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."

Early the next morning, Hector asked me to meet him at a cafe.

When he saw me again, he did not look surprised at all. He started the conversation and said, "Conrad, I recognized you the moment I saw you at the company yesterday."

I froze.

The next second, he explained calmly, "Before I married Quinn, I already knew about you. It isn't strange for women to keep a lover on the side in our circle. Quinn is considered reserved, to be honest... She only had you."

I snapped back, "I'm not her lover!"

"What you are doesn't matter," Hector said with a sneer and handed me the latest prenatal report. "Quinn is already pregnant. Now that we have a child on the way, I didn't plan to bother with you, but you made it onto the trending topics, so I have no choice but to handle this."

He pushed a nondisclosure agreement and a blank check my way. "Sign this, record an apology video, and leave Oceanton within two days. Fill in whatever amount you want."

I pushed them back and wanted to leave, but Hector stopped me. "You won't be able to survive in Oceanton. Come to me anytime once you change your mind."

Hector was right.

I took my resume to several companies all morning, but human resources shook their heads the moment they saw it. They rejected me for poor character and for the potential to damage the company's image.

Some even mocked me to my face. "Why are you looking for a job when you're a boy toy? You can just find another sugar mommy, right?"

Photos of me going to interviews were also posted online, and someone directly tagged Quinn's social media account.

The next second, Quinn called me. "Conrad, how long are you going to keep embarrassing yourself? I gave you a job, and you refused it. You insist on going outside and making others laugh at you instead. Can you stop making a scene?"

"Quinn, do you see me as the homewrecker too?" I asked as I felt Oceanton's biting wind cut across my skin.

Quinn went silent for a long time. "Conrad, I..."

I did not want to hear her explanation and hung up.

A few minutes later, my phone started to vibrate again.

My mother's broken sobs came through the line. "Conrad! I couldn't believe I have a son like you! You were someone's… Someone's boy toy for seven years?! You made your father so angry that he had a heart attack! The surgery is going to cost fifty thousand dollars! Where are we supposed to get that much money..."

With a thud, a snowball slammed hard into my head.

Two children pointed at me and shouted, "Boy toy! Hit the boy toy!"

Snowballs came one after another. They laughed as they ran away, even turning back to make faces at me.

I knelt in the snow, tears falling onto my phone screen. With trembling hands, I dialed that number. Hector's mocking laugh came through the phone from the other side. "You made up your mind that quickly?"

My voice was hoarse as I said. "I'll do it."