Chapter 2

Paul's POV

Emily kept her head down, her fingers flying across the screen.

I felt a suffocating weight on my chest.

I was cleaning up because this was supposed to be our future home. I didn't want our sanctuary trashed before we even moved in.

Yet in the texts Emily was firing off to Dante, caring about our home translated into an unhealthy obsession with personal property.

Putting a stop to her so-called friends' wild night became a blatant disregard for her feelings.

And my quiet, exhausted silence was written off as emotional abuse.

Everything I did was dragged under the magnifying glass of that scorecard, spun into a list of red flags to watch out for.

I stared at her, my voice dropping low. "Emily, we've been together for six years. Can't you make your own judgment about what kind of person I am?"

She clutched her phone, staying quiet for a long while. "What I see with my own eyes isn't always the truth."

I froze.

She looked down, her voice barely a whisper. "When my mom first met my dad, she thought he was honest and reliable, too. And look how that turned out. Who's to say you aren't just putting on an act?"

Hearing those words, I suddenly didn't know what to say.

When I first met her, her mother, Alisha Marsh, was forcing her to quit a job she loved and arranging blind dates against her will.

Emily had hidden in the stairwell, sobbing that she didn't want to go.

I had walked her back and told Alisha that Emily wasn't anyone's pawn. She had every right to live her own life.

That night, Emily had held me tight and said she felt safe with me.

In our fourth year together, I proposed to her.

It happened to be around the time Alisha was pressuring her to get married.

Emily turned me down. She said she didn't want to tie the knot just because her mother was pushing her.

Later, she said she wanted a place to call our own. She wanted warm lighting and an open kitchen.

Following the mood boards she sent me, I built her dream home from the ground up.

I genuinely believed that if I gave her enough love and made an effort, she would eventually see I never meant to trap her.

But to Emily, I was just a failing student waiting to be judged by her scorecard.

The resentment in Emily's eyes flared up at my silence. "There you go again. You just shut down when you get upset. How am I supposed to know what's going through your head?"

"Emily, did I not tell you, or did you just never bother to listen?"

I looked at her bewildered expression, feeling a deep sense of helplessness. "I've said it a million times. I don't need a commitment from you. I can wait. I can stand by you. If you have doubts or fears, you can talk to me. I just wish that when it comes to us, the decisions stay between us."

Emily's face paled slightly. "I just wanted him to vet you for me. I don't want to wake up one day and have people pointing fingers, saying I ended up just like my mom."

With that, she tightened her grip on her phone.

It was as if a higher rating from Dante and approval from her friends could somehow erase the trauma Alisha had left her with.

Meanwhile, six years of my devotion were reduced to point deductions on a scorecard.

The place I had intended to be our home and the place I would propose to her had become Dante's testing ground to grade me.

I stopped looking at Emily and walked into the master bedroom.

In the nightstand drawer lay the ring I had planned to give her.

Maybe she had never needed my presence in the first place.

I slipped the ring box into my pocket and turned back to Emily.

"Emily."

She raised her head.

"Maybe we need to rethink this relationship."

Her brows furrowed as if she wanted to say something.

Before she could, her phone rang jarringly, making her hand go rigid.

Alisha's sharp voice blasted right through the speaker. "Emily, what is wrong with you? Did you forget everything I taught you? When someone comes over, you open the door within three rings. How could you keep me waiting outside like this?"

Emily instinctively cut the call at the sharp rebuke.

Before I could speak, she snatched the rag from my hand and tossed it into the sink. "Come back home with me."

As she dragged me into the elevator, she added in a hushed voice, "Don't bring up Dante. My mom hates his guts."

When we arrived at her apartment door, Alisha was already there with a thermal bag, frowning.

The moment she spotted Emily, her face darkened even further. "Hanging up on your mother? Who taught you that?"