Chapter 1

The night before I was to marry the love of my life, Liam.

I was personally delivered to my brother-in-law's bed by my own sister.

Five years later, we met again at the hospital; he was holding his new fiancée's hand, and I was their pre-marital checkup doctor.

……

When the door to the consultation room opened, I had just put on my mask.

The blue medical mask covered most of my face, revealing only my eyes.

"Please, sit."

I said it out of habit, my gaze fixed on the computer screen, my fingers poised over the keyboard.

"Dr. Su?" Suddenly, a voice made my entire body stiffen.

Deep, crisp, like the first cup of hot tea in midwinter, scalding enough to make one's heart ache.

Five years ago, this voice had whispered in my ear, "Clara, marry me."

I slowly looked up to find Liam standing at the entrance of the office.

He was thinner than before. His eyes, which always used to hold a smile, were now so calm that no emotion could be detected.

His gaze landed on my face, lingering for a moment.

Then he averted his eyes and turned to the person behind him, saying, "Come in."

A woman emerged from behind him, her long hair draped over her shoulders, wearing an off-white coat; she looked gentle and poised.

She naturally tucked her arm into Liam's and smiled at me.

"Hello, Dr. Su. My name is Joanne." The woman sat down across from me.

"We’re getting married next month, so we thought we’d come in for a checkup before the wedding and maybe discuss pregnancy planning."

Next month. The wedding.

My gaze drifted involuntarily toward Liam.

He was already sitting in the chair next to her, his coat unbuttoned, his posture casual, with no extra expression on his face.

He didn't recognize me.

And why would he? The events of five years ago had shattered me and put me back together.

I had changed my name, changed my city, changed my hairstyle and fashion sense, and even changed my entire aura.

I used to be the little girl chirping along behind Liam, like a carefree little sparrow.

Now, my eyes were distant, and when I wore my lab coat, I radiated a cold indifference that kept everyone at a distance.

Yet, the realization that the man with whom I had once been so intimate didn't recognize me still felt like a bucket of ice water being poured over me.

I couldn't tell if I felt more relieved or more heartbroken...

"Dr. Su?" Joanne's voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Right, let me print the requisition form." I lowered my head to type.

"You're not a local, are you, Dr. Su?" Joanne's voice sounded again.

"No."

"I could tell by your accent," she smiled. "Where are you from?"

My fingers paused on the keyboard.

I glanced at Liam.

He was looking out the window, the sunlight landing on his profile, casting the shadow of his eyelashes under his eyes. He was as quiet as a painting.

"Linwood," I said.

Joanne smiled and turned to look at Liam. "It's the same city as you."

Liam slowly retracted his gaze and looked at me.

That look was very flat, so flat that it carried no emotion, yet it made my heart contract sharply.

"Is that so?" he said.

"Yes," I lowered my eyes. "But I've been away for many years."

I used to think that as long as enough time passed and the distance was great enough, I could rip that person out of my heart by the roots.

But now that he was sitting right in front of me, having done nothing at all, I had already crumbled.

"Linwood is nice, but I prefer it here," Joanne said, tucking her arm into Liam's. "So he followed me here, too."

Liam looked down at her but didn't respond.

"He's your fellow townsman," Joanne said, poking him with a smile.

"Hmm," he also smiled, his tone so gentle that it didn't seem like he was just being polite. "After the checkups, I still have to accompany my parents for dinner tonight."

I handed them the form. "Go pay the fees, then follow the instructions on the sheet for your exams."

Joanne stood up, said, "Thank you, Dr. Su, we'll go get the exams done now," and walked out of the office, arm in arm with him.

The door closed.

I sat there, staring at the closed door, my chest feeling as though it were blocked by something.

The scenes from five years ago uncontrollably flooded back.

The cup of water my sister handed me that night, the unfamiliar ceiling when I woke up, the tearing pain in my body.

I called the police immediately, collected evidence, and then stumbled to the civil affairs bureau, but the doors were locked, and he was nowhere to be seen.

It wasn't until later that I learned the version circulating was that I had seduced my brother-in-law, and because he hadn't waited for me, he assumed I had changed my mind.

I went to find him, only to be blocked at the door by his mother.

"Clara, stop indulging in fantasies. Liam has already accepted the arranged marriage. You are not good enough for him."

Not good enough. It had taken me five years to digest those three words.

I slowly took off my mask and let out a long, heavy breath.

Liam...

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples hard.

When I opened them again, the door to the office was pushed open once more.

Liam stood at the doorway, his hands empty, just standing there straight.

His gaze fell upon my face—my complete, unobstructed face.

Chapter 2

He stood there at the doorway, looking at me calmly and silently.

"You..." I parted my lips, my voice sounding dry and unlike my own.

He didn't speak. He walked in and casually shut the door behind him.

The consultation room suddenly felt very small.

I stood up abruptly, and my chair slid backward, hitting the wall with a dull thud.

He stopped, his gaze slowly shifting from my hands, which were gripping my lab coat, back to my face.

"Clara," he began, his voice as cold as tempered ice. "Five years later, and you don't even greet your ex-boyfriend when you see him?"

"I seem to recall that the one who betrayed this relationship wasn't me, was it?"

He had recognized me all along? My mind went blank, and I found myself unable to respond.

His gaze cut across me like a knife, sweeping over my brows and eyes before landing on my name tag.

"Or do you think that by changing your name, changing your surname, and changing your city," he said, enunciating every word, "you can act like nothing ever happened?"

"Mr. Liam—"

"Don't call me Mr. Liam." His voice suddenly rose, then was forced back down.

Joanne's voice drifted in from the corridor: "Liam? Where are you? The elevator is here!"

He closed his eyes and took a step back, as if he didn't want Joanne to see him as he was now.

"Tomorrow, 10:00 AM, at the coffee shop across from the hospital," he said. "If you don't show up, I'll turn your life over these past five years upside down."

He opened the door and walked out.

I heard Joanne ask him what was wrong, and he replied, "It's nothing, I just mistook someone for someone else."

Mistook someone.

These two words were like a needle, piercing my chest—not too deep, not too shallow, just enough to make me hurt.

The next morning, I went anyway.

It wasn't because I was afraid of him digging into my life. It was because I was greedy.

Even knowing he was marrying someone else next month, I still wanted to look at him one more time.

When I arrived, he was already sitting in a corner booth with an Americano in front of him—no sugar, no milk.

He never used to drink Americanos; he said they were too bitter.

I sat down across from him, separated by a narrow coffee table.

But I felt that the distance between us was something we could never cross in this lifetime.

"Why did you disappear?" he asked, getting straight to the point.

I didn't speak; my fingernails dug into the flesh of my palms beneath the table.

"I waited for you for ten hours," his voice was very low, low enough that only I could hear. "From eight in the morning until six in the evening. Clara, tell me, why didn't you show up that day?"

I opened my mouth, wanting to say that I had been at the hospital collecting evidence in the early hours of that morning, wanting to say that I was so bruised I could barely stand, wanting to say that after giving my statement, I had crawled into a taxi to rush to the civil affairs bureau.

But I remembered his mother's words—"Liam has already accepted the arranged marriage; you are not good enough for him."