Love Lost Along the Way

“Yvette, you're such a generous person. I'm sure you'll step aside and let Luke and me be together, right?”

The message on my phone was from Luke's assistant, Megan Spencer.

Below that single line were dozens of photos and videos.

The two of them locked in a passionate embrace beneath the Eiffel Tower.

Whispering sweetly to each other inside the Louvre.

Completely naked together on a beach in the Maldives.

There were even photos of them having sex in front of a floor-to-ceiling window.

Only then did I finally understand.

Luke Miller was no longer the man I'd fallen in love with.

We'd met when neither of us had anything.

For the sake of his acting career, I'd worked from dawn until late at night. Every cent I earned went toward his performances, his auditions, and getting him from one production to the next.

For seven years, I worked myself to exhaustion.

I'd fallen asleep on the subway ride home.

I'd drunk so much at business dinners that I'd ended up with a bleeding stomach.

Little by little, I'd built a company from nothing.

And Luke had finally become one of the most famous actors in the country.

Everything we'd once dreamed of doing together...

In the end, he'd chosen to do it all with his little assistant instead.

I stopped hesitating.

I had divorce papers drawn up.

But just as I was about to sign my name, a voice suddenly sounded beside my ear.

“Yvette, don't.

“You promised you'd give me three chances, remember?”

The familiar voice hit me like a bolt of lightning.

My entire body trembled.

I turned my head.

Nineteen-year-old Luke was standing right beside me.

His figure was faint and almost transparent.

He was wearing the suit I'd bought him back then with money I'd earned from squeezing in extra part-time shifts.

It had cost barely a few hundred dollars.

But in my memory, he'd never looked more handsome than he had in that suit.

I stared blankly at nineteen-year-old Luke.

Then I suddenly smiled.

“Fine.

“Three chances.”

Just then, my phone rang again.

“Yvette!”

Luke's furious voice exploded through the phone.

“How many times have I told you to stop giving Megan a hard time? She's just my assistant! She already spends every day flying all over the place with me. She's exhausted enough as it is!

“If you keep this up, forget about that trip to the beach I promised you!”

I put the call on speaker.

Twenty-seven-year-old Luke's angry voice filled the room.

I turned to look at nineteen-year-old Luke and gave him a gentle smile.

His face had already twisted with anger.

“How can he talk to you like that?”

His whole body trembled.

“How the hell can he talk to you like that?”

But twenty-seven-year-old Luke remained cold.

“Yvette, you've really gotten bold lately. Now you've even got some guy there talking back for you?”

His voice hardened.

“You have thirty minutes to get to Feltel Tower, or else—”

Nineteen-year-old Luke reached over and ended the call.

I only said softly,

“That's your first chance, Luke.”

I wasn't even sure whether I was saying it to nineteen-year-old Luke...

Or to myself.

By the time I drove to Feltel Tower, forty minutes had already passed.