Chapter 7
During winter break, I went home.
Adrian went home too, and somehow ended up on the very same bus
as me.
When I got back, I definitely wasn’t going to let Zoe off the hook. She was the only person I’d told my departure details to.
“Tess…”
I turned my head away. I had no interest in speaking to him.
“My seat’s on the inside.”
I stood to let him in, already calculating who I might be able to switch seats with.
“You… heading home?”
“If you have nothing to say, then keep your mouth shut. We’re not in a kind of relationship where we have to talk.”
“Did I do something to upset you? Your attitude’s been really different lately.” He spoke carefully, as though he were afraid of setting me off.
That struck me as strange. He shouldn’t have been acting like this. He should have been sitting next to me in sunglasses, telling me not to bother him.
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“Am I speaking a different language? I said I don’t like you anymore. I hate you.”
I started gathering my things, getting ready to move to another seat.
He grabbed me all at once. “No. This isn’t right. You’re supposed to like me a lot. We’re supposed to get married after graduation, and from there, everything in our careers is supposed to go smoothly. We’re supposed to get along.”
So it really was still about his family’s finances.
I shook him off. “Exactly the opposite. We’re not getting married, and none of what comes after is going to happen.”
That investment couldn’t succeed. If it did, his future career would skyrocket, and killing someone would be as easy for him as crushing an ant.
I switched seats with a girl because I had noticed her staring at Adrian from the moment he got on the bus. Of course, she agreed.
She pulled out her phone and tried to get Adrian’s contact information, while Adrian watched me through the reflection in the window.
I turned my face away and stopped looking at him.
It didn’t stir anything in me.
In my previous life, Chloe hadn’t been my only romantic rival. There had been his secretary, his employees, and plenty of people secretly in love with him.
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He never wore a wedding ring, but he wouldn’t let me take mine off.
When I went to his office to see him, the receptionist would stop me at the front desk and say that without an appointment, I wasn’t allowed
- in.
But Chloe could walk right past me and inside, soaking up everyone’s attention.
I had once asked why, and the receptionist looked at me with open contempt. “That’s our future boss’s fiancée. If we don’t let her in, are we supposed to let you in instead, you pathetic old hag?”
That
was when I found out he had crafted a single–man image for himself on Instagram.
But Adrian would occasionally be kind to me, too. For example, after I told him what that receptionist had said, he fired her the very next day.
That was why Chloe was always pulling little stunts–to prove she mattered more than I did.
And I let her, because I knew I could never compete with Chloe.
Not even in death.
So I was never going to love him again.
When the bus pulled in, I was the first one off, dragging my suitcase behind me. Dad was waiting by the car at the station, leaning against
- it.
“Sweetheart, where’s that boy from the Cole family? I told his father I’d
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pick both of you up.”
I had mentioned the situation to Dad, but he still thought it was just a minor spat.
I slid into the car. “Dad, you have two choices. One, get in, and we go home. Two, I drive home myself.”
“What about me?”
“Aren’t you waiting for Adrian? You can go with him.”
Dad let out a startled sound, then decisively got into the car. The instant Adrian appeared, our car sped away.
