Chapter 4

Half a month into my relationship with Joshua, we quickly got engaged.

Over those seven years, we had both come to understand each other very well. I knew Joshua had liked me from the start, but he held back because of his brotherly bond and my affection for Jake, so he kept his feelings hidden.

The day before our engagement, he told me he could give me time to think things through, and that I shouldn't choose someone I didn't love just because of Jake. I knew he was afraid that I wasn't with him because I liked him.

I took his hand and gently kissed his cheek.

I smiled and told him that I had never regretted being with him.

I even felt lucky to have met someone as sincere and pure about his feelings as he was.

Hearing this, he also smiled, a joyful smile like that of a child who had just received his favorite candy, and that made everyone around us feel inexplicably happy.

I thought it would be hard to forget Jake, after being with him for seven years. Seven years of affection wasn't easily erased.

But being with Joshua, it seemed he had a kind of magic that filled every day with happiness, and gradually, the heart that Jake had hurt began to heal with time.

We both tacitly stopped mentioning Jake's name, as if he had never been a part of our lives.

However, it turned out that some people couldn't just be forgotten by choosing to avoid them.

That day, while Joshua and I were dining in a mall, we ran into a friend who used to hang out with him and Jake.

Seeing us eating together, he was quite surprised.

At first, he thought Joshua was here specifically to take care of me because of Jake.

But when he noticed the matching rings on our hands, he asked what was going on.

"You didn’t use taking care of Andrea as an excuse to steal Jake's girlfriend, did you?"

Everyone knows the principle that one should not covet a friend's spouse. Seeing that he was about to rush up and hit Joshua, I quickly stood up and got between them.

"Calm down. Jake and I were broken up, and it was he who initiated it. Joshua and I got together after breaking up with Jake. There was never any wrongdoing from the start."

"I was with Jake for seven years, but ultimately, it couldn’t outlast his first love in his heart."

They all knew who Jake’s first love was, so no one spoke further.

Seeing this, I took Joshua's hand and walked out.

I was afraid he was upset about what had just happened, so I started to explain, but he put his hand over my mouth.

"I trust you. You don't need to explain."

"Why bring up the past that makes you sad?"

He hugged me tight, soothingly stroking my back, telling me that he would bring endless happiness to my life and make me laugh heartily.

I hugged him back tightly. Although I was not a person who cried easily, being with Joshua, his words always managed to bring tears to my eyes.

I thought they would tell Jake about Joshua and me, so when he called me again asking me to open the door, I was still a bit shocked.

I hadn't expected him to return suddenly without saying anything.

And I certainly hadn't expected him to come looking for me.