When Carter Hayes carried me to the shower, he suddenly raised an eyebrow and let out a soft chuckle: "Damn, I seriously wonder if your actual husband will ever treat you as good as I do." I snuggled into the crook of his neck, murmuring sleepily: "Yeah, yeah, you’re the best in the world." "Maybe next year I'll give you a marriage certificate and make you my official—" "Whoa, hold on. Are you biting the hand that feeds you?" Carter forced my face up to look at him, letting out a cold scoff: "Don't mess with me." "We're just playing around. As for marriage, I already have someone else in mind." 1 Carter placed me in the bathtub, slowly and methodically lathering up the body wash before rubbing it over my skin. He offered a lazy smile: "Don't scare me like that, or I really might have to ghost you." "When we first got set up, you explicitly said you weren't looking for a serious romantic commitment." I still hadn't fully come down from the intense passion of moments ago. I looked at him with hazy eyes. "What do you mean?" "You never intended to marry me?" Hearing this, Carter's hand froze. He stood up, visibly irritated, snatched a bath towel, and threw it over me. His tone turned ice-cold: "Okay, now you're just killing the mood." "Aren't we just regular friends with benefits?" "You didn't honestly think we were dating, did you?" He was shirtless, his exposed torso lean and muscular, the lines of his abs sexy and tight. Usually, when I saw Carter like this, even after the act, I couldn't resist running my hands over him for a while. But right now, I didn't care about any of that. I just grabbed his arm, asking in disbelief: "Where are you going? Are you just leaving me here?" Usually, Carter would carry me to the shower, dry me off, and tuck me safely into bed... But this time, he just looked down at me from above and said flatly: "What am I supposed to do? You aren't a child. Can't you wash yourself?" Seeing me frozen in shock, Carter pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Look, don't look at me like that, okay? You're making me feel like some irresponsible jerk." "I just put in two hours of hard work. I'm more exhausted than you are, and now I still have to cater to you?" "I'm going to use the guest shower and go to sleep. Keep the door closed when you blow-dry your hair so you don't wake me up." Bang. The door slammed shut. I lay half-submerged in the bathtub, staring at the bright red love marks on my chest, my heart aching with an agonizing sourness. We did everything couples are supposed to do. He even met my parents. And yet, we weren't dating? 2 I stayed awake all night, agonizingly waiting for the sun to rise. The moment I opened the bedroom door, I bumped into a solid, warm chest. Holding a bank card between his fingers, Carter handed it to me, his voice perfectly calm: "There’s fifty thousand dollars on this." "The PIN is my birthday." As his familiar cedarwood cologne enveloped me, my nose stung, and my voice trembled: "Carter..." I thought you didn't want me anymore, I almost said. But he cut me off softly. "I'm sorry. I treated you too well before, and it made you misunderstand our relationship." "I honestly thought we both understood what this was—we were just giving each other what we needed." As if he couldn't bear to look at my red, teary eyes, Carter turned his head away. "I've never paid for this kind of thing before, so I don't know what the going market rate is, but fifty grand feels like a lot." "If you aren't satisfied, we can negotiate." I froze, completely failing to process what he meant. It took me half a minute to finally snap back to reality. My hand reacted faster than my brain. After the sharp slap echoed through the room, my entire body was still shaking. "Carter, you are absolutely disgusting!" 3 Like a walking corpse, I numbly changed into my own clothes. I simply packed up a few of my expensive jewelry pieces and prepared to leave. During those ten or so minutes, Carter stood on the balcony, smoking a cigarette. It wasn't until I opened the front door that he lazily pointed a finger at the drying rack. "You forgot something." I looked over. Using his long, slender fingers, Carter hooked a pair of black thigh-high stockings, walked over to me, and handed them over. "This brand is good quality. They didn't rip last night." "I washed them for you." "You can wear them on a date with your next boyfriend." Looking at his cold, detached face, I laughed out of pure anger: "This is the first time I've ever seen someone so concerned about their hookup's future love life." "Worry about yourself, Carter." The moment the word "hookup" left my mouth, his face darkened. He instinctively wanted to argue back but forced himself to swallow it. Finally, he just compromised and muttered: "Say whatever makes you feel better." 4 I couldn't understand Carter's mindset at all. When we were first set up by mutual friends, we checked every single box on each other's list for an ideal partner. It was a perfect match. That was why we solemnly allowed each other into our lives. Was this because I went out for drinks with my male colleagues yesterday, and he got jealous? Thinking of this, I reached out to Carter's female childhood best friend, Chloe Adams, asking cautiously: [Does Carter have some unforgettable 'one that got away' or an unrequited first love?] Chloe replied very quickly: [No way! Even if he did, with his looks and background, wouldn't he easily win her over with just a little effort?] [Why, did you guys have a fight? We're heading out to a bar later. Do you want to come and talk to him?] Staring at the screen, I breathed a sigh of relief. It made sense. Carter had striking, chiseled features, and his body was flawless. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, with sharply defined muscles. On top of that, he was highly successful in his career, maintained strict boundaries with other women, and was incredibly polite and respectful to my parents. If a guy like him really had an unforgettable first love, he wouldn't have been able to let her go, right? Was there just some stupid misunderstanding between us? With that thought, I gathered my courage, ready to try one last time. I swapped shifts with a coworker, bought a gift, and rushed straight to the bar Chloe had mentioned. But to my surprise, as soon as I reached the door of the private VIP booth, I heard someone teasing Carter, laughing: "Are you really willing to dump your bed buddy?" "Damn, she's gorgeous and has an amazing body." "Why don't you just pass her to me? I promise I can keep her very, very satisfied!" Carter extinguished the glowing cherry of his cigarette, snapping irritably: "Get lost. You? You couldn't even catch Stella Bennett's eye, let alone get into her bed." Amidst the roaring laughter, he paused. When he spoke again, his voice was rough and strained: "How could I be willing to let her go? She's like a porcelain doll. When she looks up at you in bed with those big, watery eyes... who could handle that?" "But willing or not, I have to end it. When I agreed to go on those dates with her, wasn't it just to provoke Chloe?" "Now that my goal is achieved, it's time to cut ties." Carter's eyes darkened. He checked the time, stood up, and warned them in a stern voice: "When Chloe gets here, all of you watch your mouths." "If she brings up Stella, just play along with me and throw a few insults her way." "Otherwise, knowing Chloe's temper, she'll skin me alive." My hand hovered mid-air, but I completely lost the courage to push the door open. Because the Chloe he was talking about was the same childhood best friend who had been constantly teaching me how to win Carter's heart. She used to always say: Childhood friends have zero romantic chemistry. If Carter and I were going to happen, we would have gotten together years ago... 5 In the adult world, you even have to carefully pick the time and place for your mental breakdowns. Without even taking a moment to cry, I rushed straight to the hospital. I couldn't accept that the relationship I had thought was my "perfect first love" was ending like this. So, when the emergency response leader asked who wanted to volunteer to support the earthquake disaster zone, I was the first to raise my hand. A colleague tugged my sleeve in disbelief: "If you go, it's for a minimum of three months. Can you and your Carter really be apart for that long?" "Everyone knows you two are attached at the hip..." "Besides, disaster reconstruction is dangerous. Carter treats you so well, he'd never let you go suffer like that." I took a deep breath and filled my name into the form as calmly as I could. "We broke up." Honestly, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to heal my broken heart. 6 We were set to leave the following afternoon. I still had a little time to notify my parents and pack my luggage. But I never expected that, just as I was getting ready to leave work, I would be stopped by two police officers. "Hello, someone has accused you of breaking and entering, as well as grand theft." The passing patients and families stopped in their tracks, looking at me with strange, judging eyes. My face flushed red as I explained over and over again that there must be some misunderstanding. How could I possibly do something like that? After a full five minutes of me defending myself, the people who filed the report finally hurried over from the other end of the hall. My eyes widened. Looking at the incredibly intimate couple standing before me, I was utterly paralyzed. 7 Carter and Chloe stood shoulder-to-shoulder. He pointed at me with a cold, indifferent expression: "That's her." "After breaking in, she took several valuable items." Chloe, her face icy, snatched my purse from my hands and dumped its contents completely onto the floor. She crouched down and effortlessly picked out a keychain. "Officer, look. I wasn't framing her, was I?" Chloe removed a key from the ring, compared it to the one in her own hand, and gave it to the officer. "This is the evidence." "She met my boyfriend through mutual friends half a year ago. Not only did she shamelessly cling to him, but she actually stole the key to his apartment." "The point is, we grew up together and are officially a couple now. Even if you're chasing 'true love,' you can't resort to these kind of dirty, gutter-trash tactics." The patients and families in the corridor had all stopped to watch, sizing me up with unapologetic disdain. "Someone like this is allowed to be a doctor?" "What if she takes a liking to my husband during a checkup and steals our stuff too?" The hospital's heating was blasting. Yet I felt a bone-chilling cold. Even my voice was shaking. "Carter, aren't you going to explain this?" Standing tall and elegant, he looked down at me for a few seconds before letting out a soft sigh. "We've known each other for a while, so I don't necessarily have to press charges." "Just return my family's heirloom jade bracelet, and we can consider this matter settled." Looking at the man who had once been so incredibly intimate with me, I couldn't hold back the hysterical scream that tore from my throat: "Your mother forced me to take that!" "As long as you admit you have it," Carter replied effortlessly, his tone calm. "It's quite valuable, so I assume you locked it away somewhere safe?" "Let's go. With the police here as witnesses, we can wipe the slate clean." I raised my arm, but it felt as heavy as lead. Seeing the police present, I awkwardly lowered it again. I desperately wanted to pull out all our intimate photos to prove the reality of our relationship. But looking at my own wretched, wild-eyed reflection in the glass window, I realized that taking him down would only destroy me in the process. It was utterly meaningless. After a long moment, I let out a cold laugh and gave in: "It's at my apartment." "I'll take you to get it."
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