Chapter 2: A Reluctant Contract

At that meeting, Hạ Vy presented the project as professionally as she could, though she was still reeling from the absurd coincidence. Lâm Thừa Dịch sat there, his sharp eyes examining every detail of her design, now and then asking pointed questions that put the whole room on edge.

At the end, he suddenly announced, “On this project, I’ll work directly with Đỗ Hạ Vy only. Everything else will be arranged through my secretary.”

The room buzzed. Her director was openly delighted, while Hạ Vy only felt a sense of foreboding.

Sure enough, she was right.

A week later, while she was working overtime at the Thừa Dịch office to finish the drawings, she was called up to the chairman’s private office. Lâm Thừa Dịch stood at the huge glass window looking down at the city, looking strangely alone.

“You wanted to see me?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm.

He turned and set a file in front of her. “Sign this.”

Hạ Vy opened it and froze. It was a fake marriage contract, with complete terms, a two-year duration, and a large sum of money, enough to pay off all of her family’s debts.

“What is this? You think I’d agree to this?” She pushed the file back, her voice shaking with anger.

“My grandmother is seriously ill. Her one wish is to see me married before she closes her eyes.” Lâm Thừa Dịch’s voice was as calm as if he were discussing the weather. “I need a wife in name only. No feelings, no complications. You need money to pay off your family’s debt. It’s a fair exchange.”

“You investigated me?” Hạ Vy gritted her teeth.

“I’m not in the habit of working with people I don’t understand.” He looked her straight in the eye. “Two years. Then we divorce peacefully. You’re free, your family is out of debt. You lose nothing.”

Hạ Vy was silent for a long time. She thought of her frail mother back in the countryside, of the debt collectors calling every day, of the burden that had weighed on her shoulders for three years, ever since her father died.

“If I agree,” she said, looking up, her eyes steady, “you have to promise not to interfere in my private life or my work.”

Lâm Thừa Dịch looked at her for a long moment, seemingly a little surprised by this small woman’s directness. “Fine. I promise.”

And so, after knowing him for just a week, Hạ Vy became the wife of one of the most powerful CEOs in the city. A marriage without love, only a cold exchange.

The wedding was simple, attended by only a few close relatives, at the request of Lâm Thừa Dịch’s grandmother. Wearing a pure white wedding dress, standing beside a stranger who was now her husband, Hạ Vy couldn’t hold back a feeling of confusion mixed with bitterness.

On their wedding night, Lâm Thừa Dịch simply handed her the key to her own room in his huge mansion. “Your room is at the end of the third-floor hallway. We don’t need to pretend to be close when no one’s around.”

With that, he turned and went into his study, leaving Hạ Vy standing alone in the vast hallway, her mind in turmoil.

She didn’t know that behind the study door, Lâm Thừa Dịch stood motionless, gripping a glass of wine, watching her small figure disappear down the hallway on the security camera, a strange feeling stirring inside him that even he couldn’t name.

Life in the Lâm mansion was nothing like anything Hạ Vy had imagined. The very next morning, the housekeeper, Mrs. Lý, a kindly middle-aged woman, gave her a tour and explained “the rules of the Lâm household”: fixed mealtimes, no entering the chairman’s study without permission, and every Saturday visiting his grandmother together.

“Don’t worry,” Mrs. Lý said with a reassuring smile when she saw how tense Hạ Vy looked. “The young master may be cold, but he’s a good person. Since he was a boy, I’ve never seen him treat anyone badly.”

Hạ Vy only smiled stiffly. To her, Lâm Thừa Dịch seemed more like a walking iceberg than an ordinary human being.

Strangely, even though he had declared they “wouldn’t interfere in each other’s lives,” within just a few days she noticed countless odd things.

Her old car, which was always breaking down, was suddenly replaced with a new SUV, along with a curt explanation from the driver: “The chairman said the old car wasn’t safe.”

At lunch at her office, a box lunch began arriving like clockwork, ordered from a restaurant she had once mentioned liking in a brief, offhand conversation.

And her wardrobe, at some point, had filled up with seasonal dresses and coats, in her exact size and to her taste, amazingly so.

“Why are you doing all this?” One evening, Hạ Vy cornered Lâm Thừa Dịch in the living room as soon as he got home from work, holding a brand-new designer handbag that had just been delivered. “We had a deal.”

He loosened his tie, glanced at her once, and answered casually, “You’re my wife on paper. To the outside world, my wife can’t dress shabbily or drive that rattletrap. This is for my reputation, not for you.”

The answer was so perfect it was impossible to argue with, yet his eyes avoided hers in a way she couldn’t explain.

Hạ Vy narrowed her eyes at him, not quite believing it, but not knowing how to argue either. “Fine. But next time, ask me before you buy anything.”

“Mm.” He answered briefly and went straight upstairs, leaving Hạ Vy staring after his tall back, a strangely soft feeling rising inside her.

That night, while Hạ Vy was sitting in her own workroom finishing the project drawings, she heard a soft knock. When she opened the door, it was Lâm Thừa Dịch, holding a cup of warm milk.

“Mrs. Lý says you often stay up late working. Drink this to warm yourself up.” He handed her the cup, looking somewhere else, with a rare touch of awkwardness.

Hạ Vy took it, and her fingers brushed his hand. They both froze for a second. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing. I just don’t want you getting sick and delaying my company’s project.” He said it stiffly, then turned and left quickly, as if afraid of being found out.

Hạ Vy watched his hurried back and couldn’t help laughing. Maybe this cold man wasn’t as frightening as she had first thought.

She took a sip of the warm milk, and for the first time since entering this marriage, she felt a little warmth seep into her heart.