"Four years, Cora. If he doesn't propose tonight, we are proposing for him," Margaret's cousin joked, and the whole table laughed.

“Well, I don't think he would let this night go to waste like that.” Margaret, Cora's mom chuckled and everyone cheered.

It was the annual Christmas dinner hosted jointly by the Vieamore and Calloway families that had always been loud, warm, and a little chaotic.

The long dining table was glowing with candles and pine garlands, with the familiar teasing. Tonight, all of that teasing had settled on one couple.

Cora smiled shyly and tucked her chestnut hair behind her ear, and her hazel eyes flickered down to the small velvet box resting beside Eyan's champagne glass.

Across the table, Sebastian Brooks watched her quietly, and his sharp gray eyes softened.

“Alright,” Eyan chuckled at the joke and pushed his chair back as he stood. Every eye turned toward him with affectionate expectation.

"If I could have everyone's attention for a moment," he said in a calm voice.

Cora's breath caught, and a fragile, hopeful smile parted her lips.

Eyan looked around the table, and then, "Cora and I have broken up," he announced.

The words did not land at first. A few polite smiles lingered because no one understood what he had just said.

Cora's smile faltered, and confusion clouded her hazel eyes. "What?" she whispered, and her face drained of color.

Eyan set his glass down, and his expression remained detached. "We broke up," he repeated, as if he were clarifying a business detail.

Before anyone could fully process it, the soft click of heels came from the kitchen doorway. Vanessa Laurent walked in carrying another bottle of champagne, and her emerald eyes glittered; she slipped naturally to Eyan's side, and Eyan reached for her hand without hesitation.

"This is Vanessa," he declared, and his fingers laced tightly with hers. "Our marketing manager as Cora knows, this is the woman I love instead, and this is the woman I intend to propose tonight."

The room collapsed into stunned silence, and Helen Calloway's hand flew to her mouth as horror twisted her kind features.

Cora stared at their joined hands, and her chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven breaths. "No," she breathed, she shook her head while her hands began to tremble. "You cannot be serious right now. We have been together for four years."

“Well, I am dead serious. I'm sorry but I have fallen out of love, Cora.”

"Eyan, please don't say that," she pleaded, and her voice cracked. She stood up and went to him, tears spilled down her cheeks. "If I did something wrong, just tell me and I will fix it. You cannot end us like this in front of everyone."

Margaret shot to her feet, her gentle face flushed with fury. "Eyan, have you completely lost your mind? How dare you humiliate my daughter like this on Christmas?"

Richard placed a firm hand on his wife's shoulder, "You have lost my respect tonight, son," he stated, and his voice was low and final as his jaw locked tight.

“I'm sorry but I can't keep faking love to your daughter if I don't feel anything for her anymore.” Eyan shrugged nonchalantly.

Helen turned to Cora with tears in her eyes, and her lips trembled uncontrollably. "My dear child, I had no idea he could be this cruel," she cried, and her face crumpled with sorrow.

Vanessa stepped forward then, and she placed a delicate hand on her chest with perfect poise.

"Cora, I never meant to come between you two," she interjected, her voice dripping with false concern, "I’m sorry but, the heart wants what it wants, it was Eyan's decision to choose me instead."

Cora ignored her completely, and her desperate gaze stayed locked on Eyan alone. Her entire body shook as she gathered the last of her courage.

"Eyan, look at me," she begged, and her hazel eyes searched his face for any trace of the man she had loved. "After everything we have been through, are you really going to throw it all away for her?"

Eyan finally looked down at her, and his brown eyes remained detached and empty.

“I'm tired of being with you Cora, you are too clingy and too immature and too colorless for me. I don't want a woman who's always too available.”

His dad Daniel Calloway slammed his palm on the table, and shame burned in his eyes. "Enough with your crap Eyan! You will apologize to Cora right this instant," he barked, and his voice shook with barely controlled anger.

“I'm sorry dad, I can't force myself to love someone I don't want in my life. I've chosen Vanessa, we get along better.”

Sebastian, his best friend, gritted his teeth but said nothing.

“N-No! Eyan, what are you talking about? You were never like that. What happened please talk to me. You can't leave me like this when we were supposed to be together I–”

"Do not embarrass yourself by begging me to stay," he warned, and his lips curled with cold irritation as he stared down at her.

The room fell into an unbearable silence. Cora went pale.

A chair scraped loudly against the floor, and Sebastian rose to his feet.

"The only person embarrassing himself tonight," he retorted, and his jaw clenched, "is the man who just destroyed a woman who loved him for four years in front of everyone she cared about."

Cora did not wait to hear more, and she pushed open the front door and stepped into the freezing snow. She reached the front gate before her knees threatened to give out, and a raw sob finally escaped her lips as tears streamed down her cheeks.

Footsteps crunched in the snow behind her, and she wiped her face frantically while a shattered hope flickered in her eyes.

"Eyan?" she choked, and her voice trembled with a desperate ache.

It was not him.

Sebastian stood behind her with his coat draped over his arm, and snow dusted his dark hair while quiet anguish softened his sharp features.

Cora stared at him in stunned silence as he gently placed his coat around her shoulders.

"You shouldn't have to leave alone," he murmured, and his eyes searched hers with unwavering sincerity. “I'm here for you now.”

Wrapped in Sebastian's coat, Cora finally broke. The composure she had held together inside the house shattered the second the door closed behind her.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed, and her shoulders shook violently as tears streamed down her face. "I am sorry you have to see me like this."

"You have nothing to apologize for," Sebastian replied, his gray eyes softened with quiet concern as he looked at her.

He did not try to fix it. He did not offer empty reassurance. He just stood beside her in the falling snow, and his steady presence became the only thing keeping her upright.

For the first time that night, someone was focused on what she needed instead of what Eyan wanted.

"Let me drive you home," he offered after a while, "You should not be alone right now."

Cora nodded, her lips trembled as she wiped her face with shaking hands.

The drive to her apartment was silent. Sebastian's driver kept his eyes on the road while his phone buzzed nonstop in the cup holder with board emails from the Brooks & Calloway Group. Even on Christmas night, the CEO's inbox never slept.

When they reached her building, Cora fumbled with her keys and nearly dropped them twice. Her hands were shaking too hard to fit the key into the lock, and her vision was blurred with tears.

Sebastian gently took them from her and opened the door for her, and that was why he went inside. He did not want to leave her sobbing alone on a dark staircase.

Inside, her apartment was still waiting for a future that no longer existed. Wrapped presents sat neatly under the tree with careful handwritten tags for Eyan, holiday recipes were taped to the fridge for the dinner she had planned to cook for him, and framed photos from happier years lined the shelves. The fairy lights were still blinking.

Cora stared at them, and her breath caught painfully in her throat.

Then she dropped to her knees and ripped the paper off the first box. "I spent months picking these," she choked, her hands shook as she tore through the wrapping with desperate force. "Months."

Sebastian knelt beside her without a word, and he opened a garbage bag and held it out for her. He did not tell her to stop. He did not tell her to keep anything for later. He understood that she needed to clean away the life she thought she was building, and he simply shared the burden.

When the floor was finally clear, exhaustion hit her all at once and she collapsed onto the couch. Her eyes fluttered shut before she could even say goodnight, Sebastian pulled the blanket from the armrest over her shoulders.

He stayed on the far side of the living room for another hour, answering a few urgent emails on his phone while he made sure she was truly asleep and breathing evenly.

He slipped out just after five in the morning so she would not wake up embarrassed to find him there. The doorman in the lobby recognized him immediately.

An hour after he left, Cora's own phone lit up on the coffee table and woke her.

It was a photo from Vanessa. Vanessa was lounging in Eyan's penthouse wearing the expensive watch Cora had worked overtime to buy for his birthday, and she was smiling proudly into the camera.

The caption read, "Looks even better on the woman he actually loves."

Cora stared at it for a long second, and her jaw tightened as a sharp flash of hurt crossed her face. Then, instead of replying, she hit block. It was a small decision, but it was the first time that night she chose to protect her own peace.

Later, another message came through.

It was from Eyan. "Thank you for handling tonight maturely. Let's not make things difficult. I want us all to move forward peacefully," he texted.

Cora read it twice, and her eyes hardened with cold disbelief. There was no apology and no concern for how she was coping. He was more worried about his image as the CFO than the pain he had caused.

She deleted the message without answering, and she refused to give him even a single word of comfort.

The following morning, her phone would not stop vibrating. Cora sat up in bed with her heart racing, and for a painful second she thought Eyan had finally changed his mind.

It was not Eyan. It was dozens of calls from unknown numbers, DM requests, and journalists tagging her on X.

Overnight, the video of Sebastian leaving her building at dawn had gone viral.

Cora opened the first article with shaking hands, and her face drained of color as she read the headline.

"Has CEO Sebastian Brooks Fallen for His Best Friend's Woman?”

The Man Who Chose My Side

"Look she's here. Damn she didn't even take a break, looks like she wanted it over by herself."

Cora heard the whisper the moment she stepped into the lobby of Brooks & Calloway Group. She had arrived an hour early to avoid it, but the lobby was already half full.

"Good morning," she murmured to two associates from finance.

They glanced at her and quickly looked away. Cora kept walking toward the executive wing, where her desk sat right outside the CEO's office because she was Sebastian's executive secretary.

Vanessa was already in the pantry near her desk, stirring her coffee.

"Are you okay?" she asked lightly, and her emerald eyes softened with concern. "These people have been talking since morning. They are judging you for being with Sebastian. I told them heartbreak makes everyone act differently. Some of us just need another shoulder to lean on, right?"

"I am fine, thank you," Cora replied, and she tried to keep her voice even.

"I defended you, you know," Vanessa added sweetly. "People can be so judgmental after a breakup, and I told them to give you space."

"I did not know I needed defending," Cora whispered, and her fingers tightened around her laptop.

"Of course you do," Vanessa insisted, and she smiled as she brushed past Cora's desk. "We all do sometimes."

Cora sat down and opened Sebastian's calendar, but the weight of every glance on the executive floor made it impossible to focus.

In the department meeting, Eyan's chair was empty as CFO and the team started without him. Vanessa waited until Sebastian's name appeared on the quarterly deck.

"Mr. Brooks has handled all this press so gracefully," she remarked. "Though the media was also right, some women recover remarkably fast when another wealthy man is waiting to catch them at work."

The table went silent.

"Are you talking about me, Vanessa?" Cora questioned, and her voice trembled slightly despite her effort to stay calm.

"Why would you think it was about you? I was just saying what the media is talking about," Vanessa countered, and her smile stayed perfectly pleasant. "I was just making conversation."

The conference room door opened right then and Sebastian walked in. He rarely attended the marketing sync as CEO.

"I heard there was gossip about conduct on my upper floor," he stated calmly, and his gray eyes swept the table. "Let me clear it up."

His gaze lingered on Cora for a second before hardening again.

"Personal attacks have no place in my company," he warned. "Anyone targeting my secretary will answer directly to me, regardless of their position. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Mr. Brooks," the team murmured in unison.

Eyan pushed open the door to Sebastian's office right after the meeting without knocking. His office was directly across the hall and he had arrived after the meeting. He had just heard the whole day from Vanessa.

"What was that?" he demanded. "Why are you being so protective of Cora in the media and inside the company? You are making me look like the villain in front of the whole company."

"You did that yourself on Christmas, it's not that I lied about anything," Sebastian retorted.

"I am your best friend," Eyan snapped, and his brown eyes flashed with fury. "She reports to you. You are taking advantage of her while she is vulnerable and confused."

"And who made her vulnerable?” Sebastian clapped back. “You humiliated her in front of both our families," Sebastian argued, and his voice dropped with disappointment. "You lost the right to decide who gets to stand by her. Now stop complaining!"

Eyan stared at him in disbelief, "You have never spoken to me like this in twenty years," Eyan uttered.

"And you have never given me a reason to," Sebastian answered.

Neither apologized, and the silence between them was heavier than any argument they had ever had.

Cora packed her bag and headed toward the side entrance because reporters were still camped at the main doors. Sebastian was already waiting there with his car idling behind him.

"You will not get past them alone," he offered quietly. "Come on."

"I do not want to cause more trouble for you," Cora confessed, and her hazel eyes filled with hesitation. "You have already done too much, and everyone is already talking."

"You are not trouble," he assured her, and he held the door open. "Do not ever think that."

They stepped out together and the reporters rushed forward instantly.

"Mr. Brooks, are the rumors true?" a reporter shouted. "Cora, did you cheat on Eyan with his best friend?"

Cora tensed, expecting him to step back and deny everything.

Sebastian opened the passenger door for her and waited until she was inside. Then he turned toward the cameras.

"Nobody has cheated, some things are just not meant to be. Miss Vieamore is under my protection," he declared. "That is all you need to know."

Inside the car, city lights blurred past as silence stretched between them.

"Why are you doing all of this for me?" Cora whispered, and her voice broke. "You do not have to risk your reputation. I am not worth all this mess."

"Do not say that," Sebastian murmured, and his hands tightened around the wheel. "Someone should have stood by you a long time ago."

"Thank you," she breathed, and tears gathered in her eyes despite her efforts. "For today. For not letting me face them alone."

"You do not need to thank me," he responded, and his gray eyes softened as he glanced at her.

As he pulled up outside her apartment, neither of them noticed the black luxury sedan parked across the street with its lights off.

Inside it, Eyan sat in the driver's seat, watching them.

"So this is how it is now?" he muttered to himself, and his brown eyes stayed fixed on the way Cora looked at Sebastian. He was not sure why he was feeling it, but one thing was sure…..he did not like Sebastian around Cora….at all!