Chapter 93: Chapter 93: Turns Out I’m Married

Lila POV

“The past?” I tilted my head, searching my memory. “I think I remember starting school, and then… ugh, my head hurts…”

Caleb’s heart suddenly clenched, as if squeezed by an invisible hand.

“And you don’t remember anything after that?”

My eyes were clear, like a lake washed clean by the rain.

“Yeah. It looks like I’ve really forgotten a lot. What should I do, brother?”

That one word, “brother,” had so casually severed all the entanglements of the past fifteen years.

Those late-night whispers, those love letters hidden under books, those chocolates she’d passed him with a blushing face—all of it had just vanished into thin air.

“It’s okay,” he said, taking a deep breath and forcing a brotherly smile. “I mean, now that the Goodrich family is gone, you should think of this place as your home.”

“Zoe is good to you, isn’t she?”

I nodded, my gaze falling on the two blurry figures on the terrace not far away.

“Zoe is great. I remember we were best friends,” I said. “But that man… Jasper, her father, I think? The way he looks at me… it’s not how you’d look at a stranger.”

Caleb followed my gaze, and his eyes darkened.

He knew.

It was the look of a hunter gazing upon a long-lost, priceless treasure—greedy and restrained, yet tinged with a madness bordering on collapse.

“Don’t overthink it,” Caleb said softly. He reached out as if to pat my head, but his hand stopped in mid-air, finally just resting lightly on my shoulder. “He’s just… used to being in control of everything.”

「On the terrace.」

Zoe watched Caleb’s hand hovering in mid-air below and frowned.

“He’s such a good actor,” Zoe sneered. “A hypocrite who abandoned Lila for his own gain, and now he’s pretending to be the doting brother.”

Jasper leaned against the railing, an unlit cigarette pinched between his fingers.

He wasn’t looking at Caleb. His gaze was locked onto the side of my face.

「At the same time.」

I suddenly felt a strange pang in my heart.

I clutched my chest, my fingertips feeling warm skin and a racing heartbeat.

’Why…’

’Why do I feel so sad?’

’Caleb is right here, and so are Zoe and this warm garden.’

’But my heart feels like a piece of it is missing. It’s so hollow, and nothing can fill the void.’

“Caleb,” I asked in a low voice, “in all the things I’ve forgotten… was there anyone important?”

Caleb’s body instantly went rigid.

He looked at me. Those eyes, once filled with love for him, now only held a stranger’s curiosity.

“Maybe,” he said, practically through gritted teeth. “All I know… as your brother… is that you signed a marriage contract.”

I frowned. Something about that sentence felt wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I looked up at the terrace.

The man named Jasper was also looking at me.

The moment our eyes met, time seemed to stand still.

I saw his lips move, as if to say two words.

“Love you.”

My heart skipped a beat.

The wind died down, the patches of light stood still, and even Caleb’s voice became distant and blurry.

’Am I losing my mind? Hallucinating that I’m in love with a stranger?’

“Lila? Lila!”

Caleb’s voice pulled me back to reality.

I shook my head. When I looked at the terrace again, it was empty. All that was left was a curtain swaying in the wind, like a hand waving goodbye.

“Caleb, who did I sign a marriage contract with?” I couldn’t imagine myself doing something so out of character. “Wasn’t it because I loved him?”

“Let’s go back inside first. We can talk about it slowly,” Caleb said, a hint of barely perceptible panic in his voice. “The doctor said you need to get a lot of rest.”

I took one last look at the empty terrace.

A scent lingered there that made my heart flutter—like cedar, like wildness, like a dream I couldn’t quite reach.

————

The night was like a heavy piece of velvet, pressing down on the window frame. Only a single bedside lamp was on, its dim, yellow halo barely holding back the darkness, but it couldn’t penetrate the chaotic depths of my mind.

I leaned against the headboard, a thin document clutched in my hand that felt as heavy as a mountain—the “Marriage Contract.”

After Caleb left, his words—”you signed a contract”—replayed in my mind like a curse. I lowered my head, my fingertips tracing the cold clauses on the page. The first thing that caught my eye was my signature. The handwriting was fluid and sharp, radiating an unquestionable decisiveness. Further down were the clauses on asset distribution, residency rights, and a substantial alimony payment.

It was, quite simply, a one-sided deal entirely in my favor.

According to the terms, I got all the benefits and was granted protection. All I had to give in return was to act as the nominal Mrs. Hale and deal with the marriage pressure from the elders in Jasper’s clan.

I couldn’t quite understand. Even if the Goodrich family was bankrupt and my adoptive father had fled and his whereabouts were unknown, would I really sign such a bizarre contract just to have a roof over my head? To become… to become someone’s wife?

Even if Zoe and I were as close as sisters and she said it was a perfect way for us to become family, it still felt a little… off.

But why, when my fingertips brushed across the words “Party A: Jasper Hale,” did I feel a strange pang in my heart?

The scene from the garden earlier today uncontrollably flashed into my mind. That man standing in the shadows of the terrace, the look in his eyes… there was pain in that gaze, restraint, and even something close to a humble plea.

If this was all just to fulfill a contractual obligation, why would he look at me like that? Why would he stand alone on the terrace, shrouding himself in lonely smoke?

“Amnesia… an accident at sea…”

I muttered to myself, trying to piece together the fragmented information. The doctor said I had temporary amnesia caused by drowning. I closed my eyes, and hazy images flashed through my mind: a violent lurch, salty seawater flooding my nose and mouth, a desperate feeling of suffocation… And then what? Who saved me? Was it Caleb? Or…

My eyes shot open, my heart starting to race.

I threw back the covers and walked barefoot to the window. The night air was cool, rustling the curtains and tousling my hair. I looked out at the dark garden, as if I could still see Caleb standing there from earlier, telling me all this with that complicated look in his eyes.

He seemed to have changed.

’The Caleb of the past, in my subconscious, was supposed to be a safe harbor, the brother who would stand in front of me no matter what happened. But today, when he mentioned that contract, a flicker of panic I couldn’t understand crossed his eyes, and… resentment? He seems terrified of Jasper. Even when he says his name, his body tenses up involuntarily.’

Something isn’t right.

’If it were just simple brotherly affection, he should be happy that I’ve found someone to rely on, not acting like he’s burdened by some heavy secret.’

I raised a hand to my temple, a sharp pain lancing through it. The deeper I tried to dig, the more of a tangled mess my mind became. Jasper’s crimson eyes, Caleb’s hesitant expression, Zoe’s complicated sighs, and that cold contract—it was all like a giant whirlpool, sucking me in.

I looked down at my ring finger. There was a very faint, thin, silvery line there, like the mark left by a ring worn for a long time.

’What really is… the relationship between Jasper and me?’

I whispered the question into the void.

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