The morning light filtered through the gaps in the hotel curtains, casting tiny spots of light on the bed sheets.

When Sophia woke up, there was a warm hand on her waist. Charles's breath gently fell on the back of her neck, with the familiar scent of cedar. This scent brought her back from the edge of losing control last night, but now it made her whole body tense.

She carefully moved Charles's hand away and stood up very quietly, but still woke him up.

Charles rubbed his eyes and sat up, his Adam's apple rolling as he spoke in a low, hoarse voice: "Don't you want to sleep a little longer?" He reached out to pull her, but just as his fingertips touched her sleeves, Sophia avoided them calmly.

"Hasn't your overseas project been completed yet?" Sophia lowered her head to straighten her messy collar, not daring to look him in the eye. "Yesterday was just an accident. You should go back and don't delay your work."

Charles paused, the sleepiness in his eyes instantly faded, and he looked more curious: "Sophia, are you hiding from me?" He remembered her crying and shaking in his arms last night, and the glass of drugged red wine on her. "Did Ethan do something to you? Tell me, I..."

"No!" Sophia suddenly raised her head and interrupted him, her voice trembling. "It's nothing, I just feel unwell. You should go back quickly. Didn't they say they are waiting for your signature?"

She deliberately brought up his work to change the subject.

She couldn't tell Charles that Ethan still had those private photos that could ruin her reputation, and she couldn't bring herself to involve him in this mess.

There are still seven days until the engagement party, and she needs to take care of everything and destroy those photos and videos in these seven days.

Charles stared at her red eyes, was silent for a few seconds, and finally did not ask any more questions.

He got up from the bed, dug out a thermos box and handed it to her: "It contains your favorite millet porridge. I asked the hotel to make it. I will finish my overseas affairs as soon as possible and will be back in a week at most. If you have any questions, feel free to call me. Don't carry it all by yourself."

Sophia took the insulated box, and her fingertips touched his hand, burning it so much that she quickly pulled it back. She lowered her head and hummed, not daring to raise it until she heard the hotel door close. Although the marriage had already been decided, she was still a little unsure how to face Charles when this happened suddenly.

When I returned to the house I shared with Ethan, the light in the entrance hall was still on, the same as when I left it yesterday. Ethan had not come back all night.

Sophia pushed open the door, and in the empty living room, only the ticking of the clock could be heard.

The phone lit up, it was a message from Lillian.

——"Sophia, Ethan slept at my place last night. He knew I was in a bad mood and brought me a gift to comfort me. I really envy you for having such a good boyfriend like Ethan."

The accompanying picture is a blue heart of the ocean gemstone necklace.

It was her birthday, but she only received a ring made of a can pull ring, while her adopted received a necklace worth tens of millions.

I used to think they just had a good relationship as siblings, and I was also nice to my , but it turns out they had been together for a long time.

I am so ridiculous.

Sophia glanced up at the couple's cup on the coffee table. It was a birthday gift from Ethan last year, with a photo of the two of them printed on it. She reached out and picked it up, throwing it straight into the trash can, along with the pillow on the sofa embroidered with their names. As her fingertips brushed against the soft fabric of the pillow, she paused for a second.

She had to find those photos before the engagement party in seven days.

The sound of the door lock turning startled Sophia awake. She sat up from the sofa and saw Ethan walk in. His black suit was stained with an unfamiliar perfume. It was not the gardenia scent she usually wore, but a sweeter rose scent.

"Sophia, why did you come back alone last night?" Ethan walked over and reached out to touch her face, but there was no worry in his eyes, only a subtle scrutiny. "I've been looking for you for a long time, thinking something had happened to you. Aren't these things your most precious? Why did you throw them all away?"

Sophia turned her head away from his hand and said in a calm voice, "If you don't like it, just throw it away. I felt a little uncomfortable last night, so I came back first." She gripped the sofa cover tightly with her fingers, waiting for his next words. She knew he would definitely ask about the wine last night.

Sure enough, Ethan sat down next to her and casually asked, "You didn't finish that glass of red wine last night, did you? Didn't it suit your taste? I wouldn't have poured it for you if I had known." His eyes swept over her face, as if to confirm something, "You didn't feel unwell again afterwards, did you?"

Sophia lowered her eyes, pretending not to hear his probing: "No, maybe I drank too fast, I'll be fine once I calm down."

Ethan stared at her for a few seconds, without asking any more questions, but a hint of an ambiguous smile appeared on the corner of his mouth: "I'm glad you're okay. By the way, you didn't have a good birthday party. When I'm done with this, we can make up for it and open a few more bottles of red wine to celebrate properly."

The word "celebration" pierced Sophia's heart like a needle. She knew he was planning his next attack—he hadn't found any evidence of her cheating and wanted to try again.

Sophia clenched her palms, her nails digging into her flesh, but she forced a stiff smile on her face: "Okay, we'll talk about it later."

Ethan nodded with satisfaction, stood up and walked into the bedroom, leaving Sophia sitting alone on the sofa. Looking at the sky gradually brightening outside the window, he felt cold all over.

Seven days, she had to act. If she didn’t find that USB drive holding her photos, then once the engagement banquet arrived, she would be ruined.

That evening, Ethan was unusually attentive. He cooked her favorite pasta, poured her a glass of wine, and even put on her favorite record.

“Sophia, once we’re engaged, let’s go abroad for a while,” he said with that familiar warm smile. “We’ve been so busy these past years, you deserve a good vacation. Italy, maybe? Venice, Rome…”

His voice was honeyed, his gaze affectionate. If she hadn’t overheard that conversation at her birthday party, she might have melted into his words, imagining herself walking hand in hand with him across Europe.

But now, every sentence he spoke felt like a carefully rehearsed line, meant only to keep her blind and compliant.

Sophia forced herself to smile. “That sounds wonderful.”

Inside, her heart twisted painfully.

Later that night, when Ethan went to take a call on the balcony, Sophia moved quickly.

She padded into his study, her hands trembling as she walked to the heavy oak desk. In the corner sat a black safe. Her heart pounded. This had to be it.

Her fingers hovered over the keypad. She recalled the numbers she had seen him enter a few nights ago—3, 6, 0, 1… but the last two digits had been blocked from view.

She tried a guess. 360123.

Error.

1.

Error.

She bit her lip hard enough to taste blood. One more try—360199.

The red light flashed again, and the safe locked her out. A loud beep echoed through the quiet room.

“Beep—beep—beep—”

Her blood ran cold.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway.

“Sophia?” Ethan’s voice carried in.

She snapped out of her panic, slammed the drawer shut, and quickly grabbed a random magazine from the shelf. By the time he pushed the door open, she was sitting in the chair, pretending to flip through glossy pages.

Ethan’s brows drew together. “What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Sophia replied evenly, keeping her tone casual. “I thought I’d read something to tire my eyes out.”

He studied her for a long moment, as if weighing her words. Then he relaxed and smiled.

“You should’ve called me. I’d read to you.” He stepped forward, bending down to kiss her hair. The movement made her stomach churn, but she forced herself to stay still.

“Come on,” he said gently. “It’s late. Let’s go to bed.”

Sophia followed him out of the study, her palms damp with sweat. She had almost been caught.

The next day, Sophia was on her way home when she received a message. Unknown number.

“Meet me. Now. Café on 6th Avenue.”

She hesitated. Then another text came.

“Or would you rather Ethan know what you were doing last night?”

Her breath caught. She hurried to the café.

Seated by the window, dressed in a flowing pale-pink dress, was Lillian Reed. She looked up with a sweet smile as Sophia approached, her tone gentle but cutting.

“Sophia. You’ve lost weight. Has Ethan not been taking good care of you?”

Sophia sat opposite her, expression calm. “What do you want?”

Lillian stirred her coffee lazily, eyes glinting. “Nothing, really. Just thought you should know—Ethan belongs to me. Always has.”

Sophia’s chest tightened, but her face remained expressionless. “If that were true, you wouldn’t be sitting here telling me. You’d be with him.”

A flicker of annoyance crossed Lillian’s perfect face. She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You’re running out of time. Do yourself a favor—walk away. Or I promise, you’ll regret it.”

Sophia met her gaze, unflinching. Her voice was steady. “We’ll see who regrets it.”

evening.

The box was noisy. Ethan's friends were playing finger-guessing games around the table, and the smell of cigarettes and alcohol filled the air.

Sophia sat in the corner, her eyes quietly sweeping across the inner pocket of Ethan's suit, which was resting on the back of the chair, and then across his friend's phone on the table . She had to find those photos and videos, even if it was just a clue.

"Sophia, why don't you drink? Are you feeling unwell?" Ethan came over with a glass of red wine, and gently touched her forehead with his fingers. The "concern" in his tone was so sweet that it sounded fake. "I warmed this glass for you. It's not cold. Drink some to warm yourself up."

Sophia looked at the wine swaying in the glass, and her throat tightened as she recalled what she had heard yesterday .

Her fingertips touched the bottom of the cup, but she didn't take it. Instead, she smiled and said, "I just took stomach medicine. I'm afraid it will conflict with the wine."

Ethan's face darkened, but he quickly smiled and handed the wine glass to her: "Just take a sip, it's okay, everyone is watching, don't spoil the fun."

The friends around also started to make a fuss. Sophia knew she couldn't escape it, so she pretended to accidentally loosen her fingers .

With a "crash", the glass fell to the ground, the red wine spilled on the carpet, and the fragments splashed on her ankles.

"Oh, Sophia, why are you so careless?" Lillian suddenly came over, her tone full of hypocritical concern, but her hand pushed Sophia hard from behind.

Sophia's body lunged forward uncontrollably, slamming hard into the long table filled with high-heeled glasses. With a loud crash, the glasses shattered all over the floor. She fell heavily to the ground, her palms pressing on the broken glass, and a sharp pain instantly shot up to her heart.

"Sophia!" Ethan walked over quickly and reached out to help her .

Lillian suddenly cried out in pain.

The wine splashed onto her skirt. Ethan nervously put his suit jacket on Lillian and carried her away, fearing that others would see her slender white legs. He completely ignored Sophia, who was soaked by the wine and scratched by the glass.

Didn't even ask "Are you okay?"

Sophia lost his support and fell heavily on the broken glass again. The back of his hand was scraped and blood oozed out from the palm of his hand, mixed with wine stains and glass shards. He looked so miserable that he looked like a joke.

The whispers around her drifted into her ears—"Ethan is too nervous about Miss Lillian," "Sophia is so miserable, he didn't even care after she fell like this," "If you ask me, Ethan doesn't love her at all, and I don't know why she's clinging to him ." Sophia lay on the ground, digging her fingers into the carpet, tears finally welling up in her eyes, not because of the pain, but because the sincerity of five years had only resulted in a complete betrayal.

Sophia was helped to her feet by a customer at the next table. Blood from her palms, mixed with shards of glass, clung to the carpet. As she stood, using the table as a support, her ankle still felt weak—her knee had banged against the table leg during her second fall, and now every movement was a sharp pain. People around her were still whispering, some offering tissues, others whispering, "Don't get angry with Ethan; he's worried about Miss Lillian, too." Sophia didn't respond. She simply bent down, picked up her dropped bag, and headed to the hospital alone .

The lights in the emergency room were bright. When the doctor used saline solution to flush the wound on her palm, she clutched the bed sheet in pain, but did not shed tears - compared to the betrayal she had experienced in the past two days, this pain was nothing.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. It was Charles's video call. He was wearing a suit, and the background was a foreign conference room. Seeing the gauze on her palm, his brows furrowed instantly. "What's going on? Are you injured again?"

Sophia avoided his gaze and pretended to be relaxed: "It's okay, I accidentally fell while walking. Aren't you in a meeting? How do you have time to call?"

"Nothing is more important than you." Charles's voice deepened. "Sophia, don't lie to me. Did Ethan do something to you? I checked his recent whereabouts. He's been having an affair with his adopted Lillian . He even had his secretary buy some 'obedient water' this afternoon. You must stay away from him."

Sophia's heart suddenly sank - Charles had actually been secretly following Ethan's movements. She bit her lip and finally told the truth .

Charles's face on the screen instantly turned cold, his knuckles clenched until they turned white: "I'll go back tomorrow, without waiting for the project to be finished."

"Don't!" Sophia interrupted him hastily. "Wait a little longer. The engagement party is in four days , and I have to find those private photos before that day. He hasn't suspected me yet, so I can take this opportunity to check his computer . I can't let him get alerted."

Charles was silent for a few seconds, but he finally gave in, his tone filled with worry: "Then you must be careful. I can help you remotely. Do you know the password to his computer? I can try to crack his cloud drive."

Sophia thought of Ethan's study computer—the password was her birthday. This detail, which he used to disguise his affection, now became a breakthrough. She nodded: "I know the password. I'll wait for him to come back tonight and see if I can get the things."

After hanging up, Sophia took a taxi back to her apartment. The living room lights were off, so she groped her way to the study. When she turned on her computer, the screen's glow cast a shadow over her pale face. She entered her birthday password, unlocking the computer successfully. She quickly opened the "Documents" and "Pictures" folders, but found no trace of any private photos. Just as she was about to give up, her mouse cursor flicked over an encrypted folder named "Lillian's Studio"—a name so contrived that it only aroused her suspicions.

She tried entering Lillian's birthday and Ethan's birthday, but both indicated the password was incorrect. Desperate, she sent a remote control request to Charles, who quickly connected on the other side of the screen, fingers tapping away at the keyboard. Ten minutes later, the folder was finally opened—it contained no studio information at all, but densely packed folders, dated "2020.5 First Time" and "2021.10 Hotel." Each folder contained her private photos and videos, as well as chat logs between Ethan and his friends, detailing "how to coax Sophia into taking photos" and "when to drug her next time."

Sophia's fingers trembled as she clicked on one of the videos. She had her eyes closed in the video. It was last year, when she was ill, and Ethan had coaxed her into taking a photo as a souvenir. She'd believed him then, but now she realized it was all his plan. Charles's voice came through the headset, distressed. "Wan Wan, stop looking. I've backed up these files to my cloud drive. Delete them from his computer so he doesn't find them."

Sophia gritted her teeth and followed Charles's instructions. While deleting the files, her fingertips slipped the wrong keys several times. Just as she was about to finish deleting, the sound of a key turning came from the entrance - Ethan was back.

She hurriedly turned off the computer and pretended to tidy up her desk. Ethan walked in, still wearing the scent of rose perfume that Lillian often wore. He hugged her from behind, his chin resting on her shoulder: "Sophia, why are you in the study? Are you waiting for me to come back?"

Sophia's body stiffened, and she pretended to be tired: "I have some unfinished work . Is Miss Lillian okay?"

Ethan paused, his tone filled with false guilt: "It's okay, just change your clothes . As for you, did you fall seriously this afternoon? I bought some ointment on the way back, can you apply it on it?"

Sophia avoided his hand and turned to walk towards the bedroom: "No need, I wiped it myself. I'm a little tired and want to go to bed early." She didn't dare to look back, for fear that he would see through the disgust in her eyes - this man, hugging her and pretending to be affectionate, while storing evidence of hurting her in his computer, how disgusting.

Ethan looked at her back, a hint of suspicion flashing in his eyes, but he didn't ask any more questions. He didn't know that Sophia had hidden a USB drive under her pillow, which contained screenshots of some chat records sent by Charles - on the day of the engagement banquet, she wanted him to pay the price for his actions.

The proposal banquet was held in the most luxurious hotel banquet hall in the city center. Ethan had booked the entire venue, from the entrance to the main stage, and filled it with white roses that Sophia "liked"—actually, they were Lillian's favorite flowers, and he didn't even bother to pretend. Sophia, wearing the dress Ethan had prepared, stood at the banquet hall entrance, watching the guests enter holding cards that read "Wishing Mr. Ye and Sophia happiness," and felt only the irony of it.

Charles had messaged her that morning: "I'm already near the hotel, waiting for your signal. I'll come in anytime." Sophia clutched her phone, the warmth of her fingertips transmitting through the screen, relaxing her tense nerves a little. Ethan walked over, put his arm around her waist, and said boastfully: "Sophia, after today, you're my fiancée. I'll give you the best life ever."

Sophia forced a stiff smile and said nothing. She knew that the "best life" Ethan mentioned was based on her being ruined and her money being drained.

Halfway through the banquet, the lights on the main stage suddenly came on. Ethan walked onto the stage, microphone in hand. His gaze swept across the audience, finally landing on Sophia. He spoke affectionately, "Today, I'm going to propose to the woman I love most. Sophia, when I met you five years ago, I knew you were the one I'd be looking for in my life..."

He was telling a lie he had already made up, and his friends in the audience followed suit and made a noise. Lillian stood in the crowd, her eyes full of pride - she thought Ethan was going to release Sophia's private photos when proposing to her, so that Sophia would collapse on the spot, but unexpectedly, Sophia was one step faster than her.