It was our third year crammed together in a shoebox apartment in the city when the storm hit and flooded the place. I buried my face in Jasper’s shoulder, the misery a cold weight in my chest. He murmured that his heart ached for me, then turned around and, without blinking, donated twenty million dollars to the city’s disaster relief fund. I heard the story later, secondhand. A pack of his blue-blood friends were joking about it at a private club. "All those heiresses are throwing themselves at you, Croft. Why bother with some broke girl from the outer boroughs?" Jasper just smiled, those beautiful, treacherous eyes of his crinkling at the corners. "My girl works three jobs a day just to save up for a ring for me. Could any of them do that?" Then, another voice cut in. "But what if she actually proposes? Aren’t you and Delia Duncan supposed to be getting engaged?" "It’s just a game," Jasper said with a dismissive laugh. "You don't actually think I'd marry her, do you?" After a pause, his voice took on a chilling certainty. "Besides, Wren will never find out." He didn’t know I was standing right outside the door. 1 I’d fought my way through a monsoon to find him. My lab coat was plastered to my skin, a cold, second skin of ice, but it was nothing compared to the glacial chill of his words. They were icicles plunging straight into my heart, a pain so sharp it made my whole body recoil. Inside the private room, the conversation flowed on. "You're right. She'd probably lose her mind if she knew." "Can you imagine? The pretty boy she's been 'keeping' for three years casually drops twenty million on a donation. You couldn't write this stuff, hahaha." "So what's the plan, Jasper? Just turn her down flat when she proposes?" Jasper lazily motioned for the waiter to open another bottle of wine. "Turn her down? Why would I do that?" he murmured, a wicked glint in his eye. "I'm not done playing yet." He stroked his chin, a thoughtful, predatory look on his face. Then, a roguish smile spread across his lips, making the tiny beauty mark by his eye seem to burn even brighter. "What do you guys think? Maybe I should break up with her first, just to scare her a little. You know, tell her my 'three-thousand-a-month' salary can't possibly hold her back." "You're playing with fire, man. What if she actually leaves?" "You don't know Wren," another voice chimed in, filled with smug confidence. "He's tried breaking up with her how many times? And every single time, she's the one who comes back crying, begging him to take her back." Jasper clearly savored that, raising his glass in a silent toast to the speaker, who puffed up with pride. Then, someone else clicked their tongue. "Damn, that's pathetic. Like some stray no one wants, just begging for scraps…" I couldn't listen anymore. My legs felt like they were filled with lead as I dragged myself away, my soul adrift. My hand brushed against the small, velvet box in my pocket, and I snatched it away as if it were on fire. Behind me, the boisterous room fell strangely silent. Jasper, who had been lounging in his chair, now sat up. One hand draped over the backrest, the other swirling the wine in his glass, he shot a sideways glare at the man who had just spoken. The air turned frigid. Everyone in that room was part of New York’s elite, but there were levels to that world. The Croft family was old money, with influence stretching from Wall Street to Washington. Jasper, groomed since birth to be the heir, was not someone you crossed. "Jasper, man, I'm sorry," the guy, Leo, stammered, his face pale. He started slapping his own cheek, hard. "I was drunk, I shouldn't have said that about your girl!" The others quickly jumped in to smooth things over. "You idiot, don't you know his girlfriend is a researcher at Columbia? She's a damn genius. Who are you to talk?" Only when Leo's face began to swell did Jasper speak, his voice a low, dangerous purr. "That's enough." He paused, his eyes narrowing. "Vance, isn't it? Your family is in pharmaceuticals?" Leo Vance nodded frantically. Jasper leaned forward, propping his chin on his hand. He lifted his glass slightly. "Columbia's latest research project…" "I get it! I get it, Jasper!" Leo interrupted, tripping over his words in his haste. "Thank you for the opportunity! I'll make sure she gets all the support she needs!" 2 I stumbled home in a daze, their words echoing in my head. "The girl's a total fool. She kind of deserves to be played." "Remember three years ago? Jasper lost a dare and had to go to that karaoke bar and pretend to be an escort for an hour." "The first few women who came in knew it was a joke. But not her. She actually believed him." I was a fool. An absolute fool. I didn't recognize that the artfully distressed sweater he wore was the latest from Balenciaga. I didn't know the simple silver watch on his wrist was a Richard Mille, worth a small fortune. I just heard his sob story—a gambling-addicted father, a sick mother—and in his tragedy, I saw a reflection of my own past. I looked at his face, as devastatingly beautiful as a Japanese drama star, and my heart melted with a tenderness I hadn't known I possessed. I had no idea that behind those soulful eyes, he was thinking, Tsk, what an idiot. How could anyone fall for such a ridiculous lie? I spent ages convincing him to leave that life, helping him find "respectable" work. I was just a research assistant myself, barely making a few thousand a month, yet I scraped together two grand to buy him a decent suit so he could make a good impression. All the while, I wore the same trench coat for three years straight. And him? He would just flash that devastating smile, his eyes curving into crescents. "You're so good to me, my beautiful angel," he'd purr. "I'll have to find a way to repay you properly." Then he’d pull me into his arms, and we’d be lost in each other. He was a twenty-year-old discovering passion for the first time… or so I thought. Once he started, he was insatiable. The walls of our old apartment were paper-thin, and the more I bit my lip to stay quiet, the more determined he became to draw out every sound from me, forcing soft pleas and breathless cries from my lips until he was finally satisfied. He was beautiful. He loved to cuddle. He loved to cook for me. I truly believed we would be tangled up like this forever. I even took on two extra freelance jobs, working myself to the bone, just to save up enough money to buy him a ring. I was going to be the one to propose. 3 On the way home, I passed the subway station Jasper usually took. It was chaos. Firefighters, paramedics, dazed survivors wrapped in emergency blankets… a sea of flashing lights and desperate faces. I stopped, my heart pounding in my throat. My phone buzzed with a new message. Jasper: Angel, my phone fell in the water, just got it fixed. Jasper: I bought you a little cupcake. Almost home~ The message was followed by a sticker of a cartoon puppy holding up a heart. The caption read: Puppy loves you most! For a moment, the world tilted. It took a long time for my fingers to move, to type out a reply. Me: I'm at the subway station. The north entrance on Huang Lane. A few minutes later, he appeared around the corner. He was a striking figure—tall and slender, with skin so pale it seemed to glow, lips a natural cherry-red. Even in a simple white t-shirt, a gray hoodie, and dark jeans, he had the undeniable aura of a star. Heads turned as he walked past. "I told you to stay home and rest," he scolded gently, shrugging off his hoodie and draping it over my shoulders. "You know you get sick so easily. Why would you run out in the rain?" His familiar scent, a clean, crisp fragrance like pine needles, enveloped me. It was so achingly familiar that it stung my nose and made my eyes burn. "I thought you were dead," I said, my voice a broken thing. I pointed a trembling finger toward the dark mouth of the subway entrance. I thought I would be screaming, hysterical, but my throat felt like a rusted pipe—only a raw, hoarse, exhausted sound came out. "You texted that you were just getting on the train, and then… nothing. The news said the tunnel was flooded. I was so scared. I ran for miles in the storm to get here. They wouldn't let me go down. I told them, no, my boyfriend is in there. If he's going to die, we'll die together." I lifted my head, my bloodshot eyes locking onto his. "Jasper," I whispered, the name a shard of glass on my tongue. "When I was so worried about you that I was ready to throw my own life away, where were you?" His long, dark lashes swept down, hiding those ever-smiling eyes, concealing the storm I knew must be raging within them. Maybe this game had finally grown heavier than he'd anticipated. Or maybe, just maybe, he was laughing silently at the sheer, pathetic devotion of the woman in front of him. He just turned his face away, a light, dismissive smile playing on his lips. "On my way to buy you a cupcake, of course." No, you weren't. You were at a club with your rich friends, drinking and laughing. You were taking my heart and grinding it into the dirt under your heel. Before I could press him further, he turned his back to me and crouched down. "Get on. Let's go home before you really get sick." And just like that, he was carrying me on his back, wading through the murky, waist-deep water that had consumed our street. My voice was a detached, airy whisper by his ear. "What home? Jasper, our home is gone." Our first-floor apartment in the old building was a disaster. The nineties-era complex had drainage systems that were a joke. When we pushed open the door, we were greeted by a scene of utter devastation. A meter of filthy water filled the room. Floating in the brown murk were the matching mugs Jasper had bought, our slippers, and the pieces of the photo wall he’d so carefully curated… In those photos, we were laughing, smearing birthday cake on each other’s faces; we were holding sparklers on New Year's Eve, our hands forming a heart against the night sky… all those perfect, romantic moments, now warped and blurred by the floodwater. "Damn it. They're all ruined," Jasper muttered, his brow furrowed as he fished the soggy pictures from the water. I opened my mouth, a question burning on my tongue. Was it all just a game? And if so, why did you look so genuinely heartbroken over these shattered memories? But all I said was, "It's fine. They're not that important." "Not important?" He stared at me, a wounded look in his eyes. "If this isn't important, then what is?" Are they important because they're trophies from the three years you spent conning a woman out of her heart? I clenched my fists, my lips pressed into a thin line, but I couldn't bring myself to ask. 4 The apartment was unlivable. Every hotel nearby was either fully booked or charging astronomical prices. One clerk quoted us four thousand dollars for a single night. Defeated, we ended up huddled with the crowds in a hotel lobby, leaning against a corner, trying to figure out our next move. I overheard two young women chatting nearby. "God, I wish some billionaire would just randomly fall in love with me and drop a million bucks in my account." "Forget that, did you see the news? I'm so jealous of Delia Duncan. She’s a huge star, basically New York royalty, and now her fiancé just casually donates twenty million dollars to charity. In both their names! Talk about relationship goals." Behind me, I felt Jasper's muscles tense. He leaned in close, his voice a low, wheedling murmur against my ear. "Angel, let's just pay the four thousand. Please? Let's just get a room." His body, warm against my back, was trembling slightly. It was late autumn, and he’d given me his hoodie, leaving him in just a t-shirt. Before, I would have melted. I would have spent a third of my monthly salary without a second thought, just to keep him comfortable. But now, I pinched his thigh, hard. My voice was flat. "You brought this on yourself. You deserve it." I paused, then added in a light, mocking tone, "If you were like that guy on the news, donating twenty million like it was pocket change, do you think I'd be living this miserable life?" As soon as the words were out, a violent coughing fit seized me. Jasper's hand was instantly on my back, rubbing gentle circles. When I finally caught my breath, he lowered his head, his lips brushing my ear. He pitched his voice into that familiar, playfully pathetic tone. "I get it. My angel thinks I'm poor now. It's my fault. I'm not good enough to give you a big house… making you suffer out here in the cold, sick and with nowhere to go. It's all my fault…" I thought I was all out of tears. But hearing him spin that web of sweet, false sincerity, lamenting how he couldn't give me a better life—the same life he'd watched me sacrifice for him day after day for three years—I felt that familiar, bitter sting behind my eyes. He was doing it again. Watching me get worn down by life, watching me suffer for him, and then smoothing it all over with a few pretty, empty words. He probably got a sick thrill out of it. "Yes," I said, cutting him off. "It is all your fault." He stopped, his face a mask of shock. Right. Usually, this was my cue to soothe him, to whisper, "Don't you dare blame yourself. It hurts me when you do that, you know?" But now, I turned to face him, my gaze level and cold. "Who else would it be? You make three grand a month, Jasper. You can't even afford a bathroom in this city. You think I want you holding me back for the rest of my life? Did you really, honestly think I wanted to live in that dump with you forever?" He just stared, completely stunned. For a long moment, he was silent, then a stiff, unnatural smile stretched his lips. "I… I can work overtime—" "I'm just kidding," I said, pushing him away, unable to listen to another lie. In my peripheral vision, I saw the tension drain from his shoulders, saw them slump in relief.
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