The year her parents died suddenly, 26-year-old jewelry designer Xu Mingshu signed a three-year marriage contract with the Lu heir to protect her family's business. It was an arrangement of mutual benefit, with every price laid out plainly and even their dignity written into the terms. That same year, a man with an almost impossibly impressive résumé applied to be her personal assistant. He remembered her stomach medicine, shoe size, and every food she couldn't eat. He stayed by her side as she grew from an orphan who couldn't make sense of financial statements into President Xu, a woman capable of overturning the board of directors. She thought he was poor, and quietly bought dozens of extra breakfasts to spare his pride. She had no idea he was a partner at a low-profile investment firm, there because of a kindness from ten years earlier that she had long forgotten. He hid his identity for three years, and his feelings for her for just as long.
