After hearing this, I just sighed, “He must
have lost his mind.”
Someone who used to find me annoying was
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now frantically searching for me.
Wasn’t that losing his mind?
But none of this affected my mood anymore.
From that day on, I rarely heard about Josh,
devoting myself entirely to my studies.
During my studies, Sarah and I founded a
jewelry design brand.
After six years of delay, I finally lived the life I
wanted.
- 7.
く
Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, it
was graduation season again.
I finally had my graduation ceremony, six
years late.
Sarah handed me the bouquet and asked me about my future plans.
The brand she and I founded had become
quite well–known thanks to our hard work over the past few years.
Many people came to us to design jewelry.
I thought for a moment and said frankly, “| still want to go back home.”
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Sarah agreed with this decision. After all,
most of our clients were back home.
But she still hesitated and said, “Josh has
been persistently asking about you for the past few years. If I hadn’t asked my family to intercept him, he might have found you already.”
“But after you go back, he’ll probably find you soon. Do you want to reconsider?”
I shook my head. “I’ll have to face him sooner
or later. I can’t stay away forever.”
The day after the graduation ceremony, I
packed my bags and embarked on my journey
く
home.
As the plane landed and I looked at the
unfamiliar yet familiar scenery, I felt a little dazed.
I took a deep breath and told myself that it was a new beginning.
After returning, we looked for a store location while also preparing for a small jewelry exhibition.
I took a day off to go back to my hometown
to visit my mom’s grave.
Looking at the fresh sunflowers in front of
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the tombstone, I was in a trance.
It was Josh’s habit to bring sunflowers when
visiting graves.
As I sat down and chatted with my mom
about recent events, a relative happened to
pass by.
“Ashley, you’re back after graduation? You’ve
found a good husband, I must say.”
I looked at him, puzzled.
“He’s been the one visiting your mom’s grave
every holiday for the past few years you’ve
been away. He even donated money to the
<
village to build a road in your family’s name.‘
“Now everyone in the village knows you’ve
married a good husband.”
After hearing these words, I was even more
confused about what Josh was trying to do.
But I didn’t have time to think about it too
much.
After deciding on the store location, I started
working on the store’s renovation.
Some of the pieces to be displayed at the
jewelry exhibition were still in the design
phase.
<
I was busy and fulfilled every day, with no
time to think about Josh.
The day before the jewelry exhibition, I saw Josh’s name on the list.
Sarah looked at me worriedly and said, “If you don’t want to see him, you don’t have to show up. I can handle it.”
I shook my head indifferently. “As long as I’m still here, I’ll have to face him eventually.”
Sarah nodded reassuringly.
On the day of the jewelry exhibition, an endless stream of visitors followed the signs
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L
into the exhibition hall.
Standing on the second floor, I saw Josh in
the crowd at a glance.
He was much thinner than before, with
fatigue evident in his eyes.
I watched as Josh stopped abruptly in front of
the necklace I designed, his eyes slowly
reddening.
Soon, the staff on site told me that someone
had bought all the jewelry I designed.
Their only request was to meet the jewelry
designer.
<
I agreed.
The moment I pushed open the door of the
meeting room, Josh rushed over and hugged
- me.
His voice choked with emotion.
“Ashley, I finally found you.”
“Where have you been all these years? I’ve searched so many countries and couldn’t find
you.”
I pushed him away, my eyes calm, my voice indifferent.
<
“Mr. Montgomery, what can I do for you?”
Josh was momentarily bewildered by the way
I addressed him.
“Ashley, what did you call me?”
I repeated what I had just said.
When we first got married, I called him by his
name.
But Josh looked at me with disdain and said,
“We’re not close enough for you to call me by
my name.”
From then on, I addressed him as “Mr.
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Montgomery.”
Josh looked at me with reddened eyes. “No,
you can call me Josh. Didn’t you call me that
before?”
I frowned slightly. “Mr. Montgomery, we’re not
close enough to call each other by our first
names.”
When the words he had said were thrown
back at him like a boomerang, Josh was
stunned for a few seconds.
I seized the opportunity to say goodbye while he was still in a daze. “Mr. Montgomery, let’s not dwell on the past. We should move on.”
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“I appreciate you liking my designs, but I have
something to do. Excuse me.”
Without waiting for him to reply, I left the
meeting room.
I had repaid my debt to the Montgomery family.
Josh and I were nothing more than strangers
now.
- 8.
く
I didn’t expect Josh to show up at the store
the next day.
He was holding a bouquet of red roses.
I looked at him in confusion. I had already
said what needed to be said yesterday, and I
didn’t know what else we could talk about.
Josh looked at me silently for a few minutes
before speaking.
“Ashley, why did you divorce me?”
I looked at him calmly. “I did what I had to do,
so naturally, I could leave.”
<
From the day I left, I knew that Josh would
eventually find out about the agreement
between me and his mother.
So I was very upfront with him at this
moment.
Josh looked at me in disbelief.
“I don’t believe it, Ashley. I don’t believe that
the way you looked at me and treated me for the past six years was all fake.”
“You may not admit it, but your eyes can’t lie.”
I sneered. “What’s the point of dwelling on
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this now? It’s over between us. Or are you
trying to prove your charm?”
Josh shook his head vigorously in denial. “No,
I just want to know if you ever loved me.”
I replied without hesitation, “No. My feelings for you, from beginning to end, were based on the agreement with your mother. I chose to be with you to repay a favor.”
“Our relationship started with a purpose, how could there be love?”
Josh’s face grew paler and paler with my
words.
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I no longer cared about his reaction.
I just wanted to deal with this quickly and get
rid of him.
I didn’t want to keep seeing him in my future
life.
But Josh, a man who cared so much about
his face, still showed up in front of me every
day after I said those words.
I looked at the bouquet of red roses every day
and sneered.
After so many years of marriage, Josh still
didn’t understand me.
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I didn’t like red roses that needed to be
pampered. I liked roses that represented
infinite hope.
The tenth time I threw Josh’s gift in the trash,
he finally couldn’t hold back anymore.
Josh stopped me, his face displeased, but he
still controlled his tone.
“Ashley, why don’t you accept my gifts?”
I said mercilessly, “What is our relationship? Why should I accept your things?”
“I’m not in the habit of accepting gifts from
strangers.”
<
Josh denied, “We were married for six years, how can we be strangers?”
I chuckled. We were married for six years, but we were even more distant than strangers.
It was normal for Josh to not come home for a week. Even when he did, it was just to order me around.
I looked at him and asked the question I had always wanted to ask.
“Josh, shouldn’t you be happy that I filed for divorce? You can marry Nancy now, so why are you still pestering me?”
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He took a deep breath, and I actually saw
tears in his eyes.
“No, I didn’t want to marry Nancy. I was just
momentarily infatuated because she looked like Julia.”
“Actually, I’ve long been used to you, no, I’ve long liked you, but because of my obsession with Julia, I neglected my feelings for you.”
Listening to Josh talk about how
unaccustomed and how much he missed the days when I was around after I left, I finally understood why he was doing this.
I directly interrupted his endless confession.
く
“Josh, can’t your family afford a
housekeeper?”
“From the words you’ve said, I don’t feel any
love from you towards me. You’re just used to me.”
“Do you really think you like me? You’re only fooling yourself.”
After hearing my words, Josh’s face became extremely ugly.
He had always thought his feelings for me were love.
But when I ruthlessly exposed bic +…
<
thoughts, he was ashamed.
Before he could make any more excuses, I said coldly, “Josh, since we’ve already
separated, let’s each live our own lives. Let’s
go our separate ways and not see each other again.”
After saying these words, I turned and left.
- 9.
Josh didn’t appear in front of me after that.
But every day when I went home. I could fact
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a burning gaze following me.
Sarah asked if I wanted her to handle it, but I
refused.
If Josh wanted to follow, let him follow.
Now, no matter what he did, it wouldn’t affect my life, so there was no need to waste any more time and effort on him.
Recently, a client paid extra for me to urgently design a set of wedding jewelry.
I worked until midnight every day before going home.
The day the dania
<
The day the design was completed, it was
already 2 am when I left the company.
That night, I kept feeling that someone other
than Josh was following me.
I involuntarily quickened my pace.
But just as I reached the entrance of my community, Nancy rushed out from the
bushes with a knife.
“Ashley! I finally got you!”
Looking at the crazy expression on her face, I took two steps back and asked coldly what
she wanted!
