this long?"

"It ran a little late today. It won't happen again," Quinn said as she kissed his chin and calmed him down gently.

But when she looked up and saw me, the smile on her face froze. After just one second, she collected herself and asked coldly, "Why are you here?"

Hector turned to look at me. "Honey, who is this?"

The coworkers exchanged glances, then smiled and explained to Quinn.

"Who else could he be? He must be Ms. Summers's friend."

"Don't worry, Mr. Gomez. Everyone knows how much Ms. Summers loves you."

Quinn stepped forward and separated Hector from me, her tone distant and polite. "He's just a classmate from university."

She turned to the assistant beside her and said, "Please escort this gentleman out. Don't let him interrupt everyone's work."

I looked at her in disbelief, but her eyes were entirely on Hector.

When the assistant came to ask me to leave, Quinn only focused on holding Hector's hand. "Let's go, honey. We should get to the prenatal checkup."

Hector lowered his head and kissed her, smiling as he said, "My wife is such a good girl."

As he passed me, Hector looked back. "Honey, isn't it rude to leave your classmate standing there?"

Quinn did not look back at me. "He's just a classmate I barely know. How could he be more important than you?"

Tears fell before I could stop them, and the other passing employees watched my humiliation with scorn.

Ten years of relationship, seven years apart, and a journey of more than 600 miles. All I got was "a classmate I barely know" in the end.

There was still a message Quinn had sent three days ago on my phone. The text went: [Conrad, give me a little more time. Once my job is stable, we'll get married.]

I had quit my job and traveled all this way for her because of what she texted. But I never imagined it had all been a lie.

Later on, my phone buzzed. A message from Quinn popped up on my screen: [Go back with my personal assistant first. I'll explain later.]

I stared at those short sentences and I could feel my heart tightening. In the end, I still could not stop myself from questioning her. [Why did you lie to me?]

Quinn's reply was cold. [Just head back for now. Don't embarrass yourself outside the company.]

I thought of every time I had wanted to come to Oceanton and how she had found one excuse after another to stop me. So this was what she had been afraid of. That if I showed up, I would embarrass her.

As soon as I looked up, I heard people whispering and taking pictures of me with their phones.

"A boy toy has some nerve showing up here. How shameless!"

"He's young and he could do anything, but he still chose to be a homewrecker instead."

I immediately raised a hand to cover my face. I tried to explain through a choked voice, "I'm not a kept man. Quinn lied to me..."

All I got in return was a burst of laughter.

The personal assistant came over and put my luggage into the car and nearly shoved me into the car.

Half an hour later, the car stopped in front of a villa.

Quinn lived in a huge villa, yet she had told me she was living in a cramped rental studio. I was so worried that she was not doing well in Oceanton that I sent her half my salary every month.

Her personal assistant pushed me into the villa. Then, locked the door behind me with a click. "Wait here until Ms. Summers comes back."

A faint scent of men's cologne lingered in the air. A few months ago, when Quinn came to Eastford, I had smelled the same scent on her.

I turned around and froze. A huge wedding photo was hanging on the living room wall. Hector wore a black suit and held Quinn, who was dressed in a white wedding gown, in his arms. The date in the lower right was especially painful for me.

The day they took their wedding photos was my birthday.

That was the first time Quinn had not spent my birthday with me. She said work was too busy, and she simply could not get away.

I rushed into the bedroom like I had lost my mind. The walls were covered with photos of Quinn and Hector together. In the closet, men's shirts hung beside Quinn's sexy nightgowns. The vanity was also littered with luxury cosmetics. The last shred of hope I had shattered when I saw the nearly empty box of condoms on the bedside table.

So when Quinn said she was busy, she had been busy building a family with another man.

I slid down onto the cold floor, held my head, and broke down crying.

I had come from a poor family. My parents were both from the countryside, and I studied like my life depended on it before I finally made it to a big city. Whenever I did not have class, I worked part-time off campus. That was how I met Quinn.

I was a poor student who had made it out of the countryside. She was an heiress who was down on her luck and had to make her escape to rebel against her family's arrangements. Neither of our families supported us, so we could only rely on ourselves.

A few months later, we got together, and our classmates teased us by calling us the broke couple.

After all, we really were poor back then.

But every birthday, Quinn would scrape together enough money to buy me a present I liked. She would eat only two meals a day just to save up and buy me a pair of limited-edition sneakers. She said that if other boys had something, I would not be the only one without it. No matter how hard things were for her, she would never let her boyfriend down.

After university, I stayed in Eastford while Quinn went to Oceanton.

I rented a cheap room in Eastford for eight hundred a month and Quinn would come back to Eastford every weekend. We would hold on to each other in the dark, the narrow old bed creaking beneath us.

Quinn kissed the corner of my eyes and swore to me in a hoarse voice, "Conrad, once my job is stable, let's get married."

To save enough money for our wedding, I worked hard and often stayed up doing overtime until two in the morning. In the end, I exhausted myself and collapsed at the office.

When Quinn learned that I was sick, she asked for leave that same day and rushed to the hospital in Eastford. She was so angry that she scolded me loudly for being stupid, then held my hand tightly the next second, her eyes red.

Quinn asked the company for leave because she wanted to stay in Eastford to take care of me, but her superior tore into her viciously. It was the first time I had ever seen her speak to someone so lowly, with a bitter smile on her lips.

I urged Quinn to go back to work and stop worrying about me, but she said to me with complete seriousness, "Nothing is more important than you in my eyes."

At that moment, I believed with all my heart that Quinn loved me. And because I believed so firmly in her love, I made it through the whole seven years.

When Quinn came home to the villa and saw my eyes red from crying, she immediately hugged me with her eyes full of guilt. She started with an apology, "Conrad, I'm sorry. Back then, after my father passed away, I had no choice but to return to Oceanton and inherit the family business. Your social status was too low. The elders in my family would never have let me marry you."

I could not listen anymore and shoved her away. "So you married someone else? Quinn, what did those seven years apart even mean?"

Quinn looked at me, her expression settling back into calm. "Conrad… You must understand I'm the heir to the Summers family. I have my own duties. Hector and I are on the same level, and our marriage benefits both families. Hector said that as long as you behave, he can turn a blind eye and let you stay by my side.

I looked up at her as tears rolled down my cheeks. Quinn then raised her hand and wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes. "Conrad, we've been together for so many years. I won't mistreat you. If you want to stay in Oceanton, I'll arrange for you to join the company as my personal assistant."

I slapped her across the face. While she stared at me in shock, I grabbed my luggage and left the villa. After I got into a taxi, Quinn sent me a voice message, "Conrad, stop being stubborn. Summers Group isn't somewhere just anyone can walk into. I'll give you three days to think it over."

Then she transferred ten thousand dollars to me.

In the past, she had never sent me more than a thousand dollars at a time to keep up appearances. Now, she easily gave me ten thousand dollars.

I did not reply and rejected the transfer.

After renting a place and settling in, I switched on my phone again.

Everyone was losing their minds over the trending topics.

Someone had posted a video of me outside the company online. I looked especially pathetic in the video, with shifting eyes.

Every trending topic said Quinn had cheated, and that her boy toy had boldly shown up at her company. Despite being Quinn's real boyfriend, I had become the homewrecker everyone despised.

I immediately posted the story of my relationship with Quinn, along with our chat records. The timeline clearly showed that Quinn and I had been together long before she married Hector.

Public opinion flipped and the whole internet cursed her name instead. Quinn called several times, but I hung up right away.

A few minutes later, Hector posted their marriage certificate on social media. He said he and his wife had a harmonious relationship and accused me of staging everything for attention.

Summers Group's public relations team personally stepped in, claiming the chat records were fabricated, and threatened to send me a legal notice for defamation.

Gossip accounts spread rumors everywhere, calling me a boy toy provoking the legal husband.

The comments under the post turned into a disaster.

[The homewrecker failed to fight back and even got threatened with a legal notice. Hilarious!]

[That's the real husband for you. A few words were enough to crush this arrogant homewrecker!]

[He destroyed someone else's family and he still wanted to get attention by fighting back? Gross.]

My inbox was filled with abuse, and some people even told me to end myself.

Half an hour later, the post was removed, and my account was banned.

For the first time, I understood how ridiculous I was in the face of absolute power.

My phone rang repeatedly. I refused to answer, so the person on the other end kept calling. In the end, I pressed the answer button.

The person calling me was not Quinn, but Hector.

"Conrad." His laugh was full of contempt. "Let's talk."