No time to take me to the restaurant—but plenty of time to take someone else.

"I'm not hungry. You eat it."

Zachary's voice dropped, casual, almost bored. "Amelia, what is this little fit about? Because I helped Susan film some videos instead of going to get the marriage license with you?"

I lifted my eyes to him, disbelieving, the words I wanted to say lodging in my throat as tears slid down from the corners.

His accusations came in an endless stream.

"You were the one who introduced me to Susan in the first place. You were the one who didn't want to watch her boyfriend and her best friend at each other's throats. You told us to get along."

"Now you've got exactly what you wanted, and you're jealous all over again?"

"Have I spoiled you so much that you've turned this petty?"

"You know perfectly well the bridal shoot is just an ad. The kiss is camera angles."

"Amelia, what more do you want from me?"

Right. What more do I want?

Isn't it all because of me?

Why am I always so unreasonable?

I kept my head down the whole time, tears dripping, drop by drop, onto the floor.

Breathing was getting hard.

It felt like a piece of candy lodged in my throat—couldn't swallow it, couldn't spit it out, until in the end it would just choke me to death.

The paper bag hit the floor with a slap.

Zachary and I stayed silent for what felt like a century.

In the end he grabbed his coat and left.

He didn't come home all night.

And I didn't sleep all night.

When the sky was just beginning to pale, I pulled up Susan's page again without thinking.

She'd posted a new video: the two of them sitting side by side on a balcony, talking.

It was sped up—the two of them talking, it seemed, from dark of night straight through to dawn.

These past few years, Zachary and I had fewer and fewer words for each other, our cold spells more and more frequent.

I'd thought it was work, the small daily grind, that had turned us into this.

But there was a time, not so long ago, when we'd had so much to say. So much it felt like a whole lifetime wouldn't be enough.

I stared at the screen, blank, my heart like a great hollow had opened in it.

All those words he never said to me—he'd ended up saying them to someone else after all.

I sat with it a long while before I called my mother.

"Mom… I miss you so much."

She caught the wrongness right away. "Amelia, what's the matter? Did you and Zachary fight?"

My nose stung. I forced the words out. "I want to come home."

She sighed. "I never agreed to you being with him in the first place."

"Back then you insisted on going with him no matter what I said. Threw away a perfectly good life as an heiress just to go be his secretary. You were a girl who couldn't even cook, and for him…"

I'd loved him too fiercely back then, ignored my mother, certain our feelings would stay just as they were forever.

"Amelia," she said, letting the past go, "if you're tired, come home. Mom is always behind you."

My voice broke. "Okay."

I packed a few things and set off for the company to hand in my resignation.

Zachary had built everything from nothing, without his family's help.

To be with him, I'd even cut ties with my mother, severed us as mother and daughter.

Thinking back on it now, I'd been wrong beyond all reason.

Susan had only been a small-time influencer then, barely known.

When she and Zachary first met, the two of them couldn't get through a few words without picking a fight.

Susan blamed Zachary for stealing me away from her.

Zachary couldn't stand how she was always pushing us to break up.

Then a photo of the two of them happened to go viral.

A handsome man, a beautiful woman—the internet lost its mind shipping them.

Susan gained a million followers overnight, and Zachary's company rode the fame straight to a successful IPO.

At first I didn't think much of it. Not until Zachary, for the sake of filming videos with Susan, brushed me aside time and time again—until everyone believed they were a real couple.

Until I became the rat in the corner, staring up at their happy little life.

I'd cried. I'd screamed.

But Zachary always brushed me off with the same words: It's all for the company, isn't it? All so you can live a good life.

All for me.

An invisible weight pressed down over my head like an iron lid, smothering me until I couldn't breathe.

But to me, it was nothing but an excuse.

For the videos, Zachary took her to Tahiti, the place he'd promised me a thousand times and never once delivered on.

For the videos, he chartered more than a dozen helicopters to celebrate her birthday, forgetting that the same day was our fourth anniversary, the night I waited up for him in vain.

There was so much more. Even now, looking back, it still left me aching, bitter.

By the time I got to the office, Zachary was already inside.

I tucked my resignation letter beneath a stack of documents. He didn't look closely. He just signed.

I was about to leave when he called me back.

He took a velvet box from the drawer.

He opened it. Inside lay a glittering sapphire necklace.

His voice turned unusually gentle. “Do you like it? I bought it especially for you.”

Something in my chest trembled.

It had been so long since he'd given me a gift.

Let alone lowered his head to apologize first.

Before I could figure out what to say, his phone buzzed.

A message from Susan.

【So how'd it go, Zachary? Did Amelia like the necklace? My taste in gifts isn't bad, right?】

The air froze.

I tugged weakly at the corner of my mouth. So even the gift he gave me had been picked out by someone else.

I pushed the box back toward him. “No need. You can take it.”

Once, I would have flared up at him again. But today my heart was strangely calm.

Susan had been part of my relationship with Zachary for too long. Too deeply.

Even in the smallest corners of it.

The body wash at home suddenly changed scent, and Zachary said Susan had recommended it, that it smelled wonderful.

New sheets and a duvet cover appeared in the closet, and again Zachary said Susan had recommended the fabric and the pattern, that it was soft and beautiful.

At some point I stopped knowing when, my thoughts and feelings had come to mean less to him than a single offhand remark from Susan.

Zachary frowned, silent for a moment.

Before he could speak, another message from Susan came through.

【Or should I buy you two some little toys? Didn't you say Amelia loves……】

The voice message hadn't finished playing before Zachary cut it off.

My whole body went rigid. I couldn't believe what I'd just heard.

My lips went numb. “Zachary, you tell her even about what we do in bed?”

He visibly panicked. “Amelia, don't misunderstand. I can explain.”

Susan's voice message had carried clear mockery, clear teasing.

A cold laugh escaped me. What had I become to them?

“I don't want to hear your explanation. And I'm not something you two can joke about however you please.”

But Zachary frowned. “Is it really that serious, Amelia? Susan's your friend too, not some stranger. What's the harm in mentioning it? Do you really have to be this petty?”

My eyes stung. I curled my fingers.

“Even now, you still think I'm just throwing a tantrum,” I stared at him and said, word by word, “Zachary, let's break up.”

“What did you say?”

His face went ashen, a dark, brooding air rolling off him. “Amelia, you dare say that again?”

“I said, let's break up.”

Zachary tilted his head back against the couch and pinched the bridge of his nose, exhausted.

“Break up? You want to break up over something this small?”

His eyes were bloodshot as he looked at me, the disgust and impatience nearly spilling over.

And yet, back when we first got together, I had been his whole world. His eyes had been full of love every time they found me.

“Amelia,” Zachary said flatly, “you really are getting more boring by the day.”

My gaze drifted past him to the floor-to-ceiling glass behind him.

Today I wore the same plain work suit as always. I'd left in such a rush I hadn't even put on makeup, and faint shadows sat under my eyes.

I did look boring, it was true.

I asked him, “Then who counts as interesting in your eyes?”

Zachary froze for a beat and said nothing.

His phone was still open to his chat with Susan, the wallpaper a photo of the two of them at Disney.

In the sunlight, dressed in matching outfits, they laughed cheek to cheek, bright and radiant.

Zachary had probably forgotten that we used to be just as sweet, just as passionate.

So this was what people called the thrill of something new?

“Zachary, do you have any idea? While you and Susan were off at Disney, I was wining and dining a client. I drank until my stomach was bleeding just to close that deal.”

“While the two of you were having candlelit dinners at fancy restaurants, I was alone at the office working past midnight, no time to eat, gnawing on cold bread.”

“So I'm the boring one because all I think about is the company, and Susan is the interesting one because she eats and drinks and plays her way around the world with you. Is that it?”

Zachary softened his voice. “Amelia…… it's not like that……”

“Let's both just calm down, okay? I won't agree to a breakup.”

He came to my side and reached out to pull me into his arms.

But all I felt for him now was disgust.

I shoved him away hard, repulsed, and turned to find the office door had opened at some point.

Susan stood there, already crying her heart out.

“I heard everything. You're breaking up because of me? Amelia, if you have to blame someone, blame me. It's all my fault. Don't be angry at Zachary.”

Zachary looked at her tears, and something tender and aching flickered in his eyes.

“Susan, this has nothing to do with you.”

I just found it absurd.

Susan walked over and grabbed my hand. “Amelia, it's all my fault. Will you forgive me? Please don't fight because of me, okay?”

Zachary chimed in. “Enough, Amelia. Susan's apologized to you. It's all a misunderstanding. There's no need to be so harsh with her. Isn't she your best friend?”

I watched the whole scene and let out a cold laugh. “Zachary, same as before. Break up. I'll let the two of you have each other.”

Zachary's brow knit, but before he could speak, Susan ran out in tears.

His eyes chased after her wounded, retreating figure, and he snapped, furious. “Amelia, is this what you wanted? Are you happy now that it's a mess like this? You've gone too far!”

The moment the words left his mouth, he spun around in a panic and went after Susan.

The door slammed shut.

The huge, empty office held only me again.

I smiled bitterly. It was fine. I was used to it.

Between Susan and me, he always put her first.

I went back to my desk. The coworkers who'd been watching the show all dropped their heads.

“What's going on? Isn't Mr. Stephens's girlfriend Susan? How'd Secretary Henson get tangled up in this?”

“No idea. What a mess that crowd is. But Susan and Mr. Stephens really are an adorable couple, so easy to root for.”

“Right? Don't tell me Secretary Henson's the other woman?”

“Hmph, who knows?”

I gave myself three days to erase every trace of myself from the company and from home, and then to leave this city for good.