Chapter 1The Billionaire's Five-Year Poor-Boy Cosplay

Because he was "poor," Liam constantly brought up marriage.

Until the day I saw him casually open a bottle of wine that cost more than my entire year's salary.

It turned out the real Liam Vance was a billionaire heir, living a life of unimaginable luxury and excess.

His friends asked him, "Aren't you tired of playing the broke boyfriend for five years? When are you going to pull the plug?"

Liam lazily lifted his eyelids: "Probably on the day of my engagement."

I didn't throw a hysterical fit. I just waited until the day of his engagement party, when my flight carried me across the ocean.

Later, I heard that the untouchable young master of the Vance family had suddenly backed out on the day of his engagement.

He drove like a madman to a rundown rental apartment.

When he saw the empty apartment, he completely lost his mind.

* * *

While scrolling through Instagram, my eyes were drawn to a specific photo.

My gaze skipped past the glamorous group of people in the foreground and landed on a young man standing behind them. He was leaning lazily against a sofa, looking down and messing with his phone.

One hand rested on the back of the sofa, partially obscuring his face, but his straight nose and deep-set eyes were clearly visible.

After some hesitation, I opened the photo album on my phone, found a picture of Liam, and compared the two back and forth several times.

Then, I opened a chat window with Chloe Davis, an old college classmate who I only occasionally interacted with by liking her posts.

[Hi, can I ask if this guy is a friend of yours?]

I circled the man in the photo and sent it to her. For some reason, Chloe seemed to have intentionally applied a slight blur effect to that specific area of the photo.

Surprisingly, Chloe replied very quickly.

[Why are you asking about him? Stay away from him.]

I replied: [Nothing, I just thought he looked a bit like my boyfriend.]

They looked too similar. I was so incredibly familiar with Liam; I could trace the exact curve of his brow when he frowned from memory.

Soon after, Chloe fired back a barrage of messages.

[Are you daydreaming in broad daylight, Maya? My husband can barely even get a word in with him. Your boyfriend, who barely makes a few grand a month, has absolutely no connection to him.

[What, have you finally woken up and decided to dump that boyfriend of yours who has nothing going for him?]

I cut off her sarcastic remarks and sent a simple "thank you" sticker of a bowing cartoon bear: [I was just asking. Never mind.]

Chloe had always been competitive. Ever since she lost to my makeup-free photo in an unofficial campus beauty pageant during our freshman year, she had tried to one-up me in everything.

Later, she married the son of a publicly traded company's CEO, while I was dead set on dating Liam, a struggling, broke young man.

Only then did she finally condescend to grant me access to view her Instagram stories, just so I could admire her fabulous life.

Switching over to my chat with Liam, I asked: [Are you coming home soon?]

The contact pinned at the top, "Liam Baby," replied quickly.

He sent a photo of a conference table in an office, along with a sticker of a little cat tilting its head and wiping away tears.

[Still working overtime. Go to sleep early, don't wait up for me.]

[Working hard, love you~] I sent back a hug and two kiss emojis, then peacefully put my phone in my pocket.

This was it.

This was my, Maya's, boyfriend. A corporate drone who opened his eyes every day just to grind for a measly salary.

How could he possibly have anything to do with the people in Chloe's circle?