The Memory of the Alps

In the end, that dinner, I stubbornly gritted my teeth, chewing snails while gulping down ice water, finishing more than half of my portion.

By the time Sebastian drove me back to the entrance of my luxury hotel, I started feeling my stomach cramping uncomfortably.

But I was too embarrassed to utter a single word of complaint to him.

After all, he had warned me not to eat cold things earlier, it was me who insisted on proving myself.

In the middle of the night, the agonizing cramps woke me up. Sweating profusely, I managed to call the front desk requesting medical assistance.

However, when the door opened, I saw Sebastian rushing into the room alongside the hotel’s medical staff.

He still hadn’t gone home?

“You…”

“Don’t say anything, save your energy.”

His face was extremely tense, his visible anxiety and nervousness apparent to the naked eye. Without caring about the eyes of others, he directly scooped me up into his arms and strode away.

Ultimately, I was taken to the best private hospital in Paris under Sebastian’s escort.

When I woke up after the IV drip, Sebastian was sitting pensively by my hospital bed.

His deep eyes stared intently at my pale face; who knows how long he had been sitting there looking, or what he was thinking about.

Suddenly, I opened my eyes and met his gaze, startling myself.

The atmosphere in the hospital room suddenly became incredibly awkward.

And worse still, I couldn’t help but start hiccuping incessantly, unable to stop no matter what I did.

He silently crossed his arms, watching me.

“I… hic… got acute appendicitis… hic… hiccuping is a very normal physiological response… hic!”

I tried to salvage some dignity by explaining, but every time I spoke a word, I let out a miserable hiccup.

“I see that. Indeed, a very normal display.”

“…”

Catching the other party’s eyes trying to hold back laughter, I was so embarrassed I just wanted to find a crack in the ground to hide in…

I reached out to pull the blanket up over my head, intending to escape reality.

But the next second, the blanket was pulled down forcefully by him: “Your stomach still hurts, do you want to suffocate yourself too?”

He kept a stern face, acting like an adult wanting to discipline a child.

Recalling my stubbornness and refusal to listen to his advice last night leading to this consequence, I was just about to open my mouth to apologize.

When suddenly I heard a low “Sorry”, spoken by Sebastian.

I blinked in surprise, looking up at him.

I saw his face full of guilt, his voice low and slow: “If I hadn’t chosen to take you to that restaurant, you wouldn’t have ended up in the hospital on an IV drip like this.”

Huh?

“I must have made you feel very untrustworthy, so whether it was a severe illness requiring surgery seven years ago, or a severe stomachache last night, you never chose to tell me first. Would you rather bear that pain alone than share it with me?”

“That’s not it…”

“Is your stomach still uncomfortable?”

He hastily interrupted. In his usually cold eyes, a gentle light suddenly rose, so tender it could melt ice.

I was a bit dazed by his change, my heart skipping a beat from the flutter.

Even though my brain had lost those old memories, I seemed to start understanding why my heart had once beaten for him.

“Hic ——”

A loud and clear hiccup suddenly and rudely rang out, instantly breaking the quiet, romantic atmosphere in the room.

I awkwardly clutched my chest, looking at him, intending to curl up under the covers again…

“Want to try a hiccup cure?”

“You have a trick?”

“Focus your attention, concentrate on thinking about one single thing.”

“I can’t focus ——”

Before I finished my sentence, the elegant man by the bed suddenly leaned over, supporting himself with his hands. His handsome masculine face magnified infinitely right before my eyes, startling me.

Until his forehead lightly touched mine, the delicate touch of his skin transmitted over. Our breaths intertwined, and I could clearly hear my heart pounding fiercely in my chest.

“Can you focus now?” he whispered.

His deep gray eyes were so close that my eyes could no longer focus.

I foolishly nodded obediently: “Mm.”

“Stopped hiccuping?”

“…It stopped, but I feel a bit dizzy.”

He chuckled softly, standing up straight and stepping back to maintain distance.

Then he leisurely sat back in the armchair.

“Your heart is beating so fast and erratically, of course, the blood won’t pump to your brain in time, so you’ll feel dizzy.”

His voice was deep, warm, and gentle, his eyes looking at me brimming with infinite indulgence.

I suddenly felt very curious: with a love once so beautiful, why did he and I break up?

I asked exactly what was on my mind.

But as soon as the question popped out, the atmosphere in the room predictably froze and dropped.

He immediately withdrew his slight smile.

Just as I regretted it and thought he would refuse to answer, he broke the silence:

“I don’t even know the exact reason why we went our separate ways. Perhaps, more accurately, it wasn’t a mutual breakup, but I was unilaterally dumped by you.”

His tone carried a bitter self-deprecation: “There wasn’t even a breakup text message. You directly blocked all my contact methods and vanished from Paris as if you never existed.”

“I don’t believe it, that doesn’t sound like my style of handling things.”

“I thought so too. At first, I even thought you got into an accident or something bad happened. I searched for you like crazy, until I flew to New York and saw with my own eyes that you were holding hands with your billionaire fiancé.”

“You… went all the way to New York to find me? When?”

“Three years ago.” Recalling some heartbreaking scene, he paused, “You two looked… very happy and well-matched.”

He lowered his eyelashes, hiding the turbulent emotions inside.

The morning sunlight poured in through the glass window, falling on his exquisitely angled profile. For some reason, I felt his back exuding extreme loneliness, despair, and sorrow.

My heart inexplicably tightened once again with ache.

Seven years ago, when I woke up after brain surgery at a US hospital, I was shocked to find that I had lost all my memories of the last three years living in Europe.

Deep down, I always felt like I had forgotten someone very important.

But all my relatives and friends around me firmly assured me that the most important people I knew were all gathered right here around my hospital bed.

They said the three years I forgot was just the time Luke Shaw persistently pursued me and I finally gave in and accepted his love.

Of course, I had an impression of Luke Shaw; our families were business partners, we grew up and mingled in the same upper-class circle since childhood.

But before I was 20, I swear I never developed any romantic feelings beyond friendship for him.

I had racked my brains countless times, wondering what earth-shattering event happened during those three years studying in France that made me change my mind and fall for Luke?

During the entire seven years staying in the US to recuperate, I tried to hypnotize myself into finding romantic feelings for Luke.

But I bitterly realized that no matter how much I forced myself, my heart couldn’t flutter for him.

I was so repulsed by his touch that just him accidentally holding my hand would give me goosebumps and make me feel nauseous.

Let alone further intimacy like kissing or hugging.

Because of that difficult reason, over the past seven years, every time he brought out a diamond ring to mention marriage, I found all sorts of excuses to delay and decline.

Until this time when I resolutely expressed my desire to return to Paris to find my memories, he took off his mask, no longer maintaining the demeanor of a polite gentleman like before.

Without caring about my consent, he arbitrarily set a wedding date with both families and sent out invitations everywhere.

“Sebastian, there must be a misunderstanding in this matter, but I need time to piece it together…”

The door to the VIP hospital room was suddenly pushed open with a loud bang.

“Sir, you cannot just barge into a patient’s room like this…”

Before the French nurse could finish her sentence, Luke Shaw rushed in with a furiously angry face.

“Why did you sneak back to Paris?”

He glared at me furiously, then whipped around to point a finger straight at Sebastian: “You bastard, could you get out of my sight, stop clinging like a starving leech around my fiancée!”

“Luke, what kind of crazy act are you doing?!”

“Am I wrong? You just left my arms to be with this poor bastard for one day and already ended up in the emergency room. What right does he have to take care of you? You two basically never belonged to the same social class!”

“Enough, shut up!”

I shouted loudly, ordering him to stop.

At the same time, I looked worriedly at Sebastian’s reaction.

His face was once again covered in a layer of icy coldness like when we first met at Charles de Gaulle airport; his deep gray eyes held nothing but deadly stillness.

I was truly shaking with anger: “Luke Shaw, you burst in here for no reason, spewing nonsense, smearing someone’s reputation, and hurling insults at the benefactor who brought me to the hospital. Do you have any respect for me at all?”

Sebastian’s lifeless eyes flickered slightly, he took a deep look at me, and it seemed a faint glimmer of light had just died out in those eyes.

“Haven’t I indulged and pampered you enough?” Luke glared at me, suppressing his rage, “If I hadn’t patiently respected you, then over the past seven years…”

Realizing his slip of the tongue, he hesitated, then immediately turned his spearhead towards Sebastian: “My fiancée and I need private space to resolve our internal family matters. What face do you have to keep standing here?”

“Luke!” My face darkened with outrage as I sat up straight, glaring a warning at Luke.

“I’ll step outside first, you two just resolve your private matters.”

Sebastian stood up straight and buttoned his suit jacket.

I wanted to open my mouth to call him back, but my lips trembled, feeling that the awkward situation in front of me was indeed a bit too chaotic to explain.

Besides, I did have some shady matters that needed to be clarified with Luke immediately.

Our eyes met in silence for a few seconds, and I could only nod slightly: “Alright, a chairman like you must still have a lot of corporate matters to handle, you go do your work first.”

His face instantly darkened, the corners of his mouth twitching into a forced, mocking smile.

I originally intended to call out a promise that I would find him after settling this.

But as soon as Sebastian heard the first half of my sentence telling him to leave, he decisively turned and walked away with extremely fast strides, without any lingering attachment.

The words “I will actively find you later” had just left my mouth when his back disappeared behind the door.

I clutched my chest and sighed helplessly, my sharp gaze turning back to the remaining troublemaker in the hospital room.

The temperature of my gaze dropped below zero.

“Luke Shaw, confess honestly. Are you intentionally hiding some earth-shattering secret about the past from me?”

“What nonsense are you babbling about?”

A look of flustered guilt flashed across his face. People who are hit where it hurts like to use anger to cover it up: “What lies has that guy injected into your head? You’ve only escaped my protection for one day, and you’ve already turned to treat me this coldly? We were very happy living in luxury for the past seven years, weren’t we?”

“Stop repeating that ‘past seven years’ tune to me. How I lived like a doll confined in a glass cage for the past seven years, you know best in your heart, don’t you?”

“Lily, what do you mean by those heartless words? Do you dare doubt my love for you? You believe the words of an outsider over me?”

“What exactly should I believe you about? What is the buried truth after all?”

I used a gaze as cold as a razor, staring straight into his constantly changing expressions.

He dodged, not daring to look me in the eye, looking away to find an excuse to avoid it.

“…What ridiculous truth, what nonsense are you talking about, are you still sick?”

“The truth is, I obviously knew Sebastian Silva in the past, and you also knew of his existence well. But before, when I asked, you brazenly told me I didn’t know him at all.”

“Well, he was just a classmate from the same year before, a nobody not worth paying attention to.

How would I know if your traumatized brain still remembered him or not?” He irritably ruffled his hair and frowned. “You question me so fiercely, did that gold digger brainwash you with something?”

His voice suddenly grew loud, echoing in the room: “You blindly believe him and not me? Lily Evans, I am the powerful man who has been by your side protecting you for the past twenty-something years!

Before, he was just a destitute punk from the slums dreaming of climbing high, shamelessly pursuing you, but you scornfully rejected him. Now he sees you have amnesia, so he wants to take advantage of the opportunity to swindle your money!”

“Luke Shaw, do you think I’m a docile, stupid doll?” My face darkened in peak anger. “You’ve been exposed to this extent, yet you still stubbornly twist the truth to frame others. You disappoint me too much.”

“I disappoint you?” Luke sneered, a sarcastic laugh of disbelief. “So your stupid actions didn’t disappoint me? You dared to publicly run away from the wedding of the century, causing the Shaw family to be dragged out as a laughingstock by the media. I generously ignored the grudge and lost face, took the trouble to hire a private jet to fly all this way to bring you back, yet you’re ungrateful and loudly blame me first?”

“If both sides feel so tired and disappointed in each other, then let’s officially announce the cancellation of the engagement.”

“…What? You’re crazy!”

Luke stood silently, stunned for a moment, then his face turned deathly pale from shock.

I looked at him coldly and emotionlessly: “You know the reason very well.

The reason I reluctantly agreed to get engaged to you before was only because I was brainwashed and mistook you for the man who once loved me in that forgotten memory.

You were the one who conspired to deceive me first.

You were even despicable enough to disregard my privacy, secretly touching my personal phone to delete all traces, photos, and messages about Sebastian.

You are not the missing piece I am looking for, so this fake marriage between us has no meaning to continue maintaining.”

“…You’re just basing this on a photo, and you dare to be so certain that I’m lying and making things up?”

“Yes, my intuition is never wrong.”

“For the past seven years of living closely together, are you so cold-blooded that you haven’t developed even a little bit of emotional reliance on me?”

“Affection gained through manipulation and deception, what kind of garbage affection is that?”

He clenched his fists until the veins popped, trying to grit his teeth to control his emotional outburst: “If you are so heartless and absolute, then don’t blame me for using strong measures.”

I frowned warily, stepping back to look at him in confusion.