Zhou Yuandong went on a business trip, finally restoring peace to the house.

Giddy with freedom, I invited my best friend out, only to find her bedridden with severe period cramps.

I stared at her in utter jealousy. “Must be nice. I wish I had my period every single day—at least then I’d get a damn break.”

She glared at me, ready to burn a hole through my skull. “Get the hell out of my room! Do you have any idea I just broke up with three guys who were all utterly useless in bed?”

I let out a sigh. Talk about a drought in one place and a flood in another.

She drove the blade straight into my heart next. “You and Zhou Yuandong have been together for three years now. What’s the plan?”

I went completely silent. My dad ran off with his stepwife, leaving behind a mountain of debt, and Zhou Yuandong treated me as nothing more than collateral. The fact that he hadn’t thrown me to the loan sharks was already an act of mercy.

My friend rattled on regardless. “Why don’t you just have a baby with him?”

I let out a bitter laugh. “He hates kids even more than he hates germs.”

Just the other day, his nephew accidentally peed on the leather sofa, and the man flipped his lid so fast it made my head spin.

“Still, Yanyan, he’s kept you by his side for three years. Wasn’t it supposed to be just one?”

“He’s a neurotic germaphobe,” I replied flatly. “Replacing me is too much of a hassle.”

She gritted her teeth. “Hassle my ass! Every time you two show up together, you’re so sickeningly sweet I feel like I’m getting cavities!”

Before I could fire back, my phone buzzed with a text.

Zhou Yuandong: Coming back tomorrow.

I gasped. Weren’t you supposed to be back the day after?

His reply was completely nonchalant: I calculated it. Your period starts the day after.

I was so mad I wanted to smash my phone against the wall. God, I hated him!

He made it back in the middle of the night, finding me sprawling across the bed like a starfish, taking up every inch of space.

Fresh out of the shower, he woke me up with… a heavy, jewel-encrusted bracelet.

I stared at it, frozen. It was my mother’s heirloom—the exact piece my father had handed over to my stepmother. I thought I’d never lay eyes on it again, let alone hold it in my hands.

My eyes welled up with heat.

“Zhou Yuandong… thank you.”

Those words were more genuine than any piece of diamond or ten-million-dollar wire transfer I’d ever received.

He leaned down, brushing away my tears, a faint smirk playing on his lips. “If you want to thank me, saying it out loud… isn’t nearly enough.”

I lowered my gaze, remaining silent for a brief second, before looking back up with a soft, playing smile. “Then… let me show you.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck, leaning up to kiss him.

Zhou Yuandong instantly seized control—he was the dominant type, commanding to his very core. In his career, with women, in bed… he demanded total control over everything. He loved looking down at me, setting every rhythm, dragging me from the clouds down to the earth with absolute, unrelenting force.

I gasped out his name, whimpering, “Zhou Yuandong…”

Yet his expression remained cold, his jaw tightly set, the vein in his neck pulsing with the kind of dark sex appeal you only read about in romance novels.

He propped himself up, his muscles taut and defined; my fingernails left faint red scratches across his back—like my own personal signature of love.

Finally, he paused, his voice low and raspy. “I taught you before—how are you supposed to ask?”

I pushed myself up with effort, breathless as I pleaded, “Hubby… Yanyan loves you the most. Only you… Yanyan will never leave you.”

A satisfied smile crossed his face as he leaned down to kiss my lips. “Don’t cry. Hubby loves you.”

Then he carried me straight into the bathroom with a triumphant look on his face.

Sitting in the warm tub, nursing a dull ache in my belly, I couldn’t help but think: maybe he isn’t tired of me yet. If he were, I’d have died of sheer exhaustion in that bed long ago.

For Zhou Yuandong’s twenty-fifth birthday, I had prepared a mountain of gifts.

In the end, though, I chose a tiny box containing a positive pregnancy test.

Simply because that was the day he had managed to track down and reclaim my mother’s long-lost heirloom. Or maybe… because for a rare, fleeting moment, he had seemed genuinely sincere.

After that, the empty condom box on the nightstand went unused, and he didn’t bother replacing it. And I, someone who used to double-check every little detail, grew soft and yielded to him blindly.

Safe days were only “safe” in theory anyway.

The result? I hit the jackpot.

I spent a long time turning it over in my head before deciding to take the gamble.

Fate, however, has a cruel sense of humor.

At his birthday banquet, a two-tiered cake tumbled over. Frosting splashed straight into a bowl of hot soup, spraying liquid all over his crisp suit sleeve.

The young waitress trembled like a leaf, pulling out napkins to wipe it up, only to be stopped by someone else in horror.

Everyone knew Zhou Yuandong was a freak about cleanliness. Even his car couldn’t be touched by a stray piece of clothing, let alone his suit.

Before I could even stand up to intervene, he took the napkins from the girl’s trembling hands himself, calmly wiping his sleeve clean.

“It’s fine,” he said, his voice shockingly gentle. “No big deal.”

The entire room went dead silent.

Even Secretary Chen froze in utter shock before pulling himself together.

The waitress nearly burst into tears of relief, thanking him repeatedly.

A wave of bitter envy surged inside my chest, choking my throat before settling into a cold, metallic taste.

Yet he turned his head to look at me, slightly tipsy, smiling as if nothing had happened. “Everyone gave me a gift. What about you?”

I squeezed my clutch tightly, feeling the outline of the small box hidden inside, and forced a smile. “My gift… is for your eyes only.”

He leaned down, his cool fingertips brushing lightly against my cheek. His tone was unnaturally tender.

“Alright. You can give it to me when we get home.”