Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Adrian Ashford had spent three years pretending to be poor.
Even when he learned my mother needed money for urgent surgery, he claimed he’d lost his job and expected me to support him.
I finally couldn’t keep playing along.
I dumped him and married the wealthy man who had been pursuing me.
Then one day, I attended a client’s wedding and discovered that the groom was Adrian.
I overheard the groomsmen teasing him.
“Remember when Adrian insisted on playing that ridiculous pure-love game? She still dumped him in the end.”
“What a shame. Pretending to lose your job was supposed to be her final test. If she’d held on a little longer, she’d be the bride today.”
“Imagine if that gold digger ever found out the man she dumped was the heir to Sterling Holdings. She must be sick with regret.”
The truth was, I’d known all along.
The next time I saw Adrian Ashford was at my client’s wedding.
He was the groom.
Dressed in an expensive bespoke suit, his hair styled to perfection, he looked every inch the arrogant, privileged heir. There wasn’t a trace of the struggling man he’d once pretended to be.
I had no intention of saying hello. Our breakup hadn’t exactly been graceful.
I was the one who had left him.
Back then, he’d fallen to his knees and begged me to stay, sobbing so hard he could barely speak. I hadn’t even looked back.
At last, he’d shouted after me, “Chloe Bennett, once you walk through that door, don’t you dare regret it. Even if you come crawling back someday, I won’t spare you a single glance!”
So I’d walked straight out.
I’d spent three years with him in that cramped rental apartment. I’d already had more than enough.
Running into him again at his wedding was awkward, to say the least.
I turned to leave, but then I heard the groomsmen gathered around Adrian, laughing and teasing him.
“Remember when Adrian insisted on playing that ridiculous pure-love game? She still dumped him in the end.”
“What a shame. Pretending to lose your job was supposed to be her final test. If she’d held on a little longer, she’d be the bride today.”
“Imagine if that gold digger ever found out the man she dumped was the heir to Sterling Holdings. She must be sick with regret.”
Amid his friends’ laughter, Adrian gave a contemptuous smile.
“Even if she regrets it now, it’s too late.”
I knew I was the gold digger they were talking about.
So they truly believed I’d left him because I thought he was poor.
The truth was, I’d known all along.
A little over a year into my relationship with Adrian Ashford, I took a part-time job at a five-star hotel.
Chapter 2
One day, I saw him striding through the lobby in a bespoke designer suit, conducting an inspection.
The manager addressed him as Mr. Ashford.
That was how I discovered the hotel belonged to his family.
The Ashfords were one of Harbor City’s old-money dynasties.
My broke, down-on-his-luck boyfriend was actually a wealthy heir.
To me, it felt like something straight out of a romance drama.
I wasn’t proud or self-righteous like those heroines on television. I felt as though I’d won the lottery.
Because I was certain Adrian truly loved me.
Whenever I was upset, he knew how to make me smile. Whenever I got sick, he looked after me with endless patience.
Rich or poor, he was still the best boyfriend I could have asked for.
If pretending to be poor was a game he enjoyed, then I was willing to keep playing along.
But later, when my mother fell seriously ill and urgently needed money for surgery, Adrian continued his performance, still testing me as if the whole thing amused him.
At last, I grew tired of it.
I dumped him and married the wealthy man who had been pursuing me.
Adrian and his friends might have found that bitterly disappointing, but I didn’t regret it in the slightest.
The bride suddenly hurried over and took my hand, leading me straight to Adrian.
Her face shone with excitement as she introduced me. “Adrian, look. This is Chloe Bennett, one of the directors of Blue Sky Gallery. She’s the woman I told you about.
“I said we looked alike, but you refused to believe me.”
Adrian raised his eyes.
For one brief moment, he froze. Then his expression turned cold as he looked at me.
“There is a resemblance,” he said. “But she’s not as young or as beautiful as my wife.”
The bride, Claire Parker, was one of my clients.
She had first come to Blue Sky Gallery two weeks earlier, looking for several decorative paintings for her new home.
The moment we got a clear look at each other, we both froze. The resemblance was uncanny. We looked at least sixty or seventy percent alike.
That was how we quickly became friendly.
Claire returned to the gallery four or five times. In the end, she selected eight paintings and casually charged the five-million-yuan total to her black card.
Before leaving, she gave me the address of a mountain estate and warmly invited me to her wedding as though we had known each other for years.
Over the following days, she kept finding ways to mention her fiancé.
He was young and successful, the heir to a wealthy family, handsome and extraordinarily generous with her. The wedding preparations alone had cost more than ten million yuan.
Whenever she spoke about him, Claire glowed with happiness. She marveled at how lucky she was. She had only just graduated from college and came from an ordinary family, yet she had somehow found a man so far above her station.
She was luckier than I had been.
I had met Adrian Ashford right after graduating from college.
Chapter 3
Unfortunately, he had spent the entire time pretending to be poor.
Not only had he never spent money on me, but he had lived off mine.
Even after three years together, he had shown no intention of marrying me.
Claire was an important client, and I thought the wedding might offer a chance to make useful connections, so I accepted her invitation.
But I never imagined her groom would turn out to be Adrian Ashford. <CPA_DONE>
Adrian studied me as though I were a stranger he’d never seen before.
Claire gave him a playful swat. “Don’t be ridiculous. She’s my friend.”
Adrian reached over and drew Claire’s hand out of mine.
“Careful with that bracelet. That’s the one I gave you, isn’t it? It cost over two million yuan.” His eyes flicked toward me. “You wouldn’t want someone obsessed with money getting ideas about it.”
I knew exactly who the remark was aimed at.
Two million yuan.
So Adrian was perfectly capable of buying his girlfriend an expensive gift without a second thought.
My fingers drifted to my bare wrist.
There had once been a bracelet there, too. A gift from Adrian that had cost two hundred yuan.
He’d given it to me when we’d been at our poorest. He claimed he’d earned the money working a part-time job in a mascot costume. It had been over ninety degrees that summer, and when he came home drenched in sweat, I hadn’t known he’d just returned from the gym.
I’d felt so sorry for him. So moved by what I thought he’d endured for me.
I had stayed up night after night finishing commissioned illustrations, then used five hundred yuan from my earnings to buy him a watch for his birthday.
Now I looked at his wrist.
That watch was long gone, replaced by a Patek Philippe.
This was the real Adrian Ashford.
If there was one lesson I’d learned, it was that feeling sorry for a man was the surest way to make yourself miserable.
I gave a dry laugh. “You’re very lucky, Ms. Parker. Your husband is so generous. My ex was nothing like that. No parents, no money. He ate my food, lived in my apartment, and couldn’t even spend more than two hundred yuan on a bracelet.”
Adrian’s expression darkened.
Claire immediately came to my defense. “What a jerk. You’re lucky you dumped him.”
Adrian cleared his throat.
“Maybe two hundred yuan was all some people deserved.” He slid an arm possessively around Claire. “My Claire deserves to be spoiled. No matter what I spend on her, she’s worth it.”
So that was how he saw it.
I simply hadn’t been worth more.
The hypocrisy was so blatant that I couldn’t help laughing.
“You two are clearly devoted to each other. I’m almost envious.” I raised my glass slightly. “Congratulations. May you have a long and happy marriage.”
Then I made an excuse and turned to leave.
Adrian’s composure cracked.
“Why are you in such a hurry, Ms. Bennett?” he called after me. “Is this wedding not lavish enough to meet your standards?”
The mockery in his voice was unmistakable.