Chapter 1

"It hurts, Jameson! Let me go!" I screamed. "Will you regret it if I die?" "Jameson, please don't leave with Xandra. I love you..." I jolted awake, gasping for air desperately. My throat was burning, and I could barely breathe. When I forced my eyes open, harsh fluorescent lights blinded me from above while medical machines beeped steadily beside my bed. I heard a woman speaking quietly on the phone by my bed, reporting, "Mr. Brown, Mrs. Brown is awake. The doctor says it's just a mild concussion from the fall combined with emotional distress. Everything else is fine." I finally realized I was in a ward, but I still didn't know why I was admitted. Soon, a cold, clear voice came through the phone. "Alright. I have a video conference to attend, and I won't be coming over." The woman sighed. When she turned to find me awake, she jumped. "Mrs. Brown, you're awake!" I opened my mouth to speak, but the woman in professional attire continued explaining, "Mr. Brown has a video conference today, so he can't come right now. Mrs. Brown, please let me know if you need anything." I was confused. "Who's Mr. Brown? I'm not Mrs. Brown—I'm Wynonna Lambert." The woman froze, then let out a scornful laugh. "Mrs. Brown, Mr. Brown is very busy, and so am I. We don't have time for games. You just hit your head, so there's no need to pretend you have amnesia." She laughed again, adding, "You've probably been reading too many romance novels online. Playing hard to get won't work on Mr. Brown." I frowned. The woman had been rude to me since the beginning, and I didn't have a good impression of her at all. I replied, "I don't read romance novels, and I don't appreciate how you speak to me." The woman was dismissive of my response. She tossed me a phone and said, "This is your phone. Contact me if you need anything. I need to get back to work." As she turned to leave, the door burst open, and a woman with windswept hair rushed in. "Wynonna, are you okay?" I stared in shock. "Chloe, what happened to you?" The woman before me was my best friend since childhood, Chloe Thompson. We had been inseparable from preschool through college. Yet, the Chloe I remembered looked completely different from this mature woman with auburn hair wearing a figure-hugging black dress. It felt strange, like I knew her but didn't at the same time. Upon seeing my expression, Chloe's eyes welled up before launching an angry rant. "Wynonna, you stupid fool! I told you to leave that jerk Jameson, but you wouldn't listen. Look what's happened to you now! You almost killed yourself! I was so terrified!" By the end of her rant, she was crying. While I didn't fully understand what she was mad about, my heart ached, and I felt my eyes getting teary. The woman in the professional attire had reappeared, and she looked annoyed. "Ms. Thompson, please keep it down. This is a hospital." Chloe seemed to know this woman well and pointed at her angrily. "Call Jameson and tell him to get to the hospital! Wynonna is injured and hospitalized, yet he has the nerve to attend some charity gala with that Xandra Clark!" She continued, "This isn't how you treat people! Who saved him when Xandra dumped him because his company was going bankrupt? The Lamberts! Now that he's successful again, Xandra comes crawling back to him." Her voice dripped with contempt as she insulted them, "One is an ungrateful jerk, and the other a gold-digger—they deserve each other!" The woman's face turned bright red from Chloe's public scolding. A nurse, drawn by the commotion, had to intervene and ask Chloe to quiet down. Only then did the woman practically flee from the scene. Once the ward settled into silence, Chloe wiped her face and scolded, "Wynonna, listen to me. You've been obsessing over Jameson for seven years, turning both your lives upside down all this time. He doesn't love you, and he has zero respect for you or the Lambert family. "There are many fish in the sea, so why are you so determined to chase after someone who doesn't want you? Jameson stopped believing your suicide attempts and self-harm long ago." Chloe paused, clearly frustrated. "Wynonna, you're wealthy and beautiful. Why are you acting like some lovesick teenager?" Finally getting a chance to speak, I asked, "Chloe, who is Jameson? I don't remember anything about him." Chloe froze for a moment before laughing, "His assistant just left, so you don't have to pretend anymore. I know you're faking amnesia." I touched my still-swollen head and chuckled weakly. "Chloe, I really have amnesia. I honestly don't know who you're talking about." Chloe went quiet, staring at me intently. After two minutes of silence, she let out an ear-piercing scream, "Oh my God! Heaven is finally answering our prayers—Wynonna, you've actually forgotten that jerk Jameson!" After several medical tests, the doctor suggested it might be intermittent amnesia. They explained that the brain was delicate, and my fall down several flights of stairs at the mansion likely damaged some cognitive functions. I studied my reflection in the mirror. The familiar face and features, now pale and bloodless, stared back at me. It was my face, yet somehow felt like a stranger's. In my memories, I was always vibrant and smiling. But the eyes looking back at me now held no joy, only a deep, haunting melancholy. I couldn't help but wonder if Chloe was actually telling the truth. Maybe I had indeed been obsessed with Jameson Brown for seven years and was actually married. I didn't want to believe it, but Chloe pulled out her phone and showed me photos and videos that proved I was indeed married. Not only that, but I was actually married to Greenview University's former heartthrob. As I looked at my beaming face in the wedding photos and videos, I sighed heavily. Chloe continued her story, saying, "You fell hard for Jameson in your sophomore year, and you'd skip classes just to bring him breakfast and treat him to meals. When he played basketball, you'd bring cases of sports drinks for his entire team. "On his birthday, you hired people to fill the campus with balloons and banners declaring your love. When he got sick, you slept on the hospital room floor for 24 hours to take care of him…" I was mortified and groaned, "Please stop…" However, Chloe wasn't done. She said, "To get closer to Jameson, you even bribed the student council to join his AI club. You knew nothing about programming, so you ended up being their free labor. "On your 20th birthday, you confessed to Jameson again…" I covered my ears, not wanting to hear more. Despite my embarrassment, Chloe sighed and continued, "You even spent 200 thousand dollars at Cranbel's tallest building, playing a 24-hour loop, begging Jameson to marry you. The whole city was talking about you." I took a deep breath before asking quietly, "What happened then?" Chloe's expression turned strange. "Jameson accepted your proposal." I remained quiet for a while before asking, "It was because of what you mentioned about the Browns facing bankruptcy, right? He clearly didn't love me, so he must have had no choice." Chloe tried to soften the blow. "Well, maybe not. Perhaps your persistent pursuit actually touched his heart… maybe?" The ward fell into another uncomfortable silence. I sighed deeply and groaned, "This is so embarrassing…" I peeked at my sickly appearance and laughed bitterly. "Who would have thought that I, the proud Lambert family heiress, would end up becoming Cranbel's biggest joke?"