Another man laughed slyly. “Come on, Brad. You’re the heir to the city’s wealthiest family. You should’ve agreed to that arranged marriage ages ago.”
“Yeah,” someone else chimed in. “It’s just an engagement, not a real marriage. Even if you get married, so what? My wife’s eight months pregnant, and I still fool around.”
Brad sneered. “Those women outside are filthy. Wendy might come from a poor background, but at least she was a virgin.”
I laughed bitterly to myself. How despicable could a person be? How convincing could they act?
I’d worked three jobs, living on one meal a day, to support my so-called disabled boyfriend.
He wasn’t poor, wasn’t mute, and was, in fact, the heir to an empire.
The man who had seemed so devoted to me secretly despised me.
A sharp pain twisted in my stomach. The taste of iron rose in my throat. I was so enraged I coughed up blood.
Someone in the room suddenly asked, “Hey, Brad, you’re not still hung up on Kathy Hudgens, are you? The one who went abroad?”
“Come to think of it, Wendy does look a little like her,” another added.
“No way, Brad, I thought you were just playing the poor boy act, but you’re actually into this whole substitute game.”
The first man chuckled. “Back during the earthquake, Brad thought Kathy was buried under the rubble. He dug through the dirt with his bare hands like a madman.”
