The Girl He Left Behind
“I don’t care anymore. I have friends now. I’m sure you made plenty in London.” She didn’t look affected at all. The coldness of it actually made me shiver.
“You’re being immature.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Watch your tone. I’m still your boss.”
“My apologies, Mr. Montgomery,” she said, quiet now.
“Don’t I get a welcome-back hug?” I asked, hoping, now that we’d finally said something real, she’d give an inch.
Jasmine Ray and Japheth Montgomery were best friends before they were anything else — before four years of silence turned two children into strangers wearing grown-up names.
Then he comes home. As her boss.
Japheth is handed a company in crisis, a rival who wants to watch him fail, and the one person he never stopped thinking about, sitting behind a desk with a stranger’s coldness in her eyes. Jasmine is handed something worse: a father who’s spent nine years reminding her what she owes this family, and a man she trusts turning that debt into a weapon.
Because someone close to them needs one thing — a signature, one document, one moment of Japheth’s total trust — and he knows exactly how to make Jasmine get it for him.
She has one impossible choice: protect her family by becoming, once again, exactly what she swore she’d never be to Japheth again. Or risk everything to tell him the truth, and pray he doesn’t throw her out of his life a second time.
This time, staying quiet isn’t safety. It’s the same mistake that cost her everything once already.
อ่าน
Chapter: 19 — Pretend**JASMINE POV**We spent our last full day wandering the small market at the base of the hill, and somewhere between the vegetable stalls and a woman selling hand-carved wooden combs, Japheth decided we should pretend to be newlyweds."Why newlyweds?" I asked, threading my fingers through his as he pulled me toward a stall selling dried persimmons."Because this area's fairly traditional, and an unmarried couple wandering around holding hands raises more questions than a married one." He grinned, clearly enjoying himself far more than the logistics required. "Also, it's fun.""You just want an excuse to kiss me in public.""That too." He didn't even try to deny it.It turned out to be genuinely fun, in a way I hadn't expected an elderly woman selling embroidered handkerchiefs spent a solid ten minutes talking to Japheth in rapid Ko
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-09-24
Chapter: 18: what kept him away**JASMINE POV**We spent the next few days easing into a rhythm that felt, for the first time in longer than I could remember, entirely uncomplicated mornings at the Korean team's offices closing out the last details of the deal, afternoons wandering wherever Japheth's Korean was good enough to get us lost and found again, evenings falling into easy conversation that never once felt like it was building toward an argument.Alex picked us up on our last full day in the city to take us to his family's countryside home, a traditional hanok an hour outside Seoul, insisting we couldn't leave the country without seeing "real Korea" instead of just the parts that came with room service.The house was beautiful in a way that made my chest ache a little stone walls, a clay tile roof, autumn leaves scattered across a small gravel courtyard with a pond at its center. Alex walked us through it with obvious pride, explaining the underfloor heating system, the mulberry paper walls, the traditiona
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-09-23
Chapter: 17: Feelings**JAPHETH POV**I woke up before her, the way I usually did now, and spent longer than I'd ever admit just watching her sleep hair a mess across the pillow, one arm flung over her head, completely unguarded in a way she rarely let herself be awake.Four years ago I would've called this pathetic. Now I just called it lucky.I got up carefully, careful not to wake her, and went for a run through the hotel gym before the city was fully awake, trying to burn off some of the restless energy that had been building in me since Alex dropped her off the night before. Not jealousy this time something closer to gratitude, and underneath it, nerves about a conversation I knew we needed to have and had been avoiding since the market, since the porch, since every quiet moment that had almost turned into something more and then didn't.She was awake when I got back, sitting c
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-09-22
Chapter: 16: A visitor**JASMINE POV**I checked the peephole before opening the door, half expecting hotel staff, and instead found a striking stranger on the other side tall, black hair falling just above his shoulders, dressed like he'd wandered off a runway between meetings.He smirked the second the door opened, clearly clocking the once-over I gave him before I could stop myself."You must be the famous redhead Peaches," he said, a slight British lilt threaded through an accent I couldn't quite place otherwise."How do you know my name?""I'm Alexander Shin. Old friend of Japheth's. He's mentioned you approximately four hundred times since I picked him up from the airport four years ago." He held out a hand, and I shook it, already deciding I liked him."Come in. He's still getting ready.""Still primping. Some things never change." Alex strolled in like he owned the place, dropping onto the couch with the easy familiarity of someone who'd clearly stayed here before. "Has he been giving you a hard time
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-09-21
Chapter: 15 : Seoul**JASMINE POV**I slept through most of the fourteen-hour flight, which felt like a small miracle given how wired I'd been getting on the plane in the first place. Somewhere over the Pacific, exhaustion had simply won out over nerves, and I didn't stir again until I felt a hand gently shaking my shoulder."Peach. We're landing in less than an hour.""Go away," I mumbled into the pillow, swatting blindly in the general direction of the voice. "Come back five minutes before we land.""You'll want time to freshen up before we get to the hotel."I cracked one eye open to find Japheth crouched beside the bed, looking entirely too amused for someone waking me up against my will. "The flight attendant can freshen me up.""I offered to make you coffee, actually.""You mean you'll ask the flight attendant to make coffee, and then hand it to me and take credit.""Details," he said, grinning, and pulled the blanket gently off my head. I sat up, blinking against the cabin lights, hair an absolute
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-09-21
Chapter: 14 — Departure**JASMINE POV**"Do we really need three suitcases for one week?" I asked Saph, who was currently sitting cross-legged on my bed, surrounded by roughly half my closet."You're representing Montgomery Industries on an international business trip and also potentially seducing your childhood sweetheart in a foreign country. This requires options, Jasmine.""I am not seducing anyone. I'm closing a deal.""Sure. That's why you packed the green dress that makes your eyes look like actual emeralds." She held it up, smirking."That's for the closing dinner. It's professional.""It's professional the way a loaded gun is a paperweight." She folded it anyway and tucked it carefully into the second suitcase.I'd called her over an hour ago under the pretense of needing packing help, which was true, but also mostly an excuse to have someone in the apartment with me while my nerves did their best impression of a livewire. A week. Alone with Japheth, in a country neither of us had been to, staying a
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-09-21
Chapter: CHAPTER FIVE — The New GirlZara’s POV“You do that every time.”I turned around slowly.The new girl. Still sitting three seats away on the bleachers like she had been there for hours and had absolutely no plans to leave. Legs crossed. Looking at me with an expression that wasn’t pity and wasn’t curiosity exactly. Something quieter than both.“Do what,” I said. Not a question.“Wait for everyone to leave before you move.”I looked back at the empty field. The last of the stragglers were disappearing through the double doors at the far end. Just us now and the late afternoon sun cutting long shadows across the grass.I had not realized anyone was watching me do it. That was the whole point of doing it you waited until nobody was left to watch anything.“Bleachers are public property,” I said.“I know.” She didn’t move. Didn’t push. Just sat there like she had nowhere more important to be. “I do it too. Wait for rooms to empty.”I looked at her sideways.“Why?”She was quiet for a second. Actually thinking about
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-07-25
Chapter: Chapter four- first dayNora’s POVCheryl opened the door in her bathrobe and looked at me the way people look at something that doesn’t make sense before coffee.I had been standing on her porch for four minutes working up the nerve to knock. I knew this house. Knew the wind chime on the left side that Cheryl’s mother gave her the Christmas before she passed. Knew the welcome mat that said home is where the wifi is that I bought her as a joke three birthdays ago.I knew every single thing about this place except how to explain why I was standing here looking seventeen when three days ago I had been thirty four.“Can I help you?”My best friend. Looking at me like a stranger.The magic had warned me. I had heard the words. But hearing and feeling were still two entirely different countries.“My name is Nora,” I said. First time saying it out loud. Strange in my mouth. “I’m a friend of Hannah’s. She asked me to give you this.”I handed her the letter I had spent an hour writing in the hospital bathroom. I kne
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-07-25
Chapter: CHAPTER THREE — Seventeen AgainHannah’s POVThe first thing I heard was Cheryl’s voice.Even through whatever thick dark place I had been floating in I knew it was her. Seventeen years of friendship wires your ears to recognize someone before your brain fully catches up.“Zara you would have to stay with me for a while, just until your mom gets better.”I tried to open my eyes. Nothing. Like my body had made a decision without consulting me and wasn’t ready to reverse it yet.“Mum, I’m so sorry. Please stay with me.”Zara.I fought harder. Pushed against whatever heaviness was sitting on top of me. I needed to see her. Needed her to see me open my eyes so she would stop crying in that voice, that small broken voice that didn’t sound like my daughter at all.But the harder I pushed the more stuck I felt. Eventually my body simply said no and I stopped fighting and just listened until even that faded out.Then I was somewhere else entirely.A classroom. Sunlight coming in at the wrong angle. The smell of chalk dust a
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-07-25
Chapter: CHAPTER TWO — The AmbulanceHannah’s POVI woke up to sirens.For one strange second I didn’t know where I was. Just movement and brightness and a pressure on my chest that had nothing to do with anything physical.Then everything came back at once.Zara.“My daughter.” The words came out before I was fully conscious. “Where is my daughter.”“Ma’am you need to stay still.” A paramedic. Young face. Calm voice. Hands pressing me gently back against the stretcher. “You fainted. We are taking you to Mercy General.”“My daughter was on that roof”“She is in the ambulance ahead of us.”Ahead of us.Two words. I held onto them the way you hold onto something in dark water not because it is enough but because it is all there is. Ahead meant moving. they had somewhere to take her. Ahead meant she was still here to be taken somewhere.I lay back against the stretcher and stared at the ambulance ceiling and counted the seconds between sirens.She is ahead of us, I kept telling myself. She is ahead.The hospital was all flu
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-07-25
Chapter: CHAPTER ONE — The DiaryHannah’s POV“Every night I wake up praying, please God, let me be sick.”I set the diary down. Just for a second. Just to breathe.Then I picked it up again because I couldn’t not.The apartment was empty when I got home. That wasn’t unusual. Zara stepped out sometimes, corner store, a walk, nowhere in particular. She never went far. I had learned not to panic at an empty apartment.But the diary was sitting on the dining table.Zara’s pink diary. The one she treated like a second heartbeat. Carried everywhere. Slept with it under her pillow some nights. It had no business being on that table. Zara would never leave it out.Not unless she wanted it to be found.I stood there for a long moment just looking at it.Then I sat down and opened it.I told myself I would just skim. One page. Two at most. Just enough to understand what was happening with my daughter before she got home and I could find a way to start the conversation carefully.That was the plan.“Please save me from going t
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-07-25
Chapter: PROLOGUENora’s POVThere is something nobody tells you about being seventeen the second time around.The first time you are just living it. Too busy surviving each day to notice the details the way morning light hits a school hallway, the particular sound of sneakers on waxed floors, the smell of cheap cafeteria food mixed with expensive cologne that somehow becomes the smell of a whole era of your life. You don’t notice any of it because you are seventeen and seventeen doesn’t know it is temporary.The second time you notice everything.I noticed the trophy case first. All that polished metal and gleaming glass stretching the entire length of the entrance hallway like a monument to itself. CRESTWOOD RAVENS. STATE CHAMPIONS. Three weeks. I stood there and understood immediately what kind of place this was not a school with a hockey team but a hockey team with a school attached, and everyone inside it existing in relation to that fact whether they knew it or not.I noticed my daughter second
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-07-25
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