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หน้าหลัก / She Made Me Hide Our Love, Then Wore His Ring / Chapter 3

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Chapter 3

ผู้เขียน: Peony
The chat went still.

Nothing else came through.

I blocked and deleted Vanessa, and I slept well that night.

When I woke up the next morning, there was a crowd around my bed.

"Ethan, we heard you were in a car accident, so we came to see how you're doing."

Vanessa stood at the back of the group, her eyes flicking toward me and away again.

I knew why she was standing that far off. Keeping her distance, still.

Marcus glanced at my leg where it was propped up, and something smug flickered in his eyes.

He made a show of sighing. "I really didn't do it on purpose. I never thought you'd get hurt this badly."

The corner of my mouth twitched. "Is that so?

"You know better than anyone what happened out there. I was driving normally. If you hadn't floored it and cut across into me, how would I have crashed at all?"

Marcus's face froze. He turned to Vanessa looking like the injured party.

Vanessa finally came closer and stared at my leg for a few seconds without a word.

Marcus's eyes went red, as though the greatest injustice in the world had been done to him. "I really didn't mean to.

"And it's not like I walked away clean. I got hurt too."

I followed where he was pointing and saw a knee with the skin barely scraped, a little swollen.

Vanessa stood beside him and said nothing.

I closed my eyes. There was nothing more worth saying. "You should all go. I need to rest."

Everyone filed out, but Vanessa and Marcus stayed.

I looked up at her. "Something else?"

Vanessa opened her mouth, hesitated, then spoke anyway, "I gave him that ring. He's only wearing it because he was curious."

I pressed my lips together and said nothing.

Whatever they wanted to do from now on had nothing to do with me.

We had already broken up.

"Ethan, it's hiring season and Marcus has a few interviews lined up near the place you rent. Since you're going to be in the hospital anyway, the apartment is just sitting empty. Let him move in for now."

When I heard that, I nearly laughed until I cried. "Vanessa, are you serious?

"I used to be your boyfriend. When it was life or death you saved him first. You gave him my ring to wear. You kissed him in front of everyone at the party. And now you want him living in my apartment?"

They left angry.

I thought that would be the end of it.

That afternoon I was scrolling Facebook out of boredom, and the newest post was Marcus's.

"Moved in. Wish me luck on the interviews."

There were photos attached.

In the first one, Marcus was grinning and throwing up a peace sign, and the background was my bedroom.

My things were nowhere to be seen. In their place were Marcus's bedding, his clothes, his water bottle...

I frowned and kept scrolling through the rest.

The family photo I kept in the living room was gone. The magnets I'd stuck on the fridge were gone. My toiletries in the bathroom were gone.

Vanessa had a key to the place I rented.

Shaking with rage, I called her. "I told you no. What gave you the right to hand Marcus my key?

"That's my apartment. Who do you think you are?"

"I'm your girlfriend. That's who I am."

That stopped me cold. "We broke up a long time ago."

"And don't threaten me with a breakup. I never agreed to it, so we're not broken up."

Six months earlier, Vanessa had bought a watch with her internship pay, and I found out about it.

I assumed it was a gift for me, so I pretended I hadn't noticed.

The next day, that watch was on Marcus's wrist.

"He'd wanted that watch forever, and it was his birthday yesterday."

But she had forgotten that it was my birthday too.

As for what I might have wanted, she had never once thought about it.

I told her we were done.

But that night, when I found Vanessa curled up in bed with cramps, pale and drenched in sweat, I caved.

That was exactly why she thought a breakup out of my mouth was just a bid for her attention.

This time I meant it.

"Hartwell Group already approved my full-time offer, and they're putting me in charge of the next project team.

"My future is bright enough to keep you up at night. Think about that."

Vanessa walked off, sure of herself.

What she didn't know was that Hartwell was one of my father's subsidiaries.

After graduation, I was going to Hartwell to learn the business from the ground up.
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  • She Made Me Hide Our Love, Then Wore His Ring   Chapter 10

    In the end, Vanessa really did burn it all down.She took Gerald to court for adultery.Even the judge hadn't expected anything like it.It wasn't the wife suing the man. It was the woman he'd cheated with.The whole thing set the company on fire.Everyone knew Vanessa had latched onto an older man for the sake of her career.The scandal became the thing people chewed over with their coffee.Vanessa couldn't show her face at work anymore, so she handed in her resignation herself.Mr. Grant processed her exit paperwork that same day. "With a record like hers, it's a good thing she resigned. If she hadn't, the company would have let her go."Vanessa left with her head down.Before she went, she made a point of finding me. "I did a lot of things wrong. Ending up here is what I deserve."I came to ask you one last time. That day at the crash, if I'd taken you instead, would everything have been different?"It probably would have.But what's past is past, and there is no if."No."I said it

  • She Made Me Hide Our Love, Then Wore His Ring   Chapter 9

    I sat in the chair in Mr. Grant's office while Mr. Grant stood beside it, uneasy. "Mr. Reed, something like this happening is a failure of my management."I didn't keep hammering at it. "Everyone gets stretched too thin sometimes. What this shows is that our policies need to be tightened and actually enforced."Mr. Grant nodded again and again.Two weeks later, Marcus got out of detention.The next day was the day of our hearing.After two weeks, Marcus had lost every bit of his old arrogance.He was much thinner, the circles under his eyes dark, and he looked a decade older.In court I laid it out clearly and in order, producing evidence piece by piece.All Marcus could do was shake his head weakly and deny it.But against evidence that strong, his excuses accomplished nothing.After a little over two hours, the verdict came down from the bench.For attempted murder and for the later knife attack, Marcus was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.Vanessa watched the whole thing from th

  • She Made Me Hide Our Love, Then Wore His Ring   Chapter 8

    Mr. Doyle was one of the company's veterans, and he shouldn't have been demoted on somebody's whim.In my few days there I had seen that Mr. Doyle was serious about his work and thorough about his duties.I thought back to the argument between Vanessa and Mr. Doyle.And I had a pretty good idea why he was being demoted.The demotion notice carried the signature and seal of Vice President Marsh.That same day I walked straight into the vice president's office.Across from me sat an old man well into his years, hair gone gray.Seeing me barge in, he knotted his brows. "Who are you? You've got some nerve, forcing your way into the vice president's office."I wasn't going to waste words. I went straight to it. "Why is Mr. Doyle being demoted?"In attitude and in ability, Mr. Doyle is more than equal to his current position."There isn't a single performance target he's missed. So why demote a long-serving employee for no reason?"The vice president's face went livid. "Where did this kid co

  • She Made Me Hide Our Love, Then Wore His Ring   Chapter 7

    He never got close enough to touch my sleeve before the bodyguards waiting at the end of the alley had him pinned to the ground.Marcus thrashed for a long time and couldn't get up.All he could do was lie there with his hair in his face and dirt all over him.Right then Vanessa came looking for us, and she shouted at me, "Ethan, I admit I did a lot of things wrong when we were together, but you can't use your position to settle a personal score."Marcus got hired because I helped him. It's how I got in too, using what you taught me."Vanessa's voice was hoarse, as though I were the one throwing my weight around. "Even if you can't stand the sight of us, you don't get to do it like this."If you don't let him go, I'm calling the police."Marcus had pulled a knife on me, and they were the ones threatening to call the police.I shook my head and laughed under my breath. "Perfect timing. You calling them saves me the trouble."First Marcus staged a crash on purpose, attempted murder. Then

  • She Made Me Hide Our Love, Then Wore His Ring   Chapter 6

    I froze where I stood.I knew perfectly well that with Marcus's grades in his major, Hartwell would never have hired him.He had to have gotten in some other way.Vanessa had gone into Mr. Doyle's office and the two of them had ended up shouting.I saw that myself.So it couldn't have been Mr. Doyle.I was still turning it over when I heard someone call my name.I looked up into Marcus grinning at me with his head cocked.He was taunting me. "Mr. Reed, is it?"Bet you didn't see this coming. So what if you threw obstacles in my way?"I got in anyway."Vanessa kept trying to cut in beside him and never got the chance. "Marcus, stop. Let's finish eating and get back to work."My gut told me something here had to be wrong.But I couldn't see what was wrong.That afternoon I had a colleague in my department pull up Marcus's onboarding file.I read every line of it.Under work experience, Marcus had listed several major projects.I looked closer. Those projects were awfully familiar.They w

  • She Made Me Hide Our Love, Then Wore His Ring   Chapter 5

    Time seemed to freeze.The mockery in Marcus's eyes turned to shock in an instant.Vanessa stood stunned, managed a weak greeting to Mr. Grant, and then couldn't get out another word.I nodded to Mr. Grant. "There's a lot here I've never done before. I'll be counting on you to show me the ropes."Mr. Grant took my hand and led me into the lobby. "You're too modest, Mr. Reed. Chairman Reed has run this company for years, and the industry still tells stories about him. Like father, like son."After a round of pleasantries, I started in the human resources department, exactly as planned.My father once told me that however capable a person is, working alone means his strength runs out eventually.You have to learn to spot what other people are good at, acknowledge their ability, and put them where that ability actually counts. That's how you get twice the result for half the work.New hires went through three days of training, and I didn't ask for special treatment.At my instruction, Mr.

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