Lost in the Search for You

"Your fiancé stole my bride," Quinn York said with a lazy chuckle. "So I figured I'd steal his. Fair enough, right?"

Zoey James fell silent for a moment before giving a small nod.

"Fair enough."

On the other end of the line, Quinn raised an eyebrow.

"Good. I'm throwing another wedding in fifteen days. Get your wedding dress ready. I'll be there to marry you."

With that, he hung up.

Zoey stared at the table full of food that had long since gone cold. Suddenly, her eyes filled with tears.

After all these years, she'd finally gotten the marriage proposal she'd been waiting for.

But it hadn't come from Xavier Shaw.

Xavier wouldn't be the groom.

And Xavier wasn't the man she was going to marry.

She'd known Xavier for ten years.

She'd fallen for him the very first time she saw him.

It was during their freshman orientation in high school.

He'd stood onstage in his blue-and-white school uniform, delivering a speech as the representative of the incoming class.

Sunlight streamed through the auditorium's floor-to-ceiling windows, casting a golden glow over his sharply defined profile.

Girls in the audience whispered excitedly, blushing as they secretly snapped pictures of him.

Zoey, meanwhile, stood in the shadows at the back of the auditorium, clutching the student ID she'd just received.

Back then, Xavier had been the golden boy of their prestigious prep school.

He always ranked first in his grade on monthly exams, had more math competition gold medals than anyone could count, and even smelled faintly of expensive cedarwood cologne when he rolled up his sleeves to play basketball.

Everything about him screamed old money.

He came from a world completely different from hers.

She was just an ordinary girl who'd earned her place at the school on a scholarship.

And while practically every girl on campus had a crush on Xavier, he only had eyes for one person.

Summer Hayes.

His childhood sweetheart.

Zoey had seen him organize Summer's notes for her in the library.

She'd watched him take off his jacket and drape it over Summer's shoulders when she'd gotten caught in the rain.

She'd watched him search the entire city for a limited-edition CD Summer had casually mentioned wanting.

Later, Zoey learned that their families had been close for generations and that the two had been engaged since childhood.

Then came the summer after high school graduation.

News of Shaw Corporation's sudden collapse dominated the financial headlines.

Xavier's father, the same wealthy chairman who used to arrive at parent-teacher conferences in a Rolls-Royce, jumped to his death from the company's headquarters.

The very next day, Summer flew to England.

She left Xavier behind to shoulder a mountain of debt.

He spent his days working one job after another to pay off what he owed, barely getting by.

The once-proud young heir had become exhausted, defeated, and almost unrecognizable.

One night, Zoey found him passed out drunk in the alley behind a bar.

His expensive dress shirt was badly wrinkled, and his eyes were bloodshot.

He looked utterly abandoned.

She crouched down to help him, but he suddenly grabbed her wrist.

His breath reeked of alcohol, and there was a metallic scent of blood.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Zoey James," she answered quietly. "We went to the same school. You probably don't remember me."

He didn't.

But he let her take him home anyway.

That night, Xavier was completely out of control.

He pinned her down on the narrow bed in her tiny apartment and kissed her until her lips went numb.

It wasn't until later that she learned what had happened just half an hour before she'd found him.

Summer had posted a picture on social media.

She was kissing her new boyfriend beneath the Eiffel Tower.

When Xavier woke up the next morning, he offered to take responsibility for what had happened between them.

Soon after, he moved into Zoey's tiny studio apartment, barely two hundred square feet.

They leaned on each other and made it through the hardest days of their lives together.

But Zoey knew the truth.

Even though she'd brought the fallen heir home and made him part of her life, his heart had never belonged to her.

He'd never gotten over Summer.

She'd caught him staring at Summer's pictures on his phone in the middle of the night.

She'd watched him eat instant noodles for three months straight just to save enough money for a plane ticket to Paris.

And she'd watched him rush out the door on her birthday the moment Summer sent him a text.

Yet Zoey couldn't bring herself to give up on him.

She stayed up late helping him revise his résumé.

She went from company to company with him, dropping off job applications.

She stood beside him when debt collectors came knocking and threatened them.

At their lowest point, she secretly sold the antique emerald bracelet her mother had left her.

It was the only thing she'd inherited from her.

She used the money to buy Xavier a decent suit for his job interviews.

Eventually, things began to change.

He started remembering that she liked two sugars in her coffee.

He'd text her reminders to eat dinner when she worked late.

And when she fell asleep, he'd gently drape a jacket over her shoulders.

Zoey thought she'd finally won his heart.

And Xavier's fortunes had turned around too.

He'd made a spectacular comeback, reclaiming his place among the city's elite.

Everything finally seemed to be falling into place.

Then Summer came back.

And just like that, they were right back where they'd started.

Xavier would race to the airport in the middle of the night to pick her up.

He'd put everything she'd done to him behind him and throw an extravagant welcome-home party in her honor.

And when he heard she was getting married, he hadn't even hesitated before rushing off to stop the wedding.

Seven years.

Zoey had given him everything she had.

Yet all it took was three words from Summer.

"I'm back."

And suddenly, none of those seven years seemed to matter.

Zoey was tired.

She had nothing left to give.

She got to her feet and began clearing out her belongings.

One by one, she tossed them into trash bags.

The garbage truck happened to pull up just as she finished.

She stood there watching the sanitation workers load the bags into the truck.

It felt as though she were finally throwing away seven years of hopeless love.

"What did you throw out?"

The front door suddenly swung open, and Xavier's voice came from behind her.

Zoey didn't turn around.

"Just some things I don't need anymore."

Then she looked up at him.

"I was cleaning out the house. I got rid of some stuff we don't need."

It was such a simple explanation.

But Xavier's expression changed instantly.

He shoved past her and stormed into the house.

"Who gave you permission to touch my stuff?!"

He started tearing through drawers and cabinets, his face growing darker by the second.

He searched the entire study, turning everything upside down.

When he still couldn't find what he was looking for, he bolted toward the door.

As he rushed past Zoey, he accidentally knocked her over.

She stumbled, striking her forehead against the doorframe.

Blood immediately began streaming down her face.

But she was worried he might have lost something important.

Without even stopping to tend to her injury, she hurried after him.

And then she saw something she never could've imagined.

Xavier Shaw, a man so obsessed with cleanliness that he couldn't stand the slightest bit of dirt, was on his knees in a pile of garbage, frantically digging through it.

Seeing how desperate he looked, Zoey felt a pang of guilt.

She hurried over to explain.

"The garbage truck already took everything I threw away. We'd have to go to the landfill to find it. I only meant to throw out my own things, but I might've accidentally mixed something of yours in with them. I'm sorry."

Only then did Xavier notice the blood on her forehead.

He froze.

He reached out as if to touch her, then pulled his hand back.

"I was in such a hurry. I didn't notice."

They got into the car together.

After a while, Zoey couldn't hold back her curiosity any longer.

"What did you lose? Is it really that important?"

Xavier tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

He was silent for a long moment before finally answering.

It was the antique sapphire pendant he'd regularly taken to a jeweler for maintenance.

Zoey's heart gave a painful lurch.

Tears welled up in her eyes.

That pendant was the token Xavier and Summer had exchanged when they got engaged.

Of course.

No wonder he'd been so desperate to find it.