Too Late to Want Me Now

I was Randy Johnson's contract wife.

For five years, I tried every possible way to make him fall in love with me. But aside from showing me concern in bed, he ignored me the rest of the time.

When a piece of equipment at the amusement park fell and struck me, the first thing he did was rush to his beloved first love.

She was startled but unscathed. Yet, he rushed her straight to the hospital.

When a towering cake display collapsed on me, leaving blood streaming down my arm, he still chose to comfort his first love, who merely had a stomachache.

Since he loved her so deeply, there was no reason for me, his contract wife, to stay.

So I let him go and freed myself in the process.

I chose to study abroad, vowing never to see him again for the rest of my life.

I never expected… this time, he would be the one to regret it.

After preparing dinner to suit Randy Johnson's tastes, I went to the bathroom to run his bath in advance.

That evening, he returned home two hours later than usual.

I stepped forward to greet him, took his suit jacket, and crouched down to set his slippers neatly at his feet.

"Dinner first, or a bath?" I asked.

Without lifting his gaze from his phone, he replied, "Bath."

So I went back to the bathroom, drained the water, and refilled it, adjusting the temperature to exactly how he liked it.

By the time Randy emerged from the bathroom in his pajamas, I had reheated the food.

Everything was in order, everything perfectly timed—because I had done these things countless times over the past five years.

He was long accustomed to my care.

Lately, his mood had been unusually good. He kept staring at his phone, a faintly suggestive smile tugging at his lips from time to time.

In five years of marriage, I had never seen him smile like that.

As I passed by, my eyes caught the pinned contact at the top of his screen: Jeanne Moss.

I looked away, but my heart understood.

Jeanne was his childhood sweetheart. Randy had liked her since they were young, but she had wanted to take things slowly. So he guarded his feelings for her all those years.

When he finally gathered the courage to confess, Jeanne had abruptly married another man in a whirlwind wedding and moved overseas.

After that, he drowned himself in alcohol day after day, wasting away like a fallen prodigy.

I was once a poor student sponsored by the Johnson family. When I visited to express my gratitude, Randy's mother said to me, "If you truly wish to repay us, do me a favor."

She wanted me to help Randy move past his heartbreak.

From that day on, everyone in our circle knew that there was a woman by Randy's side who loved him to her very bones.

I made it my mission to learn his every