Chapter 1
1
To pay off my boyfriend’s debts, my mother and I worked ourselves to the bone. But because of it, she developed lung cancer. Wh- en I rushed to the hospital with the money for her treatment, I found she had hanged herself, leaving behind only a letter:
“Lila, my dear, your mother can’t go on. Take this money to pay off the debts. Julian is a good boy, he loves you, he just lost his way. After the debts are settled, live a good life together.”
Clutching my mother’s ashes, I handed the thirty thousand dollars of her hard–earned money to Julian Winthorpe.
Returning to the company, I unexpectedly saw him talking with several creditors.
“Mr. Winthorpe, Miss July has passed all your tests. What are your next arrangements?”
Julian’s childhood friend, Olivia Reed, suddenly spoke up: “Julian, darling, although Miss July can endure hardship with you, we still need to test if she can share prosperity.”
Julian pursed his lips: “Next, I need to know if her feelings for me are genuine.”
“After she knows my true identity, if she isn’t swayed by vanity, if she doesn’t become greedy for money, I will marry her.”
I stared at my mother’s urn, tears streaming down my face. Julian Winthorpe, Mother was wrong about you. And so was I.
I don’t want to marry you anymore.
Leaving the Winthorpe Corporation, I sat by the roadside, clutching my mother’s urn. My mother had asked me to place her remai- ns in a simple pickling jar. All to save five hundred dollars for Julian’s debts.
On the large screen in the town square, Julian’s image appeared. The news anchor reported: “Just now, Mr. Julian Winthorpe, the CEO of Winthorpe Corporation, who mysteriously disappeared for three years, attended a gala with his fiancée, Miss Olivia Reed.”
I watched Julian’s proud and confident face on the screen. Tears welled in my eyes. So, all the sweat and toil my mother and I pou-
red into earning money to pay off his debts… was just a lie.
I sat there for a long time, until dusk, when Julian called. His voice, as always, was tender: “It’s so late, why aren’t you home yet?
Where are you? I’ll pick you up.”
I instinctively opened my mouth, but silence was all that came out. In the past, I would have responded with a hint of resentment,
complaining that he was disturbing my work again. But now, that intimate tone… I couldn’t bring myself to speak.
Julian’s voice held a touch of urgency: “Lila, where are you now?”
“Working.”
Julian froze, seemingly just remembering that for his debts, I had been diligently working late into the night. He had also promised
that once the debts were paid, he would marry me. We would settle down and build a life together, just as my mother had hoped.
Tonight, he was supposed to reveal his true identity to me. “I, I have something to tell you. Actually, I’m the heir to the Winthorpe Corporation.”
“I’m coming to pick you up right now…”
I hung up, hailing a cab and driving away. I had no expectations left for Julian. When I finally collected myself, my tears were reflec ted in the car window. On my phone, Julian’s messages popped up, one after another. I didn’t look, nor did I want to.
Today was supposed to be the day we started our new life. But his deception had turned my mother’s suicide into a bitter joke. Five years of arduous effort, exchanged only for a ludicrous truth.
