Everyone thinks I left. That I disappeared overseas and forgot the girl who waited for me outside our college gates.
But the truth is far more pathetic than noble.
I never got on that plane.
That morning — the same one she stood by the college entrance in her blue blouse, eyes scanning the crowd — I was pulled into a silent war. My father's empire, once unshakable, was cracking from within. He sat across from me at our kitchen table and said only one sentence:
"College is over. You belong here now."
I remember the envelope in my hand. My admission letter. I remember thinking: "What about her?"And then came the threat.
"If you don't walk away, you'll bring her down with you.""She's not even involved.""Yet."
That was his power — twisting futures into chains.I didn't run away.I was trapped.
I dropped out of college before the semester even started.I buried my name in headlines filled with scandal, lawsuits, financial collapse.While the world believed the heir of Damshing Group was studying abroad in some elite Western school, I was here — in boardrooms filled with vultures, rewriting numbers at 3 a.m., bleeding into balance sheets.
And I hated every minute of it.
At twenty, I was supposed to be drinking cheap beer in a dorm room, laughing with her under campus trees, stressing about exams.Instead, I was attending shareholder meetings, learning to smile through insults, signing papers that traded human lives for company survival.
And still — I thought of her.
Not just sometimes. Always.
She became the only thing that felt real.I'd look for her in the most pitiful ways —A glance at the university bulletin board.A blurry photo in a social media post I shouldn't have clicked.Once, I sat across from her on a bus. She didn't notice.She had headphones in, her eyes tired, her fingers clutched around a worn notebook.I wanted to say something. Anything.
But I didn't deserve to.
There were nights when I drank alone, thinking of her waiting outside the gate. Did she cry?Did she wait for hours?Did she hate me instantly, or did she make excuses for me for weeks?
Those were the thoughts that destroyed me more than the company ever could.
Because while Damshing was rebuilt from ruins, I remained broken.
I climbed through glass and bone to pull the company back from the brink.Fired uncles. Outsmarted cousins. Took the title of CEO like a poisoned crown.And when I finally stood on top, bleeding and breathless…
She was gone.
I heard of her accident the night it happened.It was raining so hard, the roads blurred into mirrors.And in one reckless second, I became the very thing I swore I'd never be.
The man who hurt her.
She didn't know it was me. She still doesn't.But I saw her in the hospital, unconscious, pale, a bandage wrapped around her head.I signed the bills anonymously.I vanished again.
Because I thought: she deserves a normal life. A life without me.
But fate never liked my choices.
Now she's here. In this building. In my company.And I'm drowning again.
I've spent six years killing every version of myself that wanted to run back to her.
But the one thing I can't kill… is the one that still loves her.