Chapter 1

My name is Ethan Carter, and I'm a project director at one of the top tech companies in the industry. My salary isn't bad, and neither are my skills, but in my early thirties I was still just another unremarkable member of the great army of "eligible bachelors."

When I say unremarkable, I mostly mean my love life. At work, though, I was probably both the most "ordinary" and the most "remarkable" person in the eyes of every manager. Ordinary, because I was genuinely good at my job: no matter how messy a project was, once it landed in my hands, I always pulled it back from the brink. Remarkable, because I was born with a contrarian streak.

I didn't care how senior you were. If I thought you had a problem, especially a work problem, I was not going to keep my mouth shut. As my older brother put it, "You'd walk right up to God Almighty and tug on His beard."

And that contrarian streak showed most clearly in the way I dealt with my direct boss, Vivian Sullivan.

Vivian had made director at a young age. She was strikingly beautiful, yet she always showed up in a sharp business suit with a stern, keep-your-distance look on her face, like a rose carved out of ice, thorns and all. From the interns all the way up to the department VPs, there was hardly anyone in the company who wasn't afraid of her.

Except me.

Not only was I not afraid of her, I was the only person in the entire company who dared to point at her slide deck in a department meeting, in front of everyone, and say, "The underlying logic of this plan is flawed. It's all theory and no practice."

I still remember the first time I openly "defied" her. The conference room went dead silent, and my coworkers shot me sympathetic looks that said, Buddy, you're a dead man. As for Vivian, her face, usually as cool and composed as frost, had flushed a faint pink from sheer anger, and the fingers holding her laser pointer were trembling slightly.

In the end, the two of us went back and forth over every single detail of the plan until the meeting was over. Our coworkers didn't make a sound the whole time. They barely dared to breathe, and for two hours they quietly served as background scenery.

I'd figured she would make my life miserable after that. Instead, the next day, she slapped a revised plan down on my desk and said, her voice as cool as ever, "Take a look. I reworked it based on the logic you raised yesterday. If there's still a problem, come find me."

From then on, these sparring matches became our normal way of working. We were like two evenly matched generals trading blows on the battlefield of work, neither able to gain the upper hand. Every argument left both of us fuming, but after every argument, the project itself always moved in a better direction.

Over time, our coworkers got used to it. Whenever Vivian and I were in a meeting together, they automatically switched into "silent spectator" mode.

But for all our sparring, we both knew deep down that the other was our most in-sync partner and our most respected rival. Outside of work, we could even be considered friends. On business trips together, she would kick off her heels and wander the streets of some unfamiliar city with me until we found a barbecue stand, where we'd drink beer and talk about life and our dreams.

With her guard down, she showed a sweet, soft, almost girlish side, nothing like the fierce dragon lady from the office. It was in those moments that I realized I seemed to have developed a vague, hard-to-name fondness for her.

Unfortunately, that fondness had barely sprouted before it was buried under endless work and a string of bad timing.

Two months ago, my older brother, Nathan Carter, was getting married.

It should have been a joyous occasion, and as the only younger brother in the family, I was supposed to be at his beck and call, helping with everything. But right at that critical moment, the company launched a new top-priority project called Project Starlight and put me fully in charge. Worse still, Vivian, the project's commander-in-chief, happened to have an extremely important overseas business negotiation during that same stretch and had to go away on an extended trip.

All the pressure landed on me alone, all at once. To push the project forward as fast as possible, I had no choice but to travel out of town by myself and visit clients one after another to negotiate partnerships.

During that time, I was spinning like a top, getting less than five hours of sleep a night. My sister-in-law, Lily Carter, called me several times, and every time she said cheerfully, "Ethan, you'd better hurry up and wrap up your work so you can make it back for the wedding! When you do, I'll introduce you to a real beauty!"

My new sister-in-law had been Nathan's classmate in college. She was gentle and kind, and she was especially thoughtful toward me as her husband's little brother. I'd heard Nathan mention that Lily had a younger sister about my age. Lily praised this sister to the skies, saying she was exceptional and extremely capable, and that if the two of us ever met, we'd definitely have a lot in common.

Lily had said, full of anticipation, "I already worked it out with my little sister. I'm going to properly introduce you two at the wedding. She's busy with work too and hardly ever has free time, so this is the perfect chance!"

Honestly, as a single guy pushing thirty, there was no way I wasn't tempted by something like that. After Lily talked her up so much, I was full of curiosity and anticipation about this "exceptional woman" I'd never met.

But in reality, the project got held up by one key partner. I spent more than half a month coaxing and pleading before they finally relented. By the time I signed the contract, my brother's wedding had been over for three days.

I missed my own brother's wedding, and I missed that precious chance to "meet" her too.

Feeling guilty and disappointed, all I could do was send Nathan a thick cash gift and apologize over and over. Lily was very understanding on the phone, though she kept sighing. "Oh, it's such a shame. My sister cleared her schedule specially for that day... Oh well, never mind. Work comes first. There'll be other chances."

After I hung up, I felt even worse.

I dragged my exhausted body back to the office, thinking Vivian would be back from her trip by now and we could push the project forward together. Instead, the receptionist told me Ms. Sullivan's overseas project had run into an unexpected problem and she couldn't come back just yet.

Project Starlight stalled out once again.

I felt like a rubber band stretched to its limit. Months of high-pressure work, plus everything else that kept going wrong, had piled more and more irritation and frustration inside me. I started getting short-tempered and snapped at everyone, like a powder keg that could blow at any moment.