When Willow pushed the door of the cafe open, the wind chimes rang.

She looked around and soon fixed her gaze on a woman sitting in a corner.

She wore a Chanel set that was tailored to her figure, and her makeup was done very delicately. Every move she made exuded an air of superiority that she seemed to be born with. Willow walked over to her, pulled out a chair, and sat down. Her face betrayed no emotion.

“I’m Eve Jenkins, Andrew’s fiancee.” Eve got straight to the point, and she spoke with a bold tone.

Willow said nothing and just stared at her. Her eyes were as calm as still water.

Clearly, Eve was not expecting this reaction from her. She frowned. “You’re Andrew’s girlfriend, and I suddenly popped up to proclaim that I’m his fiancee. Don’t you have any questions for me?”

Willow just smirked, but her heart felt full of despair.

Questions? What questions could she possibly ask? Ever since she had heard the conversation in that private room, she had completely given up on Andrew.

No matter what he did, she no longer felt surprised.

Willow’s silence made Eve’s face darken.

She had stated her position just to see Willow losing her mind and having her heart broken, but she was like a block of ice, and Eve had no idea how to break her.

Gritting her teeth, Eve spoke even sharper words. “Andrew has agreed to marry me soon. No matter who you are, he’s going to break up with you. I suggest that you leave him on your own, or you’re going to end up embarrassing yourself. I can even give you some money.”

Willow looked up and stared at Eve calmly. “When are you announcing your wedding?”

Eve was stunned at first, but then she grinned. “At the beginning of next month. We haven’t decided on a precise date, but we won’t be waiting too long.”

At the beginning of next month? That was after her birthday.

By the looks of it, Andrew had long since planned to play the videos on her birthday, dump her, and then marry Eve.

‘Andrew… Andrew… You truly are heartless,’ she thought.

Willow said flatly, “Have you looked into who I am? If you did, you’d know that I don’t want money. If you sought me out to humiliate me today, then you only wasted your time.”

Eve’s expression turned dark. Willow cast her a glance before she added, “Also, a word of advice: Andrew is heartless. He loves no one but himself. You can get married to him for the sake of getting what you want from it. But if you fall in love with him, you’re done for.”

She stood up and turned to leave, but Eve shot to her feet and grabbed her wrist. She screeched, “You have no right to say that about him!”

Before Willow could react, Eve grabbed the coffee on the table and threw it at her. The warm liquid flowed down Willow’s hair and cheeks before staining her clothes.

Eve was still seething. She shoved Willow to the floor.

Willow crashed into a corner of the table before landing on the floor. Her head crashed against the tiles, and a sharp pain spread through her head. Her vision blurred. When she touched her forehead, her fingers were stained red with blood.

At that moment, someone shoved the door open.

“What’re you doing, Eve?!”

Suddenly, a cold voice tinged with suppressed anger rose behind them.

Willow looked up and saw Andrew striding over. Behind him were a few of his friends. He wore a black trenchcoat that made his dark expression look even more frightening.

He shoved Eve away and grabbed the other cup of coffee on the table before throwing it at her.

Then, he removed his coat and wrapped it around Willow. With a quivering voice, he said, “Are you okay, Willow?”

In disbelief, Eve stared at him. “I’m your fiancee, and you threw coffee at me for her?!”

Andrew ignored her. He only stared at Willow and spoke very gently. “Be good now. Wait for me in the car. Once I’m done with this, I’ll come to you.”

Willow said nothing and let him help her up before she walked to the entrance.

Her mind was still blank, and her ears rang. She only recovered slightly from her shock when she was inside the car.

Soon, Andrew’s friends walked over.

One of them knocked on the window.

“Please don’t misunderstand, Willow. Andrew’s family found him a fiancee. He never told you about it because he wanted to take care of the problem himself. He just wasn’t expecting Eve to provoke you like this. He likes you, so he doesn’t want to be together with someone else.”

He liked her?

She found that hilarious, but she lowered her head with no expression on her face as she sat quietly like a lifeless statue.

Soon, Andrew came out of the cafe. Eve ran away while crying, and she looked pathetic.

Once he chased his friends away, Andrew got into the car and helped Willow put some balm on her wound with a worried gaze.

His movements were so gentle that it felt like he was treating her like a fragile piece of treasure. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.

“Willow, my family is the one who arranged an engagement with Eve. I won’t marry her and will make things clear with my family soon. Please don’t overthink this.”

Willow said nothing and just stared ahead. “I know. You should start driving, Andrew.”

Andrew cast a glance at her. He looked like he had more to say, but in the end, he just started the car.

The atmosphere in the car was suffocating. Willow shut her eyes. Her thoughts were a mess.

Suddenly, a piercing screech rose.

Willow’s eyes snapped open, and she saw a truck come straight at her.

Her eyes flew wide open. In the next second, Andrew lunged at her and hugged her tightly.

Bam!

There was a loud crash, and her world spun.

Willow fainted in a puddle of her blood.

When she woke up next, she found herself lying in a hospital bed. The white light above her pierced her eyes.

Andrew sat by the bed. Despite his pale complexion, his eyes lit up with pure joy. “You’re finally awake, Willow! I was so scared.”

Willow parted her lips and asked hoarsely, “How’s your injuries?”

Andrew caressed her hair and said calmly, “I broke a bone, that’s all. I’m fine. I failed to protect you.”

He then got up. “Keep lying down and don’t move. I’ll call a doctor over to check on you.”

After he left, Willow’s phone suddenly vibrated.

She picked it up and saw that Eve had sent a video to her.

It was taken not too long ago and from within the cafe they had met in.

Andrew’s friends were animatedly explaining something to Eve.

“Miss Jenkins, how many times do we need to tell you before you believe us? Andrew is with Willow only because he has a plan. He’s only pretending to love her to take his revenge on Rias Warma. Since the two families have agreed to the marriage, he’ll definitely marry you. Look, he’s a man of his word when it comes to business deals. So don’t go ruining his plans already, seriously!”

Eve just stared at Andrew and said in a trembling voice, “Are they telling the truth, Andrew? You don’t love her but are using her to take revenge?”

His friends quickly said, “Of course! How could he possibly love his rival’s sister? That’s not how Andrew does things. If he really was in love with her, Andrew wouldn’t be trying to humiliate Rias. Instead, it would be Rias insulting Andrew! Holy… I can’t even imagine that!”

“I want Andrew to tell me this himself!” With teary eyes, Eve looked at Andrew. “Tell me, Andrew.”

Andrew had a complicated look on his face as he stared at the car where Willow was.

In the end, he nodded.

Eve threw herself into his arms and said in a choked voice, “But I still don’t feel confident. We’re about to get married, but you’re pretending to be in a relationship with another woman. Why don’t you just pretend that your brakes fail and turn your car so that the front passenger’s seat crashes into something? Just make Willow get into an accident, and I’ll believe you, okay?”

After a moment of silence, Andrew said, “Okay.”

The video ended.

Willow’s hands trembled, and her phone fell to the floor.

So, Andrew had planned this accident too.

She shut her eyes. Sadness, despair, indignation, and all sorts of complicated emotions swirled in her heart. They raged so wildly in her that she felt as if there was a heavy weight pressing down on her chest.

She could not figure out just when Andrew would feel satisfied enough to quit this.

She remembered that when they got into the accident, he had indeed turned his steering wheel so that she would be the one who faced the brunt of the crash. Only when the truck was about to hit her, he had protected her.

She could not figure out what he was thinking. Since he wanted to use her for revenge, shouldn’t he be happier if she was injured even more? Why would he shield her at the last second? It was so unnecessary. He even got a broken rib.

A thought popped up in her head, but she did not want to continue down that route.

‘Andrew, I hope that you really don’t have any love for me and just want to use me to take revenge, just as you said. Otherwise, if you love me even in the slightest, you’re going to suffer,’ she thought.

Over the next few days, Andrew took care of her.

Despite the doctor telling him to rest because of his broken rib, he stubbornly insisted on staying beside her 24/7. He fed her, tucked her in, cut some fruit for her, and even told her stories.

Anyone who saw it would think that he loved her dearly, but Willow just could not find it in herself to feel happy.

She knew that all of this was fake.

His gentleness and concern were all a meticulously planned lie.

On the day she was discharged, Andrew saw that she was feeling down. To make her happy, he took her to the dance club his friend had opened.

The room was dark, and the sound of music was deafening.

Andrew was very attentive toward her. His friends also surrounded her and took care of her. But Willow felt awkward and kept having the gnawing feeling that something bad was going to happen.

Just then, the door opened, and Eve strode in.

Everyone’s faces darkened.

When they saw that Andrew was about to fly into a rage, his friends went up to her and whispered, “Didn’t we tell you already? You asked Andrew to stage the accident and get Willow injured. He did it, so why are you here to cause another fuss?”

Eve smiled and said airily, “Don’t worry. I’m not here to cause trouble. I’m here to join your plan. No matter what, Andrew and I are about to marry, and I want to add fuel to the fire on the person he wants to humiliate.”

She whispered something in his friends’ ears, whose eyes lit up, and they smiled meaningfully.

Willow wanted to know what they had talked about, but the music was just too loud, and she heard nothing.

After Eve was done whispering her plan, she went up to Willow with a fake smile on her face. “Miss Warma, I was wrong. Andrew already taught me a lesson. He hasn’t agreed to our marriage because he loves you too much and won’t marry another woman.”

Willow frowned. The ominous feeling in her heart grew.

She did not know why the haughty Eve would suddenly concede and why she would say this, but her instincts were screaming at her that things were not as they seemed.

Andrew’s expression turned dark as he looked back and forth between Willow and Eve.

But Eve was no longer as confrontational as before. Suddenly, she grabbed a set of keys from her handbag and handed them to Willow. “This is a mansion I just bought. It’s located in the city center. I want to give it to you as a token of apology for what happened at the cafe.”

Willow did not take it. She said coldly, “You don’t have to. I’m not staying in Northvalley for long.”

At that, Andrew’s expression instantly changed.

He grabbed Willow’s hand. The man who always looked like he had victory in his grasp suddenly spoke with a hint of uncontrollable panic. With a grim voice, he asked, “What do you mean by that? I’m in Northvalley, and you’re definitely marrying me in the future. If you’re not going to be here to be with me, where are you going?”

Willow stared at him calmly.

Of course, she was going back to Southvalley to marry the person she was supposed to marry and spend time with her family as she should.