Contract Marriage: The President's Stand-in Lover - Chapter 28:

Love Again

Winter came quietly to Paris.

The morning streets lay beneath a thin veil of mist, the scent of coffee mingling

with rain and a softness that even light seemed to share.

Lin Vianne pushed open the window of her apartment.

The wind slipped inside, cool and damp, but she didn’t close it.

That night still lingered in her mind the rain, the trembling embrace,

and the man she thought she would never touch again, standing before her in the storm,

stripped of pride, carrying the weight of his own wounds.

He had said he was afraid.

It was the first time in his life that Gu Chen had ever admitted fear.

Those words carved themselves deep into her heart.

She would be lying if she said she hadn’t wavered.

In that embrace, she had felt his warmth, his trembling, and the raw honesty of his remorse.

But love was never enough.

Trust was the flower that struggled to bloom through the cracks.

Since then, Gu Chen had begun appearing in her life quietly, carefully, as if afraid to startle her.

He no longer commanded, no longer demanded.

He simply appeared.

She ran into him at a bookstore.

Saw him waiting outside a conference building in the cold.

And one evening, a package arrived with no name just a

soft wool scarf embroidered with her initials.

She knew it was him.

Every gesture felt like a man learning, for the first time, how to love someone gently.

But the gentler he became, the more it hurt.

That day, she was walking along the river when she saw him sitting across the Seine.

A black coat, a silent gaze, the kind of loneliness that seemed to carry the weight of the entire world.

She realized that the Gu Chen she once knew had never understood love and the Gu Chen

before her now had learned it only by losing her.

She turned to leave, but his voice reached her through the wind.

Vianne.

She stopped.

The wind was cold, yet his smile was soft. Can you walk with me a while?

She hesitated, then finally nodded.

They walked side by side by the river, neither speaking for a long time.

Then he broke the silence, his voice low and unsteady.

I thought time would help me let you go, but I’ve learned that every

second without you is its own kind of punishment.

He stopped walking and turned toward her.

Would you let me love you again?

She froze.

His tone wasn’t commanding like before it carried the tremor of real fear.

I can’t promise I’ll never make mistakes again, he said, his voice rough,

but I can promise that this time, I’ll spend everything I have learning how to love you,

not how to control you.

The wind swept through the arches of the bridge, scattering her hair across her face.

She looked up at him, her eyes bright with tears and pain.

Gu Chen, it’s not that I don’t want to forgive you, she whispered.

But some wounds don’t heal just because you ask for another chance.

He lowered his gaze, a sad smile curving his lips.

Then let me spend the rest of my life trying to heal them.

The words slipped into her heart like a needle, delicate and piercing.

She didn’t reply.

She turned and walked away.

Gu Chen stood on the bridge, watching her fade into the fog.

He didn’t chase after her.

At that moment, he finally understood to love again wasn’t

to start over, it was to learn how to wait.

That night, Lin Vianne returned to her apartment and opened her notebook.

Between the pages lay an old photograph taken three years ago,

after their wedding.

She was smiling shyly; he looked distant.

But as she looked closer, she noticed something she had never seen before,

his hand resting lightly at her waist.

A small gesture.

A hidden tenderness she had once been too blind to see.

She closed her eyes, and silent tears slid down her cheeks.

Maybe one day, she would believe in love again.

But that day would have to come when she was ready

not when someone pulled her back, but when she chose to return on her own.

Outside, the church bells echoed through the night.

The Seine shimmered under the moonlight.

Gu Chen sat quietly in his car, looking up at the light glowing behind her window.

He didn’t knock, didn’t call.

He simply whispered to the night, his voice soft and resolute.

Lin Vianne, this time, I’ll be the one to wait for you.