3.

ELEANOR

The world tilted beneath my feet, and I held on to the chair, so I didn’t fall from the sway that rocked me. 

The whispers around me grew but none of it mattered. At that moment, I didn’t care about the whispers, the horrified and disgusted expressions, the accusing eyes. 

None of them mattered. The only thing that mattered was him. 

“Theon, please” I choked out, forcing my legs to move as I ran after him. 

Theon didn’t stop. He didn’t even glance back when my leg made contact with a chair, and I winced out in pain. 

I managed to grab his sleeve, desperate for him to listen to me first. “Theon, listen to me. At least let me explain” I voiced desperately “These emails, the photos, they are fake. I don’t know who did this and why, but I swear to you, I would never betray you” 

My world stilled as he stopped. I waited for him patiently but desperately as he turned to me but the man who turned to me wasn’t the same one, I had planned to marry. 

“Theon” I whispered, my voice laced with fear as my heart thumped painfully in my chest.

The man before had a cruel expression I had only heard of from people I had claimed knew nothing about him. He was standing in front of me, but he was distant. 

His cold blue eyes pierced into me like shards of ice and his lips curled into a sneer filled with so much disdain I was forced to stumble back a few steps from surprise. 

My heart twisted painfully as Theon looked at me with an expression I had never imagined he would ever gaze at me with.

“Enough,” he told me, his voice harder than his glare and the words sliced through me, more painful than any remark I had heard tonight.

“Theon, please” I beg, trying to get to him. Hoping and desperate to reach the little love I knew or hoped he had for me. “You know me, you know I would never...”

“Do I know you really?”

His question pulled the rug under my feet, and I sucked in a harsh breath. I stare at him with disbelief, unable to process the words that had just left his lips. 

Theon took a slow step towards me, and I stepped back, hating the way he shook his head as he glared at me like I was something vile and disgusting he couldn’t stand. 

“Theon, why are you looking at me like that?” I cried, my heart breaking and the feeling was so painful. 

“I was a fool to think you were different but, in the end, you are just like all the others” 

“The others?” my voice trembled. 

Theon let out a dark chuckle, completely devoid of any humour “The gold diggers. Liars. Women who get close to me with a motive. Women who want to use me for my name and my money”

His gaze swept over me “I should have known you were the same. I don’t know why I ever bothered to give you the benefit of the doubt when you would end up like the others”

My stomach churned and I felt sick. A gold digger? A liar? Was that all he thought of me?

I shook my head violently “That’s not true. You know that’s not true” 

His eyes flashed with anger “Do I?” His words felt like a slap across my face. 

“I won’t waste another second on a woman who sells my company secrets to my rivals and cheats on me” He announced coldly “I want nothing to do with you anymore, Eleanor” 

“Wait...”

“Whatever this is...” he motioned between us “...It’s over”

I staggered back as though he physically struck me. Over? 

“You are calling off the wedding? Just like that?”

His expression didn’t waver “Yes, Eleanor. There will be no wedding” He cocked his head to the side, his eyes filled with disgust “I don’t marry traitors or cheaters” 

“I didn’t cheat on you or betray you. You have to believe me...”

“I don’t” He cut me coldly “I trusted you. I let you into my life, my company and my family but this is how you betray me” 

“I’ve said it multiple times. I didn’t do it” I protested, frustration bleeding into my voice as I raised it. 

“Oh” He cocked his head to the side “Then explain this. Explain the pictures and the emails. This damning proof”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. How was I supposed to explain something I couldn’t even understand?

All I knew was that someone had set me but who and why?

“I don’t know” My voice wavered “But I swear it wasn’t me. I would never do this”

“Never?” He scoffed “That’s an interesting choice of words considering the evidence in these messages” 

My throat tightened “You can’t just throw everything away over some lies” 

“I didn’t throw anything away, Eleanor. You did”

I couldn’t breathe. My heart hammered violently as a tremor rippled through me. 

I looked at Theon and couldn’t help but wonder if he had been waiting for a moment to discard me. Had I envisioned the love I thought he had for me in my head?

He had turned his back on me so easily, that he believed some stranger without hesitation over me.

My thoughts dragged me back to the timeline of our relationship. From the moment we met on the blind date, to the kisses and even the time we had sex, it had always been me initiating any form of intimacy. 

I had poured my heart into our relationship and didn’t even mind or think twice anytime he didn’t meet me halfway. I told myself that he wasn’t the emotional type. I forced myself to accept the reality that he wasn’t used to it and did everything by myself.

I ignored that his secretary was the one to deliver his gifts and made excuses that he was busy but took the time to make sure his secretary got me something. 

Did I orchestrate his love for me in my head? Did he never love me at all?

"You never cared, right?” 

His jaw tightened “Don’t twist this...” 

“No” I cut him off, my pain morphing into something that resembled anger “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t believe this so easily. You would stand up for me and you would not doubt me” 

A harsh, strangled cough cut through the silence, and I had barely turned when I saw my father sway on his feet with his face drained out of all its colour. 

“Dad!” I cried out as I ran towards him. 

His hand clutched his chest, and his breaths were coming out in shallow gasps. Before I knew it, he collapsed and fell to the floor.

“Someone call an ambulance” I screamed, and the room erupted in chaos. 

I fell to my knees beside him, my mother panicking beside me. “Dad, stay with me. Help is on the way” 

The guests moved around us, calling for help and panicking as well. When I turned my head towards Theon, he was still standing there, watching us with a blank expression. 

And that’s when he hit me...maybe he truly never cared.