Chapter 1

The night before the wedding, my fiancée, Freya Blake, was kneeling in the rain and begging me to let her go accompany another man to try on wedding dresses.

It was a late autumn rain, with a biting chill, pouring down from a heavy gray sky.

I stood under the porch of the villa, looking at the woman I had loved for fifteen years.

Her expensive white dress was drenched, her carefully styled hair stuck to her cheeks, and her makeup was ruined, her eyeliner smeared into two black streaks down her face, like tears.

She was a mess, but still beautiful. But to me, that beauty right now was harder to bear than any ugliness.

Freya begged, "Julian, please."

*****

Her voice trembled in the rain, her hands clutching desperately at my trousers.

She sobbed, "Xavier doesn't have much time left. He just wants to make his wish come true. Can't you just let this go, be a little more understanding? Once he's gone, I will be yours for the rest of my life. I swear!"

I looked down at her, at the face that had been etched in my heart since I was a child.

Freya, the only daughter of the Blake family, was always the brightest star in our social circle. She had an icy, aloof elegance, an untouchable beauty, like an ice queen, so perfect that no one dared to get too close.

And me, Julian Hart, the only son of the Hart family, had been trailing after her since we were kids.

I was her sidekick, her protector, and the guy she kept around just in case.

For fifteen years, from the first time I met her at the age of seven, I was a goner.

Dressed in a pink princess dress, she stood in the Blake family's garden, as if she had stepped straight out of a fairy tale. And I was just the tagalong while my dad, Roland Hart, talked business.

"You're Julian?" she asked as she looked down at me with that aloof, superior air.

She added, "You can play with me in the future."

Just that one sentence made me become her devoted sidekick for fifteen years.

I walked her to and from school, celebrated every birthday with her, and was there for her through every tough time.

When she was sick, I skipped class to stay with her at the hospital. When she was bullied, I'd get into fights for her, didn't care if I ended up black and blue.

When she wanted anything, I'd move heaven and earth to get it for her.

Everyone in our circle laughed at me, called me Freya's simp, and said I was just a loser dreaming of marrying her.

But I didn't care. I believed that one day, she'd notice me and understand my feelings for her.

Three years ago, the Blake family was in crisis and on the verge of bankruptcy.

It was I who convinced Roland to step in and invest, saving the Blake family from ruin. But I had just one condition that let Freya marry me.

That was not a threat. It was my way of saving her. I knew without this marriage, the Blake family would be ruined, and Freya would lose everything.

I was willing to use the entire Hart family's power to support her.

She agreed. No happiness, no excitement, she just said in a steady, emotionless voice, "Alright, I'll marry you."

I thought this was the beginning. I believed that after we got married, I could show her my love and make her really fall in love with me.

But I was wrong.

A month before our wedding, Xavier Nash came back.

Xavier, Freya's unreachable dream lover, the first love she could never let go of, even after ten years.

He was her college senior, three years ahead, with striking, almost model-like features and a gentle, romantic aura.

For four years in college, Freya was always chasing after him, bringing him meals, saving him seats, knitting scarves for him. Her whole world seemed to revolve around him. She laughed and cried for his sake.

But Xavier never really saw her. To him, she was just another suitor, someone he could summon when he wanted and dismiss when he didn't.

After graduation, he went to the Averous, married a wealthy heiress, and vanished from her life without a trace.

Freya was depressed for a whole year. That year, I was the one who stayed by her side, helping her climb out of that darkness.

I thought Xavier was just a past, but I seriously underestimated the hold a dream lover could have on Freya.

When Xavier came back, he was in a wheelchair, his face ghostly pale and so gaunt he looked nothing like the guy he used to be.

He was holding a diagnosis from an Averous hospital. Late-stage stomach cancer, with just three months to live.

He cried his heart out, like a lost kid, right in front of Freya. He said, "Freya, I got divorced. I have nothing left but this life, and even that's almost gone. The biggest regret in my life is not being able to see you in your wedding dress and marry me."

Freya was shattered.

She had forgotten our engagement, the wedding tomorrow, and everything I had done for her over the past fifteen years.

Right now, the only thing on her heart and mind was Xavier on the brink of death.

For the past month, she was almost living in Xavier's apartment.