Dana frowned.

"Bella already explained it to you just now."

I gave a small laugh.

"Dana, do you and Bella take me for a fool?"

The moment I said it, Bella burst into tears.

"Pam, I was just sick and feeling awful, I wanted someone to give me a little comfort. If it upset you, I'll apologize, okay?"

Dana's brows drew together on instinct, a flicker of tenderness in his face.

I stood where I was, and all I felt was exhausted.

To finish the project sooner, I'd pulled a solid week of grueling overtime.

The whole time I'd slept three hours a night, all so I could get back sooner and see Dana.

I never thought I'd come back to find him with someone else.

I looked at Dana and said quietly,

"Dana, let's break up."

His head snapped up toward me.

"Pam, our engagement is already settled. How can you throw out a breakup so lightly?"

I slid off the ring Dana had put on my finger when he proposed and held it out to him.

"Here's your ring back."

For an instant, the air went silent.

I paid them no more attention and turned to leave.

Dana started to come after me, but Bella suddenly broke into sobs.

"Dana, how could this happen?"

He turned back and pulled Bella into his arms, murmuring to comfort her.

Back home, the first thing I did was announce that Dana and I had broken up.

And I made the reason clear.

In no time, all my friends were in an uproar.

Bella saw my post too.

She started calling and messaging me nonstop.

"Pam, don't be rash, please. How can you just call off an engagement like that?"

"Pam, please pick up. I already explained it to you. Why won't you believe me?"

"Pam, can you delete that post? This makes me look terrible. How am I supposed to face everyone?"

...

I blocked her outright.

Another hour passed.

Then Bella suddenly called again.

I picked up. On the other end she was crying so hard she could barely speak.

"Pam, I'm on the roof of your building. I'm apologizing to you. Please forgive me, okay?"

"If you won't forgive me, I'll jump."

I could faintly hear wind through the phone.

I ran up to the rooftop and saw Bella standing alone by the railing, teetering.

Dana came charging up from downstairs, his face grim.

He yanked Bella back from the edge in one motion.

"Bella, do you have any idea what you're doing?"

"If you jumped, what would I do?"

Bella cried even more piteously.

"But I want to apologize to Pam. I want her to forgive me."

"Now everyone's saying I'm the other woman, that I came between my best friend and her boyfriend. I really don't want to live anymore."

Dana's eyes cut at me like knives.

"Pam, she's your best friend. Are you really going to drive her to her death?"

It struck me as absurd.

"What does her wanting to die have to do with me?"

The words were barely out when Bella suddenly tore free of Dana and lunged at me.

I stepped aside, and she went over the edge.

Dana's eyes went wild. He rushed downstairs at once.

I'd called the fire department the second it started.

The safety cushion had long been laid out below.

Bella was fine, just a few scrapes.

Dana checked her over anxiously for a long while, and finally let out a breath.

He carried the fainted Bella off to the hospital, and before he left he turned on me, vicious.

"Pam, if anything happens to Bella, I won't let you off."

I stood there, my heart aching like it had been jabbed with a needle.

I'd known for a while their relationship wasn't ordinary, but Dana's attitude still cut me.

To him, I, his fiancée, mattered less than Bella.

I thought about it for a long time, and in the end I still went to the hospital.

I sat on the long bench in the hospital corridor, looking at the marks Bella's sharp nails had scratched into my hand.

Alone, in silence, I dabbed on the ointment.

Dana walked over and saw the wounds on my hand.

He frowned.

"How did you get hurt?"

He bent down and examined the injuries closely, his tone slipping back to its old gentleness.

"Pam, Bella's fine, you don't need to worry."

"The only reason I was with her is that she's your best friend. There's nothing between us. I went to take care of her when she was sick because of you, too."

"Pam, stop this. Our engagement won't be called off. You know how long I fought with my family to marry you, how much it cost me. How can you have the heart to give me up?"

He paused, then went on.

"I'll buy you a villa. Haven't you always wanted to move your mother to New York?"

"This whole thing made you misunderstand me. That's my fault. I apologize. You know I've never been willing to let you suffer."

"I'll put the house in your name. Consider it compensation."

I found it deeply ironic.

Did Dana really think this was about money?

He kept talking.

"Pamela, but I have one condition too."

"This whole thing started because of you. Bella got hurt because of you, so you're going to apologize to her. She's all alone in New York with no one to lean on, and while she recovers you'll stay at the hospital and take care of her. It'll be the perfect chance to clear up the misunderstanding between you two."

"I'm saying this for your own good. I can't stand the thought of you losing a good friend."

I couldn't help laughing, and my voice came out cutting.

"You're so good to me. So thorough, thinking of everything on my behalf."

I'd raised it before, that I wanted to buy my mother a home so she could live out her later years comfortably.

I'd use all my savings and never touch a cent of his.

But at the time Dana had frowned and said,

"Pamela, our families are already worlds apart. My mother has never approved of me marrying you. If you blow through all your savings now to buy your mother a house, my family will think you're calculating, deliberately leaving yourself a way out."

I didn't want to put him in a difficult spot, so I let the idea go.

And my mother went on living in that same old house.

Yet now, for Bella, he was more than generous, ready to hand me a whole villa.

And still calling it doing me a favor.

He really did take me for a fool.

I laughed, cold. "Dana, I told you I won't marry you. We've already broken up. Do you not understand plain words?"

"If you care so much about Bella, then you go take care of her. Why should I be her unpaid nanny? And why on earth would I need to apologize to her?"

Dana's face began to sour with impatience.

"Pamela, don't be so ungrateful."

"She jumped off a building just to prove her innocence to you. She nearly died. She cares that much about your friendship, and you can be this cold-blooded?"

"She thinks of you at every turn, and all you've done is push her toward death. How can you be so selfish? You misunderstood her and slandered her over some passing prejudice of yours. Do you have any idea how long Bella cried over it? And then you deliberately wrecked her reputation, made everyone think she's a mistress who wedged herself into her own best friend's relationship. Shouldn't you be the one apologizing to her and admitting you were wrong?"

I looked at him.

"That's right. I did nothing wrong."

"Every bit of the wrong here belongs to the two of you. You shouldn't have done things that gave people the wrong idea. Stop making excuses."

"If she isn't a mistress, then why did you kiss her?"

Seeing that nothing was getting through to me, Dana forced down his temper and said,

"I won't make you nurse her for free. I'll pay you well for it."

"As long as you go public and say everything you posted was fake, that you were the one smearing Bella, I'll give you anything. Name your price."

Without a moment's hesitation I hurled the bottle of antiseptic at him.

And turned to go.

I should have seen it long ago.

I was the one who was slow and stupid, letting myself be deceived this far.

So it turned out Dana cared about Bella even more than I'd imagined.

And what was I to him, really.

Behind me, Dana's voice rose in anger.

"Pamela, you'll regret this."

Back home, I stood at the window, looking at the greenery outside.

I thought of the first time I met Dana Gilbert.

I'd gone down to buy coffee near my office, and he bumped into me by accident.

The coffee spilled all over me. He added me on WeChat and sent me money for dry cleaning, then asked me to dinner to apologize.

I told him it wasn't necessary.

But he showed up outside my office building holding flowers.

His expression was apologetic and earnest.

"Miss Ellison, I'm sorry. I bumped into you on purpose that day. I'm just a clumsy person, and I didn't know what other way I had to reach out to you properly."

Looking at that handsome face of his, my heart skipped half a beat for the first time, against my own will.

Dana didn't know I'd recognized him long before that.

He was two years ahead of me at school, one of its most talked-about figures.

I'd had a crush on him for a long time. I thought I would keep that feeling buried in my heart forever, and never imagined we'd get the chance to meet again.

Later, it felt only natural when we got together.

After that, Bella White told me, all mysterious.

"Pamela, there's a friend of mine I want you to meet."

When I saw it was Dana, I was stunned, but inside I was overjoyed.

I thought, what a coincidence, that my boyfriend turned out to be my best friend's friend.

Only now do I understand that all of it had signs from the very start.

When I went to the hospital to pick up my mother's medicine, I heard Bella's voice by the stairwell.

"Dana, Pamela already knows about us. What do we do? Will she still marry you?"

"And if she won't, then what happens to us?"

Dana's voice was low.

"She will. I'll make sure she wants to."

"Pamela's simple and naive. A little sweet-talking and she'll come around."

Bella's voice choked, but there was a thread of hope in it.

"Dana, why don't you just break up with Pamela? Let's get married. As long as I can be with you, I'm not afraid of anything."

Dana rejected the idea at once.

"No. Let me marry Pamela first. My mother won't accept her, and when the time is right I'll divorce her. Then we can be together in the open."

"Your background is far better than Pamela's. Once my mother has ground her down enough, you'll walk in the door and she won't give you any trouble."

"I can't bear to see you suffer even a little. Let Pamela take the brunt first. Once my mother's had her fill of it, your days in our family will be so much easier."

I stood frozen where I was, as if all the blood in my body were turning to ice.

So this was the truth.

Bella rose onto her toes and softly kissed Dana.

She spoke as if with a sigh.

"Dana, you really are good to me. You think of everything for my sake."

Dana held Bella close, as if he wished he could fold her into his very bones.

A long while passed before the two of them reluctantly drew apart.

Dana spoke, earnest and unyielding.

"Bella, you know I love you."

"With Pamela, it was always just an act. Everything I've done, I did for you."

I stood there and suddenly laughed out loud.

Dana finally saw me.

His face changed in an instant.

"Pamela."

I clutched the plastic bag in my hand, turned, and walked away.