Chapter 1

When I was eighteen, after Brooks and I had sex for the first time in our rental apartment, he proposed to me with a cheap ring.

At twenty-four, he was found by the Davis family and became the heir to a prestigious and powerful household, but he secretly got engaged to someone else behind my back.

On the day of our sixth anniversary, I wanted to surprise him and came home early.

I happened to overhear his friend mocking him:

"Why are you still living in this dump? Are you really going to refuse the marriage alliance with the Tony family for your first love?"

Brooks laughed while biting his cigarette.

"How is that possible? I'm just playing around. Alexis doesn't have the status to be worthy of me now."

The door was slightly ajar, and the words hit me without warning.

I froze at the entrance, looking up at the people inside the rental apartment.

Aside from Brooks, they were all playboys whose shoes alone cost more than my annual internship salary.

Hearing Brooks's words, they laughed even more mockingly:

"Those worthless trinkets she gives you—I'd be embarrassed to carry them in my pocket."

"Yeah, it sounds harsh, but it's the truth."

My eyelashes trembled as I clutched the gift I'd prepared, having saved up for three months, feeling utterly humiliated.

It was already the best thing I could offer Brooks.

"When are you planning to break up with her?"

Cigarette smoke blurred Brooks's expression.

I couldn't see clearly, only hearing his indifferent voice:

"It's just an engagement, no need to break up. She's really stupid—she won't find out."

The room erupted in derisive laughter again:

"She really is stupid, completely played by you."

"But what about Laurient? Can you hide it from her too?"

Laurient—I'd heard that name from my colleagues. A genuine heiress.

Playful and manipulative, she'd boasted that there wasn't a man in all of Los Angeles she couldn't catch.

But I'd heard that this time, the man she was pursuing was her social equal, and she was serious about marriage.

Brooks showed no emotional reaction to hearing that name.

He stubbed out his cigarette and started ushering them out. "Are you done? Alexis is coming home early today."

The group left.

I hid around the corner, listening to them complain about how remote and shabby this place was as they walked.

Then I heard them say that the engagement between the two families was set for next month.

Next month...

In the stuffy corridor, I suddenly felt cold enough to shiver.

I slowly pieced it together.

So the person the Davis family found a year ago—the one whose return was celebrated throughout the city—really was Brooks.

I remember looking at Brooks in the kitchen back then and asking regretfully, "You're both named Davis, why couldn't it be you?"

Brooks asked back with amusement, "Why would it be me?"

I looked at him without blinking. "Because... you're really different."

Brooks didn't know.

When my mom married into that town and brought me along, the first time I saw Brooks, I felt he didn't belong there.

He was smart, aloof, yet strikingly handsome—nothing like that alcoholic, abusive stepfather.

Brooks didn't say anything more at the time.

But that very night, the online post was deleted completely.

After that, nothing related to the Davis family appeared in my life again.

From that moment on, the person I'd loved for eight whole years had already been lying to me.

The corridor gradually darkened, the endless darkness seeming ready to swallow me whole.

I suddenly felt an urgent need to escape this place.

Anywhere would do—I didn't want to face Brooks.

But the moment I stepped around the corner, I locked eyes with Brooks, who was standing at the door.

In just a few seconds, Brooks had already guessed what happened.

The guilt and regret I'd imagined never appeared on his face.

He laughed once, showing that familiar expression somewhere between troubled and annoyed.

I knew that look too well.

It was exactly like the expression Brooks wore when he used to witness my stepfather about to hit me—troubled, impatient, yet forced to deal with it.

Back then, he'd glanced at me coldly, showing no intention of coming over.

But in the end, he still pulled me behind him.

Later, he protected me with a cold face, time and time again.

He was very young then too, no match for an adult's strength.

So he always ended up covered in blood.

I'd cry while holding Brooks, soaking half his shoulder with tears.

After my mom died, he was the only one who protected me.

Brooks always said I was useless, asked how I'd survive without him, but never said he'd abandon me.

Memory and reality overlapped as I watched Brooks sigh and walk toward me like he used to.

Actually, I was terrified.

In that moment, I even blamed myself for not hiding well enough.

I wanted to completely disappear and avoid this confrontation.

But in the end, under Brooks's gaze, I asked him numbly, "You're getting engaged?"