Countdown to Her Goodbye

I cut the call to his poweredoff phone, the harsh glare of my screen illuminating the Instagram story my "boyfriend" had posted just minutes ago.

Right next to the spread of expensive caviar and vintage champagne was the flawless, Ivy League socialite profile of his first love.

For four years, I did exactly what I was paid to do—playing the convenient, breathing standin for the one that got away. Now, the real deal had finally flown back to the States.

I swiped out of the app and opened our text thread, my fingers moving with pure mechanical precision to tap out two lines. [Your girl is back.

I'm stepping down.] [Contract terminated.] Chapter 1 Genevieve flew to Paris four years ago to study art.

And Julian, this seemingly untouchable heir to a massive fortune, actually tracked me down with an airtight, milliondollar nondisclosure agreement.

He wired a ridiculous sum into my bank account every single month—enough to wipe out all my bills—just to have me play the role of his unattainable first love.

I asked him why he chose me. He told me that since I was Genevieve's best friend, I knew her inside and out. I could pull off the perfect performance.

I stared at the zeroes on that contract, the blood draining from my face. Genevieve and I were tight. Rationally, I should have shoved that ridiculous offer right back in his face.

Too bad his money talked way too loud. So, I checked my dignity at the door and signed on the dotted line.

I figured Julian's frat brothers and trustfund buddies all knew the truth—that he was obsessed with Genevieve, and I was just the paid understudy.

I braced myself for the sideeyes and the blatant disrespect. But that never happened. For four years, they respectfully treated me like I was the real deal.

It stung my pride a little, but they actually bought into the illusion that I was Julian's actual girlfriend.

Some of them even had the nerve to ask when Julian was finally going to pop the question. Pop the question? Right. In a different lifetime, maybe.

After hitting send on those texts, I blocked Julian's number across the board. I didn't delete his contact, though.

Instead, I called up a landlord for a crappy apartment I had scouted out earlier and wired over six months' rent upfront. When I finally started packing, the reality hit me.

I barely owned anything in this place. The penthouse was Julian's. The designer furniture was his.

Even the highend toiletries had been fully stocked by his staff before I ever stepped foot inside. Looking back, I definitely got a free ride for the last few years.

Julian and I shared this space for ages, but my actual footprint here was virtually nonexistent. One standard suitcase was more than enough to hold my entire life.

I wasn't big on dressing up. I had fewer clothes than Julian, leaving a massive, empty void on my side of the walkin closet.

Back when this whole arrangement started, Julian was always trying to buy me clothes. He never dragged me to Fifth Avenue to try things on.

Instead, he just brought back piles of designer shopping bags. The pieces were stunning—every single one hitting exactly what I would have picked out myself.

But then I flipped the price tags over. My jaw practically hit the floor. I dragged him straight back to the boutiques and forced him to return every last item.

Julian got smarter after that. He started cutting the tags off before handing things over.

I just took pictures of the clothes, used Google Lens to find the retail price, and since I couldn't return them without tags, I calculated the total and wired the cash straight back to his account.

He was pissed. My bank account was bleeding. After that little standoff, he never bought me clothes again. I stood by the front door, my grip tight on the handle of my suitcase.

I took one last, long look around the place I had called home for four years.

In its climatecontrolled terrarium, the purebred black snake flicked its tongue, its cold, unblinking eyes locked onto me. That was Julian's most prized rare pet.

I had been the one feeding it for four years. It definitely recognized me. I stood frozen, staring down the reptile for five solid minutes. Then, a snap decision hit me.

I kept it alive for four years. By my logic, at least half of that snake belonged to me.

Chapter 2 The newly rented apartment was in a sketchy, borderlinedangerous neighborhood, and it couldn't compare to Julian's sprawling penthouse overlooking the entire city from the wealthy district.

Now, my morning commute was going to take over an hour longer. I let out a heavy breath. I had barely unpacked when the golden girl herself called.

Genevieve's voice was like wind chimes, all bright and bubbly. "Wren, where are you? I'm taking you out to eat." "Hard pass," I rejected her flat out.

She sounded immediately deflated. "Why? I swear, this place is to die for." I didn't say a word, letting her pull her signature sweettalking routine, her voice dripping like honey.

Enjoying the kind of VIP coaxing that her army of suitors would kill for, I finally caved and texted her my new address. "Perfect!

I'm driving over to pick you up now." I agreed, hung up, and shot a quick text to my boss. [Sorry, something came up.

Taking a personal day today.] What was the reunion between the untouchable first love and the paid standin supposed to look like?

When Genevieve pulled up downstairs, her perfectly manicured brows were knit together in distaste at the neighborhood, but her eyes lit up the second she saw me. "Wren!" "Genevieve!" She threw her arms wide open and practically sprinted toward me.

I charged right back at her, only to pull a sharp swerve at the very last second. She crashed straight into the concrete pillar behind me, hugging it for dear life.

I stood behind her, cracking up. She spun around, pouting and playfully slapping my arm. Genevieve and I went back over a decade. Our grandmothers had been nextdoor neighbors.

When we were little, both of us had been dumped in the same tiny, middleofnowhere country town. Just two feral kids running wild through the dirt fields every single day.

She didn't have this elegant, demure socialite vibe back then. She was more like a stray puppy.

We'd track mud all over the porch every evening, standing sidebyside as our grandmas yelled themselves hoarse at us. We were so tight we basically shared a wardrobe growing up.

I was the one who had always been Genevieve's best friend. But I was also the one who met Julian first.

I remember back in college, Julian had asked me to grab lunch, but I had already made plans with Genevieve. My professor ended up keeping the class late.

By the time I rushed into the cafeteria, I found the two of them sitting at the same table, deliberately staggered apart, both staring at their phones in dead silence.

The air between them was so thick and awkward you could choke on it. I called out Genevieve's name. They both snapped their heads up, looking at me like I was their absolute savior.

Back then, I never could have imagined just how tangled and messed up the three of us would eventually become.

Did playing the paid standin for my absolute best friend make my skin crawl? Nope. Not even a little bit. I had skin thicker than a vault door.

During these years dating Julian, not only was I pulling in a massive paycheck every month, but I was also saving a fortune on rent, eating like royalty, and sleeping on thousanddollar sheets.

As far as I was concerned, it was a pretty sweet gig. Genevieve dragged me to a threestar Michelin French restaurant that required a sixmonth waiting list just to get a table.

I watched the valet drive off in a McLaren near the entrance and hesitated. "The minimum spend in there could probably cover half a year of my rent, couldn't it?" She patted her chest, swearing it was her treat, and dragged me straight through the gilded double doors.

When it was time to order, my fingers physically twitched as I stared at the outrageously absurd prices printed on the heavy, artisan menu.

It was painfully expensive, but God, it was delicious. I let out a satisfied burp, excused myself to the restroom, and took a detour to the front desk to settle the bill.

The total on the receipt was a number so high it actually made my chest tight. Suddenly, all that Michelinstarred food I just shoved down my throat didn't seem quite as magical.

When Genevieve went to the front to pay and was told the tab was already cleared, she got so worked up she practically turned into a linebacker, playfully pummeling my back with her fists.

I leaned into it. "A little to the left. Yeah, put some back into it. Ah, right there.

Perfect." She let out an exasperated laugh. "Since when does the ultimate cheapskate voluntarily drop cash?

Why are you being so hard on your wallet today?" Chapter 3 I turned around to look at her. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders like heavy silk.

Whenever she wasn't letting her chaotic true nature show, she looked like a girl stepping right out of a classic oil painting, all vintage elegance.

A heavy, ridiculously expensive necklace rested against her collarbone. The sapphires on it caught the light, practically blinding me.

I smiled at her. "Because it's you." Genevieve was different from everyone else. I was notoriously cheap, even ruthlessly stingy with myself.

My wardrobe consisted of a few basic staples, I only bought new shoes when the soles literally wore through, and I'd aggressively haggle with street vendors for half an hour over a few bucks.

Aside from her, the only other person who held any special weight in my life was Julian. The most expensive gift I had ever bought in my entire life was a pair of cufflinks for him.

Back during our senior year of college, Julian threw a massive private yacht party at his family's beachfront estate for his birthday.

I blew an entire semester's fullride scholarship money just to have a pair of solid silver cufflinks custommade for him. They had a tiny, hidden bear motif engraved on them.

The estate was sprawling and offensively luxurious. Genevieve showed up swinging a tiny gift bag holding a lighter from her dad's goto luxury brand. It was obscenely expensive.

The cash I dropped on my gift didn't even cover the sales tax on hers. "But Julian doesn't smoke," I pointed out. "Like I care what he does," Genevieve said, shrugging with pure apathy. "I wasn't even planning on getting him anything.

My dad hated this lighter anyway, so I just tossed it in a bag for him. I'm literally just checking a box by being here." "What did you get him?" she asked.

I tightened my grip on the string of my little bag, trying to look casual. "Cufflinks." "Oh." Genevieve nodded, completely losing interest.

That night, my gift was tossed onto a table right alongside Genevieve's and everyone else's.

Surrounded by a mountain of glossy shopping bags plastered with highend designer logos, my little box looked pathetic. But to me, it cost everything.

Perfectly styled trustfund kids drifted back and forth across the manicured lawns. A few guys smoothly slid over to hit on Genevieve. She belonged to their world.

They belonged to Julian's world. Meanwhile, in my plain, offtherack dress, I stuck out like a sore thumb—just as glaringly out of place as my cheap little gift.

The social gap didn't even sting that much. What actually twisted a knot in my stomach were those custom bear cufflinks. I never saw Julian wear them. Not once.

It was like they just evaporated into thin air that night. Or maybe they were just permanently buried under that avalanche of Rolexes and Patek Philippes.

Julian wore tailored suits to the office. I had watched him transition from a college frat boy into this ruthlessly composed, untouchable corporate titan.

Whenever he put on a dress shirt, his long, sculpted fingers would fasten the buttons all the way up to his throat—a visual that was simultaneously tightly wound and aggressively hot.

But my eyes always drifted down to his cuffs. His current cufflinks gleamed with the cold, sterile white of platinum. Flawless and elegant.

But in my head, I still couldn't shake the thought that the little bears suited him better.

Genevieve, in all her goldengirl glory, was so moved by my loyalty that she drove me straight to a highend club to get trashed.

She slammed her platinum card on the bar and announced, "Miss Genevieve is funding the entire blackout tonight!" I tried telling her I hated drinking, so she wouldn't be dropping much cash on me.

Fast forward three hours, and I was so wasted I didn't know which way was up, with Genevieve hauling my dead weight into a luxury hotel suite.

She was riding a massive buzz, but she wasn't blacked out.

Her usual refined socialite grace went completely out the window, and she nearly threw down with a couple of guys who tried to hit on us in the lobby. Thank God security intervened.

Otherwise, with the years of private MMA lessons her dad had aggressively funded since she was a kid, she definitely would have put someone in the ER.

My cheeks were burning up from the alcohol. Suddenly, Genevieve threw her arm around my neck, yanked me close, and flashed a peace sign at her phone camera.

I slurred something unintelligible about making sure she used a filter on my face. She enthusiastically promised she would.

Chapter 4 Once we stumbled into the hotel suite, she dumped me onto the kingsized bed and vanished into the bathroom to shower. I lay facedown on the mattress, dead to the world.

My phone on the nightstand suddenly started vibrating, the harsh ringtone drilling right into my pounding skull. I lunged over and grabbed it.

The moment the call connected, Julian's suffocating, fiercely possessive low growl blasted through the speaker.

In the background, the sharp, unmistakable sound of a glass shattering against a wall echoed. "How dare you take her to a club packed with guys…" Drunk people have zero filter and an incredibly short fuse.

Aching for your precious first love already? Hah. She was the one who dragged me here.

I didn't even let him finish his sentence before I snapped back, "Mind your own damn business!" The line went dead silent for a split second before his voice shifted. "…Wren?" "Nope.

I'm your daddy!" I spat out the words, stabbed the red endcall button, and immediately blocked his new number.

Genevieve walked out of the bathroom just as I tossed the phone aside. "Who was that?" "Julian," I grumbled. "Asking me why I took you to a club. Like it's any of his business.

Pfft!" Genevieve froze. Something unreadable flashed in her eyes before she firmly nodded in agreement. "Exactly! Who is he to control us!

Pfft!" "Besties!" I shot her a thumbsup and faceplanted right back into the pillows. "I'm out." When the alarm went off the next morning, my hangover was a literal jackhammer against my temples.

I quickly washed up and tossed a wave at Genevieve, who had been rudely awakened by the ringing. "I'm heading out." Genevieve was slumped against the headboard, eyes barely halfopen, still heavily losing the battle against sleep. "Where?" "Going back." That woke her up.

She pushed herself up from the mattress. "Wait a sec.

I'll drive you." Sitting in the passenger seat of her custom sports car, Genevieve frowned and complained, "Why are you heading back so early? It's the weekend.

I was planning to take you out today.

We haven't seen each other in ages, and we barely got one night." I leaned against the door, watching the city blur by outside the tinted window. "Work." "Work?

What kind of corporate sweatshop are you chained to?

You have to work weekends?" Genevieve's voice pitched up in disbelief. "Not my main job," I said, propping my chin on my hand, keeping my eyes on the passing streets. "My weekend side hustle.

I already burned a personal day yesterday to hang out with you." She slammed on the brakes, flipped off the driver in front of us, and immediately turned back to me. "Why do you need a side hustle?

You already work insane overtime at the firm, and your salary is massive.

Why are you literally running yourself into the ground?" I pulled my gaze away from the window and smiled at her. "Because watching the numbers in my bank account go up gives me a massive dopamine hit.

You know me. I'm obsessed with cash." Genevieve muttered under her breath, "Absolute gold digger." She flashed a bold, filthyrich grin. "How much do you make in a day?

I'll buy your time." I knew she wasn't joking. She had the capital to back it up. A true, oldmoney heiress who threw cash around like confetti. Just like Julian.

It was honestly enviable. "Hard pass," I told her. "A girl's gotta hustle for her own bag." Genevieve dropped her smile, pouting slightly, but she dutifully drove me all the way home.

I stood on the cracked sidewalk, waving as her bright pink McLaren sped off, looking completely alien against the backdrop of peeling paint and rusted chainlink fences.

I lied to her. I needed money. I needed a massive, unimaginable amount of money. Chapter 5 The neighborhood I lived in now wasn't exactly a gated community.

The environment was absolute trash. Halfway through my shower that night, the water heater suddenly died, and a blast of freezing water dumped straight onto my head.

I shivered, quickly turned off the faucet, and grabbed a towel to roughly rub myself dry. I wrapped myself in several layers trying to trap whatever body heat I had left.

I couldn't afford to get sick. Being sick meant a drop in productivity.

When I finally got into bed, some couple down the hall started screaming at each other in the middle of the night.

In the dead silence, their toxic, expletivefilled screaming matches echoed in waves. My skull throbbed.

I wanted to throw my window open and cuss them out, but I knew if I yelled, I'd wake up the entire block, and I'd be the one getting jumped.

My already pathetic amount of sleep was being slashed in half just to listen to their domestic drama. They fought every single day.

If they hated each other that much, they should just break up already. The next day.

A coworker saw my deadonmyfeet expression and bluntly asked if I'd pulled an allnighter robbing banks. I told her I slept, just not well.

She wasn't having it. "That's not gonna cut it. Your face is literally ghostwhite." I just mumbled some vague, noncommittal excuse.

She suddenly leaned in, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Wren, where's that Maybach that always used to drop you off?

Why are you commuting alone lately?" Julian used to drive me to the office.

When I stepped out of that milliondollar ride in my cheap offtherack clothes, the contrast was glaring. I worked my ass off at the firm.

A lot of people whispered behind my back, spreading rumors that I was a sugar baby kept by some wealthy elite. I seriously thought about it for a second, and honestly?

They weren't entirely wrong. In a twisted way, I was practically being kept by Julian.

I had joked about it to Julian once, teasing that the sugar baby life was actually pretty sweet. Julian's face instantly darkened.

I had no idea why that specific comment triggered him, but his jaw clenched tight, and he didn't say a single word. The next day, he drove me to work as usual.

The car stopped at the front entrance. I got out, ready to head inside, but he called my name.

He shoved a highend insulated thermos into my hands and seamlessly wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me flush against him.

I had no idea what kind of possessive power trip he was on—it was rush hour, and the lobby was packed.

He suddenly dipped his head and pressed a firm kiss to my forehead. "What are you doing?" I hissed under my breath. Julian loosened his grip, the corner of his mouth curving up.

His eyes softened, creating this suffocating illusion that he was looking at the absolute love of his life. "I'll pick you up tonight, Wren." I nodded, my face burning with public humiliation, grabbed the thermos, and practically bolted for the elevators.

It was like Julian got addicted to the performance. Every single morning, he forced this whole 'madly in love' charade right outside my office building.

Since he held the contract, I played right along. We performed so well that the entire firm knew I had a filthyrich, obsessively devoted boyfriend.

My relationship with my coworkers had always been strictly professional. They loved to gossip, sure, but we were all adults here; nobody was going to sabotage my actual workflow.

Securing the bag was way more important.

I glanced at her and delivered the halftruth deadpan. "My Sugar Daddy dumped me." The coworker stared at me, totally unsure if I was joking or dead serious.

But the damage was done. The mean girls in the office started spreading rumors everywhere, saying I had been tossed out like trash by my rich boyfriend. I let out a cold laugh.

I pulled out my phone and immediately texted Genevieve, telling her to drive the flashiest car she owned to pick me up, ready to aggressively slap their faces. [The ultimate workaholic isn't doing overtime today?] [I need to flex hard today.

Pull up in something that screams 'eat your heart out'.] [Consider it done!] Chapter 6 When she pulled up that afternoon, the flashy pink McLaren was a massive magnet for every eye on the block.

She had massive designer sunglasses on, heavy gold hoops catching the late sun, and a bloodred matte lipstick that screamed pure lethality.

I hauled my bag and slowly pushed through the glass office doors. She spotted me through the crowd and practically screamed, "Wren, baby!

Your sugar mama is here to pick you up!" Every single head in the lobby snapped toward me. I kept my chin high and slid into the passenger seat.

Genevieve slammed the gas, peeling out like a straightup movie scene. "Dopamine hit?" she asked. "Massive," I let out a genuine breath. After that, the rumors completely shifted.

The office mean girls stopped saying I got dumped by a rich guy. Now, they were whispering that I had flipped the script and bagged myself a wealthy female benefactor.

A couple of the male coworkers even had the nerve to slide over to my cubicle and ask if I could introduce them to her circle.

Honestly, the mental gymnastics of these grown adults was exhausting. People kept cornering me, trying to pry out where I met all these trustfund babies.

The untouchable, arrogant aura those people carried was miles away from us exhausted corporate drones. It was weird, wasn't it?

A paychecktopaycheck girl, somehow constantly surrounded by the absolute elite. I just smiled and brushed them off with vague answers.

I was finally hitting my breaking point, ready to march down the hall and tell that toxic, screaming couple to just break up already, when Julian—who had completely dropped off the grid for a solid week—showed up at my door.

Someone was aggressively pounding on my cheap, peeling front door. The wood physically rattled in its frame.

Terrified the hinges were going to snap, I stopped halfway through washing my hair and yelled out, "I'm coming!" I quickly rinsed the shampoo out, wrapped my wet hair in a microfiber towel, and yanked the door open.

Julian stood outside with a freezing expression.

He was still wearing that insanely expensive bespoke suit, his silk tie roughly yanked loose, the top two buttons of his dress shirt undone.

He stood at the door, radiating an overwhelming, suffocating Alphamale dominance that left absolutely no room for resistance. Though, no mob enforcer looked this ridiculously hot.

He must have driven straight here from the boardroom. My brain stalled out, just staring at him.

A cold, dark smirk twisted his lips, a volatile layer of pure fury simmering right beneath the surface. "You're really something.

You even went out of your way to block me on Venmo." I kept my mouth shut.

You don't strike a match in a room full of gas. "Unbelievable." When I didn't reply, Julian suddenly reached out.

The rough calluses of his thumb and index finger clamped onto my cheek, pinching hard. "You even stole the snake.

I fly out for one business trip, and I come back to a completely empty penthouse.

Not a single living, breathing thing left." My cheek was squished together, slurring my words as I fought back. "I fed him for foor yearsh!

Half of him ish mine." He let out a harsh, mocking laugh. "And what about my half?" I knew I didn't have a leg to stand on there. I clamped my mouth shut.

He released his grip and pushed straight past me into the apartment. His sharp eyes scanned the cramped, dingy space. I trailed behind him.

His voice dropped into a flat, merciless tone. "You packed up your life at my penthouse just to move into this absolute rat hole?" Julian's mouth had always been notoriously vicious.

Especially after I signed that contract to be his fake girlfriend, he loved taking verbal shots at me.

Luckily, I had thick skin and never really cared enough to argue back. "It's not that bad," I muttered to his broad back. "The rent is dirt cheap." Julian whipped his head around, his glare slicing into me like a physical blade.

The sheer, oppressive weight of his stare instantly silenced me. "Pack your things.

You're coming back with me." He leaned against the peeling wallpaper, his jaw clenched, his dark eyes locked dead onto mine. "That's probably a bad idea," I hesitated, shifting my weight. "Genevieve is back in the States." The absolute second that name left my mouth, a violent spark flared in his eyes.

I watched his chest rise and fall as he took a sharp, deep breath, brutally forcing himself to stay under control.

His jaw ticked. "Wren, I swear to God, I want to crack your skull open just to see what the hell is actually inside your head." "Money!" I shot back instantly, without a single microsecond of hesitation.

A low, dark, completely exasperated laugh tore from his throat. "Fine. I'm doubling your salary.

You're coming back with me." I paused, my brain instantly calculating. "Double?" "Double." Chapter 7 A specific figure flashed through my mind, and I almost caved and agreed right then and there. "No," I forced out, clinging to the last of my pride. "I've still got a shred of selfrespect left." Julian's jaw tightened, his back teeth grinding. "Fine.

Then you're paying the exit fee for breaching the contract." My stomach dropped. "What exit fee?" "You're the one trying to terminate the agreement early," he said, one eyebrow arching with a look of pure, calculated victory. "Pay up." "What?

Genevieve is back!

The deal is over the second she lands!" Julian's mood seemed to take a sudden, sharp turn for the better. "You were so busy looking at the zeroes on the paycheck that you missed the fine print, didn't you?

The contract clearly states the term ends only when Genevieve and I are officially together." It felt like I'd been struck by lightning.

It took me several seconds to find my voice again. "And… how much are we talking for the breach?" Julian's lips curved into a slow, predatory smirk.

His eyes narrowed, and he let out two words that sounded like a death sentence: "Triple damages." It was a cold, hard lesson in literacy.

I followed Julian back to the car like a disciplined pet. I didn't even call the landlord to ask for my deposit back. I yanked the passenger door open and slumped into the seat.

Julian glanced at me out of the corner of his eye before leaning across the center console. He didn't say a word, just reached over to pull the seatbelt across my chest.

The amber glow of the streetlights bled through the glass, casting long, ambiguous shadows across half of his face.

It blurred the sharp, lethal lines of his profile, making him look softer, younger. It felt like a glitch in time. I saw the ghost of the boy I knew in college.

Julian caught me staring. "What?" "Just thinking about when we were young," I murmured. He let out a sharp, mocking huff. "You talk like you're ancient.

You're barely in your twenties." Right. I was barely in my twenties. "I'm just remembering college," I said, leaning my head back against the leather. "Things were easier then.

No constant hustle for rent. I could survive on a few small commissions and my scholarship money.

I actually had time to just… exist." "Yeah," he agreed, his voice uncharacteristically low. "Back when you hadn't turned into a total gold digger." It was a jab, but his expression was soft, almost nostalgic.

He reached out and ruffled my hair, the pressure of his hand exactly the same as it had been years ago. I snapped my eyes up to meet his.

We both froze, the air in the car suddenly turning heavy and still. The dynamic between Julian and me had shifted on the night of our senior year graduation dinner.

He had spent the night taking shots for me, shielding me from the heavy drinkers, until he was absolutely trashed. I had to haul him home.

He was eerily quiet the whole way back, and I actually thought he was one of those classy drunks. But the second we stepped inside his place, the filter vanished.

He said things he never should have said. I pretended I didn't hear a word. He started acting out, fueled by the bourbon in his system.

I told him he was just drunk and talking nonsense. The moonlight was cold and pale that night as we sat across from each other.

Silence stretched between us like a physical canyon, impossible to cross. His eyes were rimmed with a raw, angry red—part fury, part desperation.

I just looked at him, my expression a flat, unbothered mask.

He eventually stood up, brushing past me to head to his room. "I'm wasted," he muttered. "Forget everything I just said." After that, we became a "couple." The truth was, Julian never actually forced me to act like Genevieve.

During these four years under contract, he treated me well—but it was the kind of kindness that felt loaded with ulterior motives.

He was the one who brought me hot ginger tea and heating pads when I was sick. He was the one who would drive halfway across the state in a literal hurricane just to pick me up.

He never missed a single birthday, always making sure he was home on time.

Once, when I was delirious with a high fever, he didn't sleep a wink, staying right by my side the entire night.

When I woke up and saw him slumped in a chair, looking absolutely wrecked, I almost cried. But despite all that, our relationship felt strange.

We were closer than we had ever been, yet somehow, miles further apart. Chapter 8 The atmosphere between us was suffocatingly stiff when we got back to the penthouse.

I started unpacking the few things I had taken with me, pulling them out of my suitcase one by one. Julian leaned against the doorframe, silently watching me until I finished.

Then, he handed me a glass of warm milk.

The heat seeped into my palms, and I muttered a quick "Thanks." His gaze dropped to the dark bags under my eyes, his expression shifting slightly. "Did you pick up a night shift or something?" "What?" I shot him a confused look. "Were you out robbing banks?" Julian raised an eyebrow. "You've got circles dark enough to rival a raccoon." His concern was always wrapped in barbed wire—a twisted, emotionally stunted kind of cute.

I held the glass and smiled, bringing it to my lips. Then, a sharp tremor seized my hand. A sharp crack shattered the silence. White ceramic exploded across the hardwood floor.

Warm milk splashed violently against my bare feet, pooling into a messy puddle. My hands were completely empty. I lowered my eyes, staring blankly at the ruined mess.

Julian moved instantly, grabbing the cleaning supplies to sweep up the disaster.

When he came back from tossing the shards, he saw me still completely frozen in place. "Go wash up," he urged. "Doesn't that feel gross on your feet?" I didn't answer.

I just kept my head down. He reached out, his fingers hooking under my chin to tilt my face up. "Where did your brain go…" The rest of his sentence completely died in his throat.

The day after I shattered my glass, Julian's mug met the exact same fate. His hand "slipped" while pouring water, and the mug was instantly destroyed.

Julian put on a perfectly innocent face. "Well, that's a problem.

Guess I'll have to buy new ones tomorrow." I watched him set the heavy water pitcher down with absolute, unshakable stability.

I had no idea how his hand managed to "slip." When I came back that night, two brandnew mugs were sitting on the marble kitchen island.

A Line Friends Brown Bear and Cony Rabbit smiled back at me. I shot Julian a look.

He cleared his throat. "They were on sale as a set." Sometimes, I felt like everything had fundamentally shifted, and other times, it felt like nothing had changed at all.

Time had a way of grinding people down, stripping away their raw edges until they were ruthlessly polished and mature.

But right underneath that untouchable, corporate exterior, he was still just the same boy who used to smile the second he saw me. He treated me too well.

Back when I was young and naive, I actually thought matching his effort was enough. It took growing up to realize that there would always be a massive, uncrossable chasm between us.

Looking back now, maybe I was the only one who had actually changed. But I wasn't going to argue with someone acting like a child.

A mature, careerdriven woman always prioritized her own empire. After I got out of the shower, I FaceTimed Genevieve for an hour. She wanted to drag me out for dinner.

I told her my schedule was completely booked.

She hit me with her signature pout and called me a coldblooded sociopath. "Wren, you've changed." "I haven't changed." "You never used to treat me like this." I didn't even hesitate. "Reputations fluctuate.

The past is the past, and we are living in the present." Genevieve instantly broke character.

She tried to hold back a laugh while violently scrunching her eyebrows, making her look absolutely ridiculous.

I immediately slammed the screenshot button, successfully securing a highly compromising photo of the flawless heiress. "No, seriously, you have to clear your schedule," she insisted. "The three of us need to get together." I went completely silent.

Genevieve instantly weaponized my hesitation. "It's a date! I'll text you the time. Bye!" Chapter 9 The screen went black as the call disconnected.

I let out a heavy breath, pulled up my calendar app, and picked a date to request half a day off from my boss. I had been grinding on a marketing proposal until past midnight.

Hitting the final period on the keyboard, I completely collapsed backward onto my mattress. Right on cue, my empty stomach let out an obnoxiously loud growl.

It was the dead of night, the kind of pitchblack where the silence physically presses down on you. I lay there staring out the window, zoning out into the dark.

Out of nowhere, my brain decided it was the perfect time to dredge up the memory of my dad, who had been dead for nearly a decade.

He tapped out and committed suicide right after I graduated high school. No suicide note.

But his will had been meticulously drafted well in advance—a perfectly premeditated exit strategy. He just dumped me and my mom and checked out.

I hadn't thought about him in a really long time. Ultimately, the hunger pangs violently overruled my existential dread.

To avoid waking Julian, I didn't even bother putting on my slippers.

I eased my bedroom door open, silently crept barefoot down the sprawling staircase, and yanked the heavy stainlesssteel refrigerator door open.

I grabbed a bottle of Greek yogurt, my brain still buffering on what else to scavenge, when a low, gravelly voice vibrated right behind my neck. "Eat cherries.

They have melatonin." I flinched, my head snapping back toward the heavy metal edge of the fridge door. Julian moved faster.

His large palm slapped flat against the steel right behind my head, taking the heavy impact before my skull could smash into the door.

With his other hand, he flicked the kitchen island lights on.

The sudden glare blinded me, and I squinted hard. "Why are you creeping up behind me like a serial killer!?" Julian's tone was completely frozen.

He ignored the accusation. "Why the hell are you still awake?" Guilt instantly spiked in my chest. I dropped my gaze, intensely studying my bare toes.

Three seconds of dead silence suffocated the kitchen. Julian didn't wait for my pathetic excuse.

He reached past me, grabbing a bowl of dark cherries from the shelf, and walked over to the sink. I stood leaning against the kitchen counter, just watching him.

His internal clock was strictly regimented; he almost never stayed up this late.

His jaw was locked tight, his thick eyelashes casting shadows that completely masked whatever volatile mood he was in.

His long, sculpted hands submerged the fruit under the running water.

The stark, cold paleness of his skin against the violent, bruised red of the cherries was a devastatingly sharp visual. It was aggressively magnetic.

Without even realizing it, the corner of my mouth tipped up. The sweet, tart juice burst across my tongue as I popped the cherries into my mouth one after another.

Julian leaned against the marble island next to me, his dark eyes slightly unfocused.

Unlike me, the champion of running on fumes, he looked exhausted. "Go back to sleep," I mumbled. "Wren." He let out a rough exhale, his voice dropping into a raspy register. "You still haven't answered me.

Why are you awake?" I played deaf, furiously chewing on another cherry. "Drop the act." Julian ruthlessly shattered my cover. "Your bedroom light has been blazing past 2 AM for nights straight." "I have insomnia." I threw out the first garbage excuse my brain formulated.

It earned me a harsh, deadpan scoff. "Don't treat me like an idiot, Wren." The dark storm clouds rolled back into his expression, a deep crease forming between his brows. "You're killing yourself over a garbage corporate proposal." He took a step closer, his towering frame instantly casting a shadow over me. "Look in a damn mirror.

No one your age looks like a walking corpse the way you do." "You're literally zoning out on the stairs.

Do you have any idea that if I hadn't caught you from behind yesterday, you would have cracked your skull open on the marble steps!?" His voice climbed, the suppressed fury bleeding out and filling the room with an explosive pressure. "Are you trying to put yourself in a coma just to get out of a shift!?" I flawlessly executed my tactical deafness. "Wren." His voice suddenly broke. "I am begging you." The absolute Alpha dominance completely evaporated, leaving behind something raw and painfully fractured. "Could you just—" He swallowed hard, the muscles in his throat working. "Care about your own body for once." The sheer weight of his vulnerability slammed into me.

I snapped my head up. My eyes locked onto his, and all I saw was a violently suffocating cocktail of helplessness and pure, desperate pleading.

For a single, dangerous second, I actually wanted to tell him yes. Chapter 10 Julian was born with a silver spoon and an ego to match. He was the golden boy of the elite class.

The handful of times he had ever swallowed his untouchable pride in his entire life were all exclusively for me. Too bad I was completely immune to it. I silently shook my head.

That was the spark hitting the powder keg. Julian snapped.

The suppressed control shattered. "Are you actively trying to put yourself in the ground!?" "First you can't even hold a damn glass, then you can't walk straight. What's next?

Are you just going to drop dead on the floor!?" "But the overtime pay is massive," I answered. The words physically choked him.

The veins in his neck popped, his chest heaving with explosive fury. "Cash, cash, cash!

Is that the absolute only word in your vocabulary!?" "What is worth more to you—your bank account or your actual life!?" The sheer weight of his scream dropped like a wrecking ball, violently crushing all the oxygen out of the room.

Dead, suffocating silence swallowed the kitchen. The tart cherry juice in my mouth suddenly turned into straight battery acid, burning down my throat.

I dropped my gaze to the floor. Several long seconds bled by before I pushed the words out. "My bank account." The dead silence strangled the air like thick vines.

Julian didn't make a single sound. I waited, the seconds stretching out, right until the heavy slam of his bedroom door brutally rattled the walls. I sat alone in the dark kitchen.

I didn't move until I shoved the very last cherry from the bowl into my mouth. Only then did the metallic, rotten taste hit my tongue. I swallowed a bad one.

I figured Julian would ice me out for two or three days, pulling his usual ruthless cold war routine. But apparently, my constant instigating had leveled up his tolerance.

When I dragged myself out of bed the next morning, he stepped right out of the kitchen, sliding a hot bowl of oatmeal and a plate of sizzling bacon and eggs onto the dining table.

The second I scraped my plate clean, he pushed a tall glass of thick, green liquid toward me. "Coldpressed kale juice." I took one sniff of the grassclippings scent and physically leaned back.

Julian caught the pure disgust on my face. His expression remained hard as stone. "Drink it.

Your body needs the antioxidants after running on zero sleep." I pinched my nose and chugged the entire glass in one brutal go.

My face instantly scrunched up into a violently repulsed grimace. A low, genuine chuckle suddenly broke the silence. The dark storm clouds over Julian had completely cleared.

His sharp eyes narrowed into a soft curve, the harsh, untouchable lines of his face melting into something dangerously warm and affectionate.

I sat frozen, clutching the empty glass. The words slipped out before my filter could catch them. "Julian, you're not actually catching feelings for me, are you?" He locked up.

The warmth vanished instantly, replaced by a ruthless, defensive frost. "In your dreams." I studied the sharp angles of his face and flashed a bright, flawless smile. "Good." "Keep it that way." Julian genuinely snapped this time.

He successfully held out and didn't utter a single syllable to me for four straight days.

On the day I finally cashed in my PTO, I knocked out my morning shift at the firm and immediately caught a cab to the hospital.

By the time the sliding glass doors opened to let me out, the sun was already sinking below the skyline. The glare still stabbed my eyes, making my knees buckle slightly.

The dying sun bled out across the clouds, painting the sky a bruised, violent red. Suits and tourists swarmed the sidewalks, everyone rushing to their next destination.

The heavy scent of roasted nuts and hot grease from a street vendor drifted over, forcing my empty stomach to violently cramp and growl.

The area directly outside the sterile hospital walls always seemed to pulse with the loudest, rawest signs of life. I stared at the crowd.

My deadbeat dad crashed into my brain all over again. Genevieve picked me up that night. She secured a VIP booth at an upscale KBBQ joint in KTown.

The three of us sat circling the builtin grill. The prime wagyu hit the hot metal, sizzling loudly as thick, white smoke drifted up and vanished into the overhead vents.

This used to be our absolute obsession back in college. Every single time I craved it, I dragged Genevieve and Julian out.

We'd burn through platters of meat and pitchers of cheap draft beer until we were all riding a solid buzz, stumbling back to campus together. But now we were adults.

Julian and I were strapped into stiff corporate armor, Genevieve was draped in a trailing designer gown, and sitting here in this loud, chaotic restaurant felt like a massive glitch in the matrix.

Chapter 11 Genevieve flipped the sizzling meat on the grill with her tongs.

Julian kept his eyes lowered, staring at the grill, his expression completely blank. "Genevieve, pass the dipping sauce, please." "Genevieve, hand me that plate, thanks." "Genevieve, grab me a napkin." "Genevieve, I need a fork." "Genevieve, pass the cold noodles." "Genevieve, can you—" "Are you two completely out of your minds!?" Genevieve finally snapped, slamming the stainlesssteel tongs onto the table.

We both snapped our mouths shut. She crossed her arms, her sharp eyes darting between us. "You're fighting." "No," I said. "Yes," Julian said.

We locked eyes across the table. "Yes," I corrected. "No," Julian said. Genevieve dragged out an "Oh," and went right back to flipping the pork belly.

I frowned. "You're not going to play peacemaker?" "Please.

A little friction between couples is totally nor—" She caught herself and abruptly clamped her mouth shut. "How do you know!?" I whipped my head toward Julian.

His jaw tightened, and he deliberately shifted his gaze away from mine. "Unbelievable." My voice pitched up. "Julian, are you treating me like a complete idiot!?" I lunged across the table, throwing my arm out to smack his shoulder.

But my legs suddenly gave out. My center of gravity vanished, and I pitched hard to the side. My flailing hand clipped a side dish.

Ceramic exploded against the floor, but I didn't hit the tiles. Instead, I crashed directly into a solid, heavily muscled chest.

I planted my hands against his shoulders to push myself up, but violent tremors racked my arms. I had absolutely zero strength.

Julian gripped my waist, effortlessly hauling me upright. "Wren, are you okay?" Genevieve jumped up, her eyes scanning me frantically. My brain stalled.

It took several excruciating seconds to shove down the pure, suffocating panic clawing up my throat. "I'm fine." The dark soy sauce bleeding across the shattered porcelain on the floor was a glaring, physical reminder of exactly what was happening to my body. "That's the consequence of running on zero sleep.

Keep it up, and you're going to put yourself in the ER." Julian's voice was absolute ice. "Too bad some people refuse to learn." I kept my eyes glued to the table, swallowing the words.

Genevieve shot him a lethal glare. "Jerk. You're supposed to spoil your girlfriend, not throw sarcastic insults at her