Theater: NovelMaster | Language: English | NEW
Synopsis
On our fourth anniversary, my boyfriend, Damian, got married.
The bride was not me.
When I rushed into the venue, the spotlight instantly locked onto me. Damian held the microphone, looking down at me from the stage with a smirk. "Summer, what's with the dress? Are you here to crash my wedding?"
I stared at his face—someone once so familiar, yet now an utter stranger. A cold chill spread straight to my bones.
I didn’t understand. This was supposed to be the proposal he promised me. Why had it turned into his wedding with another woman?
Seeing me freeze, his smile widened, cold and commanding. "Since you’re already here, bring the rings up for Vivian."
It wasn't a request. It was an order.
I glanced at the velvet box the usher handed me. Inside was the wedding ring Damian and I had spent six months designing together in our tiny, run-down studio.
Now, it was about to be slipped onto someone else's finger.
I tore my eyes away and looked straight into Damian’s cold eyes. The last thread of love in my heart snapped.
What was love even worth?
Damian had no idea that I was actually the true heiress of the powerful Crawford family.
And as of right now, I was done with him.
Enduring the mocking stares from the crowd as if I were a circus clown, I walked toward Vivian step by step and handed her the ring.
Taking the box, she offered a sweet, patronizing smile. "Thank you, Summer. Thank you so much for taking care of Damian like family all these years!"
She put heavy emphasis on the words *like family*. I ignored her completely.
Keeping my eyes forward, I turned to walk off the stage.
As I passed Damian, he leaned in and lowered his voice. "Be a good girl and smile. You look prettiest when you smile. It's just a wedding for show. If you really want one, I'll take you back to your small town and throw you a ceremony there."
I didn’t reply, nor did I look at him. With a blank expression, I walked down the steps.
Before I arrived today, I had genuinely dreamed of having a wedding with him. But now? I didn’t care anymore.
As I passed the banquet tables, several socialites deliberately raised their voices to sneer at me.
"Look, isn't that the little maid Damian kept around for four years? How polite of her to come and watch."
"Watch? Look at the veil in her hair! People who know the truth think she's a guest; those who don't would think she's trying to object to the wedding!"
"Crash a high-society wedding? Her? Does she even have the right?"
"Exactly. I heard she's just an orphan from the countryside. Look at that cheap dress. She screams trailer trash."
Surrounded by waves of ridicule, I never stopped moving. In absolute silence, I walked out of the hotel.
When I returned to my rented apartment, I found the lock had been changed.
My clothes, bedding, and daily necessities were piled up haphazardly in the cold hallway. Even my freshly washed undergarments had been carelessly tossed on the dirty floor.
Right then, the landlord came down the stairs, dangling a heavy ring of keys.
Seeing me, he let out a mock sigh. "Oh, Summer, you're back just in time. The hallway is completely blocked by your trash. Pack it up and get out. I don't know how you offended Mr. Damian Vance, but his people made it clear: no one in this city is allowed to rent a place to you. Anyone who defies him crosses the Vance family. Don't blame me for kicking you out..."
"Though..."
He paused, picked up my lace underwear from the floor, and brought it to his nose, taking a deep sniff. Then he flashed a row of disgusting yellow teeth. "Though, if you're willing to sleep with me, I could always find a place for you to crash. What do you say, pretty girl...?"
With that, his filthy hand reached directly for my waist.
I sidestepped sharply. My phone screen was already lit up, showing an outgoing emergency call. "If you want to spend the next few years in a prison cell, try touching me!"
The landlord snatched his hand back, glaring at me venomously. Before leaving, he spat out, "You'll come crawling back on your knees to beg me!"
Only after he turned the corner did all the strength drain from my body. I sank to the floor and locked my phone screen.
The emergency call screen was actually an app Damian had programmed for me years ago, worried I would be in danger whenever he wasn't around.
It was just a decoy interface for the first sixty seconds to scare off creeps.
Only after a full minute would it actually dial out.
The hallway fell deathly quiet, and the sensor lights clicked off, plunging the space into darkness.
I leaned back against the freezing concrete wall. The winter draft snuck through the crack of the window, chilling me to the bone.
I was still wearing the white dress from this morning, with only a thin down coat thrown over it. I was shivering uncontrollably.
Curling into a ball, I tapped on my phone, trying to find a friend's couch to crash on for the night.
Just then, a message popped up from Damian:
[Blue Crest Penthouse. Be there by 8:00 PM tonight. If you don't show up, you'll suffer the consequences!]
I ignored him and texted several of my friends.
Every single one of them gave hesitant, awkward excuses, claiming it wasn't convenient.
I didn't want to make things hard for them, so I booked a hotel room online.
Yet at seven different hotels, the front desk took one look at my ID and repeated the exact same line: "I'm sorry, ma'am, we're completely booked. Why don't you try somewhere else?"
At that moment, I finally realized what Damian meant by "consequences."
When I walked out of the last hotel, it was already 10:00 PM.
And Damian was standing right there.In the freezing snow, he was still wearing his tailored black tuxedo from the wedding, a lit cigarette pinched between his fingers.
When he saw me, he stubbed out the cigarette, exhaled a ring of smoke, and slowly walked over, stopping right in front of me.
Snowflakes settled on his hair. For a second, my mind blurred. Four years ago, when I first found him, he had looked up at me with that exact same snow dusting his head, gazing at me with wide, helpless eyes.
But I knew better now. The man before me was Damian Vance, the ruthless billionaire heir. He wasn't my sweet, gentle Ian anymore.
Seeing me try to walk past him, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me firmly into his chest.
"Still angry?"
He rubbed my freezing hands between his warm palms. "It was just a wedding for show. An alliance for business. In the end, I'm still yours. Isn't that enough?"
Right. A wedding for show.
And along the way, he had tricked me into coming just to make me look like an absolute fool, stripping me of every ounce of dignity in front of the city's entire elite circle.
I yanked my hand out of his grip and walked to the curb to hail a cab. He followed behind, pinching the bridge of his nose as if dealing with a spoiled child. He pulled an envelope from his pocket and pressed it into my hand.
"I know you love painting. This is an invitation to Master Hayes's private art exhibition. I pulled a lot of strings to get it for you. Stop being mad, okay?"
I looked down at the gold-embossed card. I didn't take it.
He stared at me with furrowed brows, looking a bit at a loss.
The face in front of me overlapped with the memory in my head again. The old Ian was just like this—every time he did something wrong and didn't know how to comfort me, he would look at me with those wide, desperate eyes.
Back then, my heart would soften every single time.
And this time, I softened again. As soon as I took the invitation, he let out a visible sigh of relief.
I knew Damian had genuinely forgotten. He had completely forgotten that just a week ago, he had casually tossed an identical invitation onto my desk.
Back then, he had used the exact same words.
Life was moving forward, but I had stayed trapped four years in the past. I kept mistaking Damian for Ian, desperately clinging to the very last shred of warmth he had to offer.
I knew Ian was already dead. He died the moment Damian regained his lost memories.
I just wanted to burn through this final drop of warmth so I could sever my feelings for him once and for all.
So when Damian offered to drive me to Blue Crest Penthouse, I didn't refuse. But halfway there, his phone rang.
It was Vivian.
"Damian, have you dealt with that little problem yet? If you're done, hurry back. Our friends are still waiting for our after-party."
Damian glanced at me instinctively before stepping out of the car to take the call.
Through the tinted glass, I watched his silhouette. The lingering attachment in my heart faded a little more.
So that was all I had ever been: an annoying "problem" to be dealt with.
I wrapped my coat tighter around myself. Right at that moment, my phone rang too.
"Summer, when are you coming home?"
It was Charles Crawford, the head of the Crawford Empire—and my biological father.
At the wedding banquet today, I might have been a laughingstock to the socialites.
But it was also there that Charles recognized me at first sight as his only long-lost biological daughter.
Vivian was merely an adopted daughter, brought into the family years ago to serve as my stand-in.
After I left the hotel, Charles had sent his private security to find me, but I had told them I needed a little time.
"Just a little longer," I whispered into the phone.
By the time I hung up, Damian had finished his call. He climbed into the driver's seat, wearing an apologetic look. "Summer, tonight is my wedding night with Vivian after all. She can't handle the guests on her own."
"Take an Uber to Blue Crest Penthouse. The door passcode is the date you found me."
I got out of the car. Just as he started the engine to pull away, I called out, "Ian..."
Damian's entire body froze. After a long moment, he avoided my eyes and said coldly, "Be good. Wait for me to come back."
Leaving those words behind, he hit the gas and drove off.
After he left, I pulled out my phone to order a ride. But out of nowhere, a violent force snatched the phone right out of my hand. A masked figure on a motorcycle sped away, vanishing into the snowy night.
In the dead of winter, my phone was gone, and I didn't have a single penny on me. I had no choice but to walk toward Blue Crest Penthouse from memory.
The penthouse estate was perched halfway up a secluded hill on the outskirts of town. By the time I trudged through the snow and reached the front gate, the horizon was already turning pale gray.
I typed in the passcode, but the keypad flashed red: *Incorrect Password.*
I tried five times. Suddenly, a piercing alarm went off, and the system automatically called the police.
By the time Damian bailed me out of the local precinct, I hadn't slept for a full day and night.
He looked slightly guilty. "I misremembered the code. Don't worry, it won't happen again."
Misremembered?
He had even forgotten the day I dragged him out of the snow and saved his life?
Did he really forget, or did he do it on purpose?
Soon enough, I found the answer on the new phone he bought for me.
The moment I logged into SnapChat, I received a friend request with an attached note:
[Want to know what you really mean to Damian Vance?]
Compelled by some dark curiosity, I accepted the request. Immediately, the person added me into a massive group chat.
The chat was blowing up, and no one noticed a new member joining.
"Bro, Damian, how did you train that little live-in maid to be so obedient?"
"Seriously! You just fed her a few sweet lines and tossed her one of Vivian's hand-me-down white dresses, and she actually thought you were proposing! She showed up in that used rag! Dead! A stray bird really thought she could turn into a phoenix!"
"Still, honestly, Damian, the girl did take care of you for four years. If you don't even like her, why keep her around to mess with her? Just throw her some cash and get rid of her."
"Get rid of her? Why? It's fun keeping a pretty little pet around to relieve my boredom."
That last message came from Damian's own account.
I slowly looked up at Damian, who was standing right in front of me. He was typing on his phone, the smirk on his face not yet fading.I lowered my eyes, my gaze falling back onto the screen.
The conversation in the group chat was still going strong.
"By the way, how did that trick I gave you yesterday work out? Kicking her out of her apartment, blacklisting her from every hotel in the city, dumping her on the side of the road, and paying a guy to snatch her phone so she had to walk all the way to Blue Crest on foot!"
"Hahahaha! Just thinking about it is hilarious! The snow was brutal last night. By the time she dragged herself to the gate, the passcode was wrong! Pure genius!"
Damian pocketed his phone and looked at me. "Let's go. I'll take you back, let you change, and get you something warm to eat. It snowed so hard last night; you must be freezing."
I locked my screen.
The smile on Damian's face had vanished, replaced by an expression of deep concern and remorse. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder, leading me toward his sports car, talking as we walked. "I had a private art studio built just for you inside Blue Crest. From now on, you don't need to work, and you don't need to go outside. Just stay inside and paint peacefully."
No need to work? No need to go outside?
Just stay inside and be his pampered little canary?
The moment I sank into the heated leather seat, feeling slowly crept back into my limbs, followed by a burning, churning ache in my stomach.
It was bitterly cold last night, I was dressed in thin fabric, and I hadn't eaten in over twenty-four hours. A fierce fever had begun to take hold of me.
I could feel my body burning up, and my consciousness began to drift.
In my haze, my mind slipped back to the years when I first met him.
The day I found him, it had been snowing just like this. On my way back to my dorm after working a late-night shift, I found him collapsed in an alley.
Back then, he had no memory, no money, and no home. He was covered in bloody bruises.
I bought him a cheap box of fried rice. From that moment on, he followed me everywhere like a lost puppy, looking at me with pure devotion.
In the end, my heart caved. I scraped together every dollar I had to rent a damp basement studio off-campus.
While he was recovering in the hospital, I squeezed every spare second between my college classes to work odd jobs, only able to visit him late at night.
During our hardest days, we lived in that leaking basement, ate cafeteria leftovers, and picked through discounted produce at the farmers market. We could only afford a decent meal on the holidays.
Whenever things were tough, he would hold me with deep guilt and whisper, "Summer, once I get better, I'm going to make so much money to take care of you. Don't worry. I will marry you, I swear."
The boy in my memories would smile at me like an idiot. He would pull me close in that tiny hospital bed to keep me warm. He would save the only fried egg we had and hold the fork to my lips, insisting I take the first bite.
When did he stop smiling like that?
Maybe six months ago. Or maybe a year ago.
Back then, he had started sitting alone in silence for hours.
Meanwhile, I was busy with my internship, juggling freelance gigs, and desperately saving up for his final brain surgery.
The doctor had told me that after this last procedure, he would fully recover and regain all his lost memories.
After the surgery, Damian claimed he still couldn't remember a thing.
Yet, overnight, he suddenly knew how to code complex software, how to analyze the stock market, and... his possessiveness over me grew darker, more suffocating.
It was from that year onward that he stopped being the sweet boy I knew. The way he looked at me held a predator's intensity.
During our closest call, he had pinned me against the bed, breathing heavily, just one step away from crossing the line.
In the end, I came to my senses and pushed him away.The car jolted violently, snapping me awake. My mind was still tangled in those old memories, and I mumbled groggily, "Ian, what happened?"
Hearing that name, Damian's entire posture instantly stiffened. A dark shadow flickered across his eyes before he spoke in a neutral tone. "Nothing. Just grazed another car. Go back to sleep. I'll go check it out."
I drifted back into unconsciousness. By the time I woke up again, darkness had fallen outside.
The heating in the room was blasting, and my fever had broken. I got out of bed and walked barefoot down the stairs.
The living room was pitch black. When I flipped the light switch, I found Damian sitting alone on the sofa, staring into space.
Hearing the click, he looked up at me, his lips curling into a strained smile.
"You're awake. Come eat something."
He got up, walked into the kitchen, and returned moments later carrying a tray with a plate of fried rice and a glass of warm milk.
It was identical to the meal I had bought him the night I saved his life.
The entire penthouse was empty except for the two of us. I picked up the spoon and ate slowly while Damian sat beside me, watching my every move.
After a long silence, he suddenly spoke up. "Summer, do you hate me?"
"What?"
I didn't catch it clearly and looked up at him. But he merely smiled thinly. "Nothing. Just eat."
When I finished, he tossed a legal document onto the table in front of me. I glanced down. The bold heading read: *Comprehensive Financial Support Agreement.*
I looked at him in confusion.
He pressed his lips together tightly before finally speaking. "From now on, you live here. Tomorrow, Martha will move in to take care of you. You don't need to work, and you don't need to go out. You must be on call whenever I need you, and you are forbidden from contacting anyone from your past. Also, if anyone asks, you are my distant cousin. Understood?"
"And what if I refuse to sign?"
Looking at this contract—which was practically an agreement to sell myself into slavery—a sharp, suffocating ache bloomed in my chest. "If I don't sign this, Damian, what are you going to do?"
"Not sign?"
Damian let out a low, mocking chuckle. He reached out, grabbed my chin, and forced me to look at him. "If you don't sign, I guess I'll have to pay a visit to that artist friend of yours, Henry Shaw, who just returned from abroad. I heard he's hosting a solo art gallery next month. Tell me... if a sudden fire broke out in the venue, could he afford the millions in damages?"
"You dare touch him? Damian! Are you threatening me?!"
Seeing my furious expression, Damian's face darkened completely.
He pinned me down onto the sofa like a madman, his eyes blazing with twisted paranoia.
"You're finally admitting it, aren't you, Summer Crawford?" he snarled. "The only reason you picked me up from the street back then was because you were heartbroken over him! You took me in just to use me as Henry's stand-in, didn't you?!"
"A substitute! I am Damian Vance, heir to a multi-billion-dollar empire, and in your eyes, I was nothing more than a cheap knockoff!"
"Do you even have a heart, Summer? We lived together for four whole years! Did you ever—even for a single second—actually love me?!"
Did I love him?
Of course I did. I loved him with everything I had. But by now, every last ounce of that love had been completely incinerated by him.
Seeing my silence, the light in his eyes flickered out bit by bit, plunging into cold, dead darkness.
After a long time, he slowly stood up, looking down at me with raw obsession and heartbreak. "Fine. I get it. Summer, even if you don't love me, even if you despise me, I will never let you leave. I will keep you locked in this house for the rest of your life!"
"So what if you don't love me? As long as you're by my side, that's enough!"
He cast one last chilling glance at me, walked out the front door, and locked it securely from the outside.
Half an hour later, Vivian posted a photo on Instagram:
[Best husband ever! I only had a mild stomach ache, but with one call, he dropped all his important meetings just to rush me to the hospital. Love you forever, hubby! ❤️]
The photo showed her clinging to Damian's arm, while Damian looked down at her with tender adoration.
I stared at the post for a few seconds, then blocked and deleted her.
Then, I dialed Charles Crawford's private number.
"Dad... come pick me up in two weeks."
Two weeks from now, I would say my final, permanent goodbye to Ian.
Chapters (4)
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4