From Secret Crush to Marriage: I've Always Loved You Out in the Open

Long-planned pursuit × unrequited love finally returned The marriage between Zhao Lici and He Changxuan begins as a business arrangement, a union of convenience. He is her brother’s friend, raised from childhood to become an heir, serious, cool, refined, and aloof. She is a pawn pushed into the engagement, believing that the rest of her life will be spent as strangers who treat each other with polite respect. On their wedding night, she timidly suggests sleeping in separate rooms. In the dim light, he unbuttons his shirt, his voice low and husky. “But I have needs.” Yet when they are at their closest, he stops, draws her into his arms, and silently falls asleep. On the third day of their marriage, he leaves for a business trip to France and doesn’t contact her for a week, almost making her forget she is married. But when she is home alone, trying on a sexy nightdress and admiring herself in the mirror, the door suddenly swings open. He has returned early and walked in on her. Her embarrassment and indignation have barely faded when, the next morning, she finds a nourishing soup set out on the breakfast table. He casually says Auntie Chen made it. Zhao Lici’s heart skips a beat. She asks him outright, “You care about me this much. Are you secretly in love with me?” The man gazes at her for a moment with dark eyes, then coolly denies it. “No.” After a pause, however, he adds, “I’ve always loved you openly.” Beneath the marriage contract, aloofness is only a façade. Hidden beneath it is affection planted long ago, where she could not see. She thinks she is entering a loveless marriage, unaware that he has been waiting for her for a very long time.