Contract Marriage: The President's Stand-in Lover - Chapter 20:

The Sound of a Shattered Heart

Vivian didn’t know how she had made it back to her room.

Her steps felt unreal, as if she were walking on cotton, and at the same time on shattered glass,

each movement sending sharp, piercing pain through her body.

When she closed the door behind her and leaned against the cold wood,

she slid slowly to the floor, every ounce of strength drained from her.

Gu Chen’s silence was more lethal than any harsh denial or cruel confession.

He had tacitly accepted it. It was because of her face.

The realization was like a dull, rusted knife moving back and forth across her heart, slow,

relentless, almost suffocating. Every flicker of hope, every moment of self-deception,

suddenly seemed absurd and pitiful.

Tears poured out silently, not the cries of grievance, but a wordless mourning

that rose from the depths of her soul. She bit down on her arm to

stop even a whisper of sound, letting the salt sting her sleeves and

the sharp ache remind her that she was still alive.

From the beginning, she had been nothing more than a carefully crafted substitute.

His rare tenderness, his seemingly protective gestures, even the kiss tinged with punishment

perhaps all of it was just him projecting his emotions onto another woman through her face.

Vivian sat on the cold carpet all night, letting the tears dry until only numb emptiness

and bone-deep cold remained. At dawn, she forced herself to stand and walked to the mirror.

The woman staring back had red, swollen eyes and a pale, hollow face,

like a broken doll stripped of its soul.

She pressed ice to her eyes for what felt like hours, barely easing the swelling.

She applied heavier makeup than usual, concealing the exhaustion etched into her features.

She couldn’t let Wang Ma or Gu Chen see her collapse. This was the last fragment of her dignity.

Downstairs, Gu Chen sat at the breakfast table, looking just as worn,

the faint shadow under his eyes betraying a sleepless night.

When he heard her footsteps, he looked up, his gaze scanning her face

with a mix of scrutiny and a subtle, almost imperceptible hesitation.

Vivian didn’t meet his eyes. She pulled out a chair, sat, and ate mechanically,

her movements distant and detached.

Gu Chen’s voice broke the silence, hoarse and restrained.

Last night…

Nothing happened last night, Vivian cut in calmly, not even glancing at him.

Gu Chen needn’t trouble himself.

She called him Mr. Gu, polite yet cold, instantly reinstating a distance

they had barely begun to bridge, perhaps even farther.

Gu Chen tightened his grip on his coffee cup, brow furrowed,

frustrated by her deliberate detachment. But beneath the irritation lay something deeper

a restless unease he didn’t fully recognize, a strange, panicked longing.

Vivian’s words were sharp, bitter, and deliberate when she finally looked up.

She asked whether their conversation should be about why he chose her face,

or how she could better play the role of a substitute without disappointing his “real woman.”

Gu Chen’s expression darkened instantly, a storm gathering in his eyes.

Vivian’s voice was edged with ice as she stood. She had eaten her fill and was going to the

foundation, leaving no trace of attachment behind.

Watching her leave, Gu Chen’s chest rose and fell violently,

a nameless fury mingling with an inexplicable dread that scorched his reason.

He slammed his fist on the table, startling Wang Ma so badly that she nearly

dropped the fruit tray.

Vivian buried herself in work all day, forcing herself into near-masochistic

busyness to numb the pain. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t think, for if she did,

the ripping ache in her heart would consume her.

Even the secretary noticed her unusual behavior and inquired,

but Vivian brushed it off with a calm excuse about fatigue.

Late that night, she lingered at the foundation until the building

was nearly empty before dragging her exhausted body back to the villa.

The house was dark, Gu Chen was not home. Relief surged through her.

She lacked the strength to face his complicated gaze, to endure another potential confrontation.

She crept upstairs in darkness, seeking the small sanctuary were

she could tend to her wounds in solitude.

Yet when she passed the half-open door of his study, she froze.

The room was dimly lit by a single vintage desk lamp. Gu Chen sat at the desk,

back to the door, not working.

He held something in his hands, staring down at it with quiet focus.

The way the light fell on his figure made him seem unbearably lonely,

even tender in a way that stabbed at her heart.

Vivian’s chest tightened, an ominous premonition seizing her.

She stepped forward slowly and silently, peering through the doorway,

and finally saw the object in his hands.

It was an old silver photo frame.

Inside was the photo she had stumbled upon in Venice the one of the

young girl who resembled her, smiling brightly under golden light, clear and dazzling.

Gu Chen’s fingers traced the girl’s face again and again. His profile softened in the glow,

his deep, inscrutable eyes filled with a devotion and pain Vivian had never seen.

For a moment, the world fell silent. Every guess, every self-delusion,

every desperate hope crumbled into dust.

He had always loved the girl in the photograph.

The sound of a broken heart was not a scream or a roar.

It was a faint, internal crack, something snapping quietly and irreversibly inside,

settling into deathly silence.

Vivian didn’t disturb him. She retreated step by step, melting into the corridor’s shadows.

Then, like a weightless spirit, she floated back to her room,

closing the door and locking it behind her.

No lights. No tears. Just the cold, endless expanse of despair.