I loved 'em and left 'em with a rugged construction worker, only to wake up and realize I was living in a romance novel. In the future, he becomes a ruthless, all-powerful business magnate, while my family goes bankrupt and I become the target of his revenge. Terrified of that miserable ending, I gritted my teeth and knocked on his apartment door in the dead of night. Right now, he's just a struggling construction worker. Aside from a body full of lean, chiseled muscle, he has absolutely nothing. "I have amnesia!" I lunged forward, throwing my arms around his waist, sobbing and acting spoiled. "Hubby, the only thing I remember about you is how capable you are." I paused, then added, "Capable in every way." 1 Late at night, the door to the cheap rental apartment clicked open. I poked my head out from under the blankets, still half-asleep, and murmured in a soft, sweet voice: "Hubby, you're home." The man paused halfway through taking off his shirt but didn't say a word. I let out a soft hum and continued to act spoiled: "You worked so hard today, hubby." The man still ignored me. Soon, the sound of splashing water came from the bathroom. I woke up a bit more and checked the time. It was already past midnight. Right now, Liam is working from dawn till dusk, doing grueling manual labor day in and day out. But in the future, he will seize an opportunity, risk his meager life savings on a massive gamble, and successfully build a business empire from scratch. And the very first thing he will do... is destroy me. "Move over." He came out vigorously towel-drying his hair, lifted the blanket, and slid into bed. There was no way I was letting this opportunity slip by. "No," I said, immediately clinging to him. "I want to sleep holding my hubby." The man didn't speak. But his breathing grew noticeably heavier, and the hand gripping my waist tightened its hold. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, my head resting comfortably on his broad chest, I heard him mutter through gritted teeth: "Chloe Davis, if you dare lie to me again this time, I will kill you." 2 I have amnesia. Or rather, I was faking it. After living a smooth, privileged life as a wealthy heiress for over two decades, the most wicked thing I ever did was pretend to be poor and sleep with my dad's designated driver. Well, not his regular driver. Just Liam, who happened to be working a side gig driving my dad home that night. At that time, he was practically radiating testosterone. A simple white wife-beater clung to his dark, sun-kissed skin, making his tight, muscular physique look incredibly sexy. Maybe it was the alcohol, but my heart skipped a beat. In the middle of the night, I squatted by his door, sobbing pitifully: "I didn't want to embrace the evils of capitalism either! But my dad gambles, my mom is sick, and my little brother is still in school. I have no other choice." Liam looked like a tough guy, but even tough guys have a soft spot. It only took a few sentences for me to completely win him over. "It's okay. I make three thousand a month. That's enough for one person, I'll give you fifteen hundred. "If you ever need help, or need someone to do heavy lifting, just call me. It's not easy being out here on your own." It's true what they say: if you're going to coax a man, do it in the middle of the night. Liam took me into his heart, and I tricked Liam into his bed. "Hey," I said, taking his hand. "I just realized your hands are so big. It makes me feel so safe." Liam froze. "I sleep alone. I never feel safe." 3 A woman with a slight buzz and a good act can make any man weep. After we hooked up and I woke up the next morning, I saw a debit card and a piece of paper with his phone number left on the nightstand. Suddenly, a wave of guilt washed over me. This man handed over his bank card after sleeping together just once. If he ever gets married, he's going to be completely whipped by his wife. But... at least he didn't recognize my Valentino heels. "Hello? Chloe Davis, where the hell are you? Are you out fooling around with some random guy again? "The usual spot tonight. Get here now. We need to interrogate you." The call ended. I was left alone in the massive hotel bed. As I got dressed, I stared at the debit card and the piece of paper, sighing heavily. A guy who makes three thousand a month actually spent a thousand bucks on a hotel room just for one night. Before leaving, I searched his phone number on social media. I found a profile. The name was simply "Liam." I quickly typed out a friend request and sent it off. 4 "What happened last night?" My friends started interrogating me the second I arrived. I answered casually, "I was out fooling around with a guy." "Who's gonna believe that?" One of them started teasing me: "Everyone knows that the first thing Ethan did when he got back to the States was go see his little childhood sweetheart, instead of you, his actual fiancée. Chloe, shouldn't we go over there tonight and slap him across the face?" "Who he sees is none of my business." I impatiently poured myself a drink, too lazy to engage with their teasing. After all, no one would believe that I used to be madly in love with Ethan, and now I simply don't care about him anymore. A few drinks later, my phone screen kept lighting up. Ethan sent me a message saying our parents had arranged a dinner tomorrow, and I had to be there. I didn't reply. Instead, I checked my friend requests. Liam still hadn't accepted it. Tsk. A wave of heat rushed through me. My mind was filled with the explicit memories from the night before. "I'm leaving." I vaguely remembered him mentioning where he lived. So, I decided to just show up. 5 Before going over, I changed my outfit. I swapped out all my obviously expensive designer clothes for low-key, basic pieces. I took off my heavy makeup and tried to look like an innocent college girl. Liam lived in a notorious low-income housing complex in the city. I wandered around for a while, getting a bit dizzy in the maze of buildings. But thankfully, I finally found it: Apartment 13-1. Bang— The soundproofing here was terrible. The door next to his opened and closed, and I could hear a woman's overly sweet voice. Fighting down my discomfort, I knocked on his door again. "Well, well, look at this pretty little thing. Who are you looking for?" A drunk man stumbled out of the elevator. "Looking for the guy named Liam? Damn, he gets all the luck... why don't you let me have some fun too?" Saying that, he reached out to grab me. I immediately started regretting my drunken decision tonight. But the next second, the man was kicked hard away. "Don't act crazy around here. Get lost." Then, Liam suddenly appeared and shielded me behind him. The drunk man scrambled away in fear. I looked at Liam's broad, muscular back and instinctively wanted to reach out and touch it. "Don't touch," Liam said, grabbing my wrist and looking down at me. "I just got back from the construction site. I'm covered in dirt." 6 His rental apartment was tiny and rundown, but it was kept incredibly clean. The bed wasn't big, but the blanket he slept under seemed to be saturated with his scent. "Have you eaten?" Liam came out of the shower, his hair still dripping wet. I nodded: "I ate already." He just said, "Hmm." It seemed like we had run out of things to say. Only then did I belatedly realize that I had acted impulsively. After all, after last night, he and I were nothing more than a one-night stand. "So... why did you come looking for me?" When Liam asked this, even he seemed to feel the awkwardness. With our kind of "relationship," what else could a meetup possibly mean? I subconsciously swallowed hard. The man was still wearing just a simple tank top and shorts. The AC in the rental apartment was barely working, and the heat was making my mouth feel dry. I didn't know what to say. My brain seemed to have completely shut down. After a long pause, Liam tossed a card to me again. "If you're short on tuition or living expenses, just use it. "Next time you come looking for me, tell me in advance. I'll come down and get you. It's not safe around here, especially for someone as pretty as you." 7 This guy really had something about him. I slowly swallowed again, looking down at the card he had tossed over. I asked: "Why are you giving me money again?" Liam tilted his head slightly: "Aren't you short on cash?" A faint blush seemed to appear on his ears. Then, he added: "I was afraid you'd think I was taking advantage of you, that you'd think I was cheap." That statement was very interesting. "Think you're cheap?" I looked up, staring straight into his eyes, and asked word by word: "I haven't even had the chance to 'take advantage' of you yet, how could I think you're cheap?" The atmosphere instantly shifted. Liam took a deep breath and started to walk away: "I'll sleep outside." I wasn't about to let him go. "Liam," I said, hugging his muscular arm, pressing my body against his. I looked at him with an innocent expression and asked, "Did I say I wanted you to leave?" "Were you just thinking about..." I leaned in close to his ear and whispered those two explicit words. The next second, I was lifted entirely off the ground. Liam tossed me onto the bed, pulled off his tank top, his voice thick with desire: "Well, you can't leave now either." 8 I was woken up by a phone call the next afternoon. I answered groggily: "Hello?" No one spoke on the other end. I said 'hello' again: "Speak, or I'm hanging up." "Chloe Davis." A familiar yet distant voice. Oh, it's him. Ethan's tone was icy: "I don't care where you are. Right now, immediately, get your ass home for dinner." Oh right. Today was the day I had to have dinner with his family. "Whatever stupid engagement this is, I'm breaking it off sooner or later." After hanging up, I got out of bed. Liam was already gone. After all, we had been at it until the early hours of the morning, and he still had to wake up bright and early to haul cement. But there was breakfast waiting for me in the microwave. And a message from him on my phone: [You're too skinny. Eat breakfast before you leave.] My face flushed red, and I decided to just ignore his message. 9 I didn't expect Ethan to be sitting right in my living room. As soon as I walked in, I bumped right into him. "Dressing so innocently, who are you trying to fool?" He held a cup of coffee, his tone freezing cold: "Staying out all night." I was long past the point of being provoked by his toxic words. I just shamelessly replied: "He likes it when I look innocent." But somehow, that sentence set him off. Ethan slammed his coffee cup down: "Do you have any sense of shame at all?" Smash. Coffee splattered all over my legs. It should have been scalding hot, but I only felt a chilling coldness. I remembered when I was a kid, I liked Ethan so much that even when he read my love letters out loud to other people, I didn't feel embarrassed. But now, looking at him being so fierce and full of possessiveness, I felt incredibly embarrassed. "I know you never liked me from the start. There's no need to keep picking fights." I lowered my eyes, losing all desire to even get angry: "Don't worry, I'll break off the engagement sooner or later. I'll let you be with your little green tea." 10 I still had to go to the dinner. At least until the engagement was officially broken, I had to keep up appearances. After getting dressed up, I looked at my perfectly applied makeup and expensive outfit in the mirror, and suddenly missed Liam very much. I missed Liam gently stroking my white dress last night. I missed Liam tossing me his debit card. And I missed Liam being both wild and careful in bed. "You need to study hard, otherwise you'll end up doing manual labor like me, and no one will want you." After we were done, he would also share some of his deeper thoughts with me. "Take the money and use it. I don't have much of an education. When I have time, I can teach you a few words of English." That night, I lied to him and said I was a student at the prestigious A University. I inexplicably started to panic that I had lied to him. What would he do? If he knew that several months of his salary wouldn't even be enough to buy that one white dress I wore. "Stop spacing out. Put a smile on your face. We're almost there." Ethan suddenly spoke up coldly. I was used to it. I looked down and noticed a few strands of hair on the passenger seat, and asked casually: "Is your little childhood sweetheart that wild? She likes doing it in the car?" The car slammed to a sudden halt. Ethan pulled over to the side of the road, unable to contain his anger: "Get the hell out." I couldn't have asked for anything better. I opened the door and started to walk away. But this guy started acting crazy again. "Chloe Davis!" There were a few construction sites nearby. It was very desolate. I didn't notice, and just kept walking in my high heels. Then Ethan grabbed me and slammed me against the car. "What exactly do you want?!" He roared at me. I was just about to roar back. But right at that moment, I saw Liam standing a few feet away behind Ethan. He was looking right at me, past Ethan. I'm dead. 11 "Are you done acting crazy? We're almost there, so stop it." The car slowly started moving again, and Ethan warned me once more. "I know." I rolled up the car window, as if that would make me forget Liam standing ten meters away staring at me just moments ago. The moment I saw him, all my fiery anger extinguished. My mind was filled with only one thought: Escape. I didn't even know where to escape to, I just kept my head down and walked back to the car: "I'm not fighting anymore. Let's go. Hurry up and let's go." Ethan obviously noticed my strange behavior. In the rearview mirror, he met the gaze of Liam standing over there. He was working at the construction site right next to us. His white tank top was filthy. He was covered in muscle, his cargo pants tucked into his boots. "You like that kind of vulgar man? Your college education was a complete waste." Ethan's sarcasm was blatant. But I was in no mood to argue with him. I just kept staring at the chat with "Liam" on my phone. But I couldn't bring myself to type a single word. 12 At the dinner table, I was unusually silent. But in the eyes of the elders, I was being very "well-behaved." "Ethan just got back, he needs time to adjust. He should take Chloe out more often. You kids are so playful, it'll be good for you to relax together." Ethan's father had always liked me. When I used to be madly in love with Ethan, he often helped me out, doing a lot of things to try and push us together. It's just a pity that none of it worked, and instead made Ethan hate me even more. After all, his father completely despised Ethan's little childhood sweetheart. "Chloe? Did you hear me? Are you free?" My father also nodded at me. But today, I felt exceptionally frustrated. Even though everyone in our circle knew that Ethan had spent the night at his childhood sweetheart's house as soon as he returned, the elders all pretended to be blind. They called it "maintaining appearances." Ethan's father liked me and hated the childhood sweetheart because he thought she was petty, unlike me, who could handle the big stage. It was simply because I was "suitable" for Ethan. "I don't have time." Everyone looked over at me. I deliberately avoided Ethan's gaze, just stared at my dad, and said word by word: "Dad, since everyone is here today, and Ethan is back, we're all grown up now. I have some things I want to say from the bottom of my heart. "I, Chloe Davis, have grown up well. My family spent a lot of resources on me. My academic and professional performance is top-notch. I haven't disappointed the expectations of my elders. "So today, I want to use my own identity to say something. I and Ethan are both adults. Marriage is not a game. That childhood engagement of ours, shouldn't we reconsider it?" 13 My phone was blowing up. Aside from a few calls from my mom at the beginning, the rest, without exception, were all from Ethan. I couldn't understand why he was reacting so strongly. "Where are you?" When I finally answered, his tone was aggressive. I didn't speak. I just pulled out the white dress I wore yesterday, and while taking off my makeup, I listened to him roar: "Chloe Davis, first you pick a fight, then you want to break off the engagement. Are you done throwing a tantrum?! "Think about it. If Mia and I were going to happen, it would have happened a long time ago. She and I have no possibility now. Why are you listening to rumors? "Our families joining forces is a power move. Are you really going to run off with that construction worker? Are you doing charity work?!" I finished taking off my makeup. I washed my face. Looking at my clean, pretty face in the mirror, I felt a lot more free. "Are you done talking?" I slowly dried my hands with a tissue, speaking unhurriedly: "Ethan, you've said so much, but you completely missed the point." "It has nothing to do with your little childhood sweetheart, it has nothing to do with money, and it definitely has nothing to do with other people's rumors. I just don't like you anymore. Not even a little bit." I hung up the phone.
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