Chapter 1

(Yvette's POV)

I didn't walk through that door. I turned around and left.

It wasn't until 20 minutes after I went downstairs that Seth Larson realized I was gone.

He sent me a few messages.

"Where did you go? Everyone's already seated."

"What could be so urgent that you left without even saying goodbye?"

"Is this all over a pair of slippers?"

I didn't reply. I just sat in the clinic and looked down at my foot.

Blood had already soaked through the bandage. The wound sent a sharp pain through me.

I had cut my foot on a pile of broken glass three days earlier when Seth and I went to inspect a construction site.

When I fell, he was the closest person to me, but he didn't even reach out to help me up.

"If you need time off, you have to go through the approval process."

That was the only thing he said to me that day.

Just like the past three years, he kept his distance from me in public and never crossed the line.

However, when Regina Skinner had a tiny splinter on her finger, everyone stood there and watched him clean and bandage her wound for ten full minutes.

"Miss, why are you crying?" The doctor who bandaged my foot looked at the tears spilling from my eyes and sighed. "You had a fight with your boyfriend, didn't you?"

She glanced at my phone, which kept lighting up with incoming calls.

"It's okay. When it comes to love, the next one will be better," she said.

With a casual flick of her hand, she tossed the blood-stained cotton swab into the trash.

I forced myself to stop trembling. Then, I wiped the tears from my face and smiled, feeling a weight lift off my shoulders.

She was right.

It was time for me to throw this relationship away.

I quickly turned off my phone and didn't turn it back on until I got home.

The first thing that popped up was more than a dozen missed calls from Seth.

The second was a new post from Regina on social media.

"Oh, dear! I'm so drunk I can barely think. Thanks for letting me stay over, boss!"

The post came with more than a dozen photos from the party, and a photo of a matching pair of toothbrushes in the bathroom.

"Oh my, what a thoughtful boss. He got everything you could possibly need, Gina!" someone commented.

"The toothbrushes and the cups behind them are matching sets. You can't tell me this wasn't something he had planned all along."

The comments were full of teasing and playful speculation.

Regina replied with just one sentence, "Don't say things like that. My boss has a girlfriend!"

"What girlfriend? I've worked here for years, and I've never seen her!" someone immediately replied.

"Exactly! A great single guy like Mr. Larson doesn't come along often. You've got to win him over!" another wrote.

For all these years, Seth had never let a single crack appear in his image as a single man.

I didn't want to keep playing along with him.

I liked Regina's post.

A minute later, Seth called me again.

"Regina didn't mean anything by the post. She's young and speaks her mind. Don't take it personally.

"I only bought those things on a whim to make her happy. She likes them."

He immediately launched into an explanation.

Since she liked those things, he was perfectly willing to let her leave her mark all over his home.

But when it came to me, all he ever said was, "There were a lot of people here today. I was just trying to avoid—"

"That's why I left," I said, cutting him off calmly. "Not showing up is the best way to avoid suspicion, isn't it?"

There was a brief silence on the other end.

"Yvette, there's no need to be so sarcastic," he said. "I've told you so many times. I'm doing this for both of us."

"Seth, is the bath towel in this cabinet on the left?" A sweet, girlish voice came from the other end, and Seth immediately hung up.

I suddenly remembered the disposable bath towel he had brought for me at the convenience store downstairs the last time I stayed at his place.

After using it just once, I broke out in a rash all over my body.

I stopped myself from dwelling on the memory.

I let out a bitter laugh and made a call without another moment of hesitation.

"Mr. Quest, I've thought over the offer you made me last time," I said. "I accept. I can start next week."