She was the ultimate ice queen, and because she said she liked clean, pure guys, I actually kept the fact that my family’s racing club was packed with 99 fierce women a secret. For four years, I played the sweet campus charmer, all just to be with her. We promised to get married right after graduation. But then, everything changed when her childhood friend, Caleb, returned home. To take care of him, Seraphina abandoned me again and again, even planning to have a baby with him. “Julian,” she’d pleaded, her voice soft but firm, “Caleb’s family took me in, and he even cut his wrists for me once. His mental state is fragile, and he’s dying from a fatal illness. I can’t just watch him die.” “Only the baby’s umbilical cord blood can save him. I know you’re not a petty man, you’re so generous, you’ll understand, right?” I stared at the tell-tale hickeys on her collarbone, then glanced at the eighteen different sex toys scattered on the floor. “Saving people,” huh? Some rescue, alright. I’m done with this BS. Later, she came crying, begging for my forgiveness. My family’s 99 stunning professionals blocked her at the door. Their leader, Luna, leaned back, a lazy smile playing on her lips. “Lady Seraphina,” she drawled, “this track is private property. No outsiders allowed.”
Today was supposed to be the day of my engagement party with Seraphina. I’d booked her favorite Michelin-starred restaurant. That bottle of ’82 Lafite had been quietly decanting for three hours, just like my own burning heart, slowly chilling, settling into a heavy silence. Finally, she arrived, carrying a dusty weariness and an air of apology. “Julian, I’m so sorry. Something came up at the last minute.” She sat down, skillfully offering her excuses, not even noticing that her white silk blouse, with the second button haphazardly slipped into the third buttonhole, revealed a disheveled hint of what shouldn’t be. Even more damning was the strange, cheap, and sickeningly sweet men’s cologne clinging to her – like a needle, it pricked at my temples, sending jolts of pain through me. Just fresh off another man’s battlefield, you rush to my dinner? Seraphina, you truly are a master of time management. “Seraphina, we…” The words “break up” were on the tip of my tongue, but then her phone abruptly lit up. The name flashing on the screen: Caleb. She answered almost instinctively. The face that had been so dismissive towards me a second ago instantly melted into a tenderness I’d never seen, a sweetness that could drown a man. From the other end of the line, Caleb’s perfectly rehearsed, fragile whimper pierced through the speaker, floating directly into my ear: “Sera… I’m so scared being alone… I feel so cold.” “Are you going to leave me again, like last time? Do you not want me and our baby anymore?” Seraphina shot up from her seat, her voice filled with an unprecedented urgency and tenderness. “Don’t be silly, the doctors told you to rest. I just stepped out for some fresh air; I’ll be right back to you, promise.” She hung up, snatched her trench coat, and was about to leave. I finally spoke, my voice cold as ice: “Seraphina, look up at the calendar on the wall.” Her steps faltered. When she turned back to me, her eyes held nothing but impatience. “Julian, be mature. You know Caleb’s situation. He has a history of self-harm, and he acts out when he gets emotional. Now, he’s pregnant for his treatment, practically gambling with his life.” “That’s a human life! It’s just one dinner, can’t you be understanding?!” She finished, then turned resolutely and walked away. I stared blankly at the cake on the table, inscribed with “Sera & Julian.” The frosting melted under the lights, dripping down like the ridiculous love I’d poured into her for four years, silent, laughable tears. I vaguely remembered our sophomore year. Caleb was still abroad, stubbornly sending her all sorts of luxury items and overly sappy letters. Seraphina hadn’t even looked at them. Right in front of me, she’d tossed everything into the trash. She’d made an international call, her voice laced with ice: “Caleb, I’m warning you, stop bothering me with your dramatic, dying acts. It’s cheap.” After hanging up, she’d turned, cupped my face, and kissed me reverently in the sunlight: “Julian, don’t pay any attention to him. You’re the only one in my heart, always have been. That boy isn’t even fit to tie your shoelaces.” But now, for that man “not fit to tie my shoelaces,” she abandoned me again and again. All because her parents had died young, and Caleb’s family had taken her in. All because two months ago, Caleb’s father had tearfully entrusted his terminally ill son to her. All because he held something critical over her head. She called it repaying a debt, a way to show gratitude. She said it was just borrowing her body to have a child, to use the umbilical cord blood to save a life. “Julian, you have to believe me, my heart is yours. Once he’s repaid his family’s kindness, we’ll get married. I swear.” But does ‘repaying kindness’ mean sleeping with him? I looked at the puddle of melted frosting and suddenly felt that the girl in the white dress, who had pushed me away from a runaway race car in the rain, had died long ago. Died in Caleb’s sickbed and his seductive embrace. I decided to give her one last grand gift, a personal epitaph for this relationship.
I arrived at Seraphina’s penthouse duplex, carrying a Patek Philippe watch box. I’d casually bought this place for her when she complained about living in the dorms. The door opened. Caleb stood leaning against the doorframe, wearing Seraphina’s black silk robe. The robe hung loosely, revealing his pale chest, covered in tell-tale hickeys. He saw me, and his pretty eyes immediately welled up with tears, as if he’d suffered the greatest injustice. “Julian… don’t get the wrong idea. Sera just stayed to keep me company because she was afraid I’d do something reckless.” A rich, top-tier white tea scent mingled with the undeniable scent of… intimacy, assaulting my senses. I smiled, though the mirth never reached my eyes: “Is that right? She was afraid you’d ‘do something reckless,’ so she personally got involved, giving you… palliative care with her body temperature?” “Looks like she’s really dedicated herself to saving your life, must be exhausting.” Caleb’s face instantly went ashen, tears trembling on his lashes. Just then, the master bedroom door slid open with a whoosh. A bath robe hung loosely on Seraphina’s body. There were still hickeys on her neck as she walked out, wiping her wet hair. She froze when she saw me, then her gaze fell on the watch box in my hand, and her eyes instantly lit up. “Julian? What are you doing here?” She strode over, her voice filled with such surprise, such a naturally intimate tone. “And you brought me a gift? I knew you were the most generous, that you loved me the most.” She reached out to take it, completely ignoring the fragile thread that bound us. But then Caleb suddenly clutched his chest, letting out a series of heart-wrenching coughs. He gripped the doorframe, looking at Seraphina with tear-filled eyes: “Sera, am I… am I dying? Will I not see our baby…?” Seraphina’s face instantly changed. She immediately turned and took Caleb’s arm, carefully helping him to the sofa. Then she took his hand and placed it over her own lower abdomen. “Don’t be silly, the baby is already in my belly. Once he’s born, you’ll be saved.” Then she walked back, snatched the watch box from my hand, and thrust it into Caleb’s. “You take this for now. If it’s not enough, I’ll figure something else out.” Her tone was so natural, as if this watch—and even I—were just tools for her to appease another man. I looked at them, my heart chilling inch by inch, leaving only a numb, bitter amusement. Caleb was still putting on his act. He pushed the watch box back, saying with a heartbreaking vulnerability: “No, I can’t take it. This is Julian’s gesture, he loves you so much…” Seraphina frowned, turning back to look at me, her voice carrying a hint of entitled command. “Julian, how about this? You don’t really live in that lakeside villa in the suburbs anyway, why not sell it first to pay for Caleb’s treatment?” “Didn’t you always say what’s yours is mine? Caleb’s dad raised me. Without him, we would never have met. You wouldn’t want to see a parent burying their own child, would you?” “You’re so good, you’ll understand me, right?”
That villa was my eighteenth birthday gift, the last memento my mother left me. I had once smiled and told her that it would be our home once we were married. Now, it was just a chip in her mouth, to be casually sold off to save another man. How dare she? How dare she say such monstrous things just because I loved her? I looked at her utterly entitled face and suddenly smiled. “Alright,” I heard myself say in an unnervingly calm voice. “Seraphina, you and him can stay locked together, and don’t you dare infect anyone else with your toxicity.” “I wish you both a hundred years of happiness. Don’t disappoint each other.” With that, I turned to leave, resolute. But Seraphina panicked. She rushed after me, grabbing my wrist. “Julian, what do you mean?!” “I told you I’m just repaying a debt! As soon as he’s better, I’ll marry you!” I looked at her anxious face, then abruptly shook off her hand, letting out a cold laugh: “Seraphina, there’s no need anymore.” I had given up on her. I didn’t want her. I turned and pressed the elevator button. Seraphina, however, charged over like a maniac, blocking the elevator doors with her body. Her face was filled with anxiety and a hint of thin anger at being defied. “Julian! I can’t believe you’re such an ungenerous man! I always thought you were different from all those ordinary guys out there!” “It’s just selling a house to save a life, why can’t you understand me?” “Four years of our relationship, just over this little thing, you want to break up with me? Have you forgotten how many times I rejected him for you? Can’t you sacrifice for me just this once?!” I watched her hysterics coldly. From inside the apartment, Caleb’s timely groan drifted out. “Sera… my head hurts so much…” A flicker of struggle crossed Seraphina’s face, but she ultimately gritted her teeth, spat out, “Wait for me here,” and rushed back inside. The elevator doors slowly closed. In the final second before the gap shut completely, I clearly saw Caleb leaning on Seraphina’s shoulder, flashing me a victor’s defiant smile. I got into my Bugatti Veyron and calmly dialed my dad. “Dad.” “I’ve made up my mind. I’m coming home.” On the other end of the line, my dad’s booming voice first fell silent, then erupted in wild joy: “Made up your mind?! My love-struck fool has finally seen sense!” “That gold-digging vixen finally disgusted you? I always knew she was trouble! An opportunist who clawed her way up with her looks, thought she was hot stuff, didn’t she? Why should my son suffer such humiliation?!” “Wait! I’m sending someone to pick you up right away! And that villa, I’ll have that place scrubbed clean, sterilized three times over, inside and out. Not a single trace of her will remain!” Listening to my dad’s roar, I leaned against the car window, a wry smile on my face. “Alright.” The car sped to the villa entrance. But as I opened the main gate with my fingerprint, a nauseatingly sweet smell assaulted my senses. The living room was a mess, the carpets and sofas covered in suspicious, wet stains. The cloying, almost fishy smell made my stomach churn. Seeing the used toys on the floor, I couldn’t hold it in anymore and rushed to the doorway, vomiting violently. Just as I was seeing stars, my vision blurring, a sharp blow landed on the back of my neck. The world instantly flipped upside down. In the last moment before consciousness plunged into darkness, I saw Seraphina’s face. When I woke again, I was handcuffed in a basement. Seraphina sat on a chair opposite me, watching me silently, her eyes obsessive and deranged.
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