Elara’s smile was so serene it was unsettling.
"I'm moving," she announced softly, yet gave her loyal bodyguard Ethan a strange task: to buy sugar-roasted chestnuts for "Joyce." He offered to help her move, but she waved him off, a glint of something unfathomable flickering in her eyes, as if they held the secrets of the universe. "You'll know soon enough," she promised, her voice ethereal, like a prophecy. Then, with a casual flick, she tossed her phone out the car window. It wasn't casual at all; it was a definitive farewell. Leaving only Ethan, and a strange, tearing tremor from where his mysterious tattoo lay.
A strange sense of anticipation churned uneasily in his stomach. He had never felt so clearly that this was the first time he was bringing something for "Qiaoqiao" – a name he subconsciously associated with a tender nickname for Elara. His heart pounded as if it would burst from his chest, filled with an unprecedented excitement, like a caged beast about to break free. However, when the door finally opened, it wasn't Elara standing before him, but a radiant, utterly unfamiliar woman.
"Ethan, you're here!" she chirped cheerfully, her voice light and carefree as a bird, taking the still-warm chestnuts from his hand. "They're still warm! How... how did you know I like chestnuts?"
Ethan's breath hitched, all his anticipation instantly frozen into ice. Suspicions coiled around his heart like venomous snakes. "Didn't Elara tell you?" The woman, oblivious to the shock and rigidity in his eyes, continued blithely, "She's 'given' you to me! Elara agreed to marry the comatose son of the Xiao family in exchange for ten billion dollars. She went to Nordor, and now... you're my bodyguard."
The sweet scent of chestnuts instantly turned to bitter ash in Ethan's mouth. His world tilted violently, spinning around him. Marriage? Ten billion? A comatose man? All these fragments collided violently in his mind, piecing together a suffocating, utterly absurd picture. An icy chill instantly seeped into his bones, a coldness that even surpassed the intense pain in his chest. His hand involuntarily trembled, clutching his chest – the tattoo there was now scorching, as if branded by a hot iron.
"She... she married Charlie Xiao?" He barely managed to force out the words, his voice almost inaudible, hoarse as torn rags, as if it took every ounce of his strength. This truth, like a poisoned dagger, plunged fiercely into his heart, then twisted with malicious intent. Elara, what had she done? And what did this sudden, fierce pain in his chest truly mean? He felt utterly abandoned by the world.
Neglected by her father and stepmother since childhood, Elara Rhode hires Ethan Walden as her personal bodyguard—only to fall in love with him and begin pursuing his affection. But Ethan remains distant. Unbeknownst to Elara, he is secretly the heir to the powerful Walden family—and harbors feelings for her stepsister instead. Devastated and furious, Elara impulsively marries Charlie Shaw, a man trapped in a vegetative state.
