Chapter 3

I lowered my eyes with a bitter smile.

Back when Caleb had put that rule in place, he'd told me it was because he planned to keep me tied to him for the rest of my life and never let me get away.

Now, he was probably dying for me to leave.

As I stepped out of the HR office, I heard my coworkers talking nearby.

"Did you guys see Yara's post? If she hadn't posted the screenshot, I never would've believed Mr. Foster was capable of driving that fast."

"Remember when we were almost late for that bid presentation? I told him to just gun it through a yellow light, and he refused because it wasn't safe. He must really be gone for her."

"No man stands a chance against a girl who knows how to play innocent. But what about Yvette? She's been in love with Mr. Foster for seven years. How is she supposed to take this?"

The moment my name came up, everyone fell silent.

Caleb had always said it looked unprofessional for the CEO to be dating someone inside his own company, so we'd kept our relationship secret for seven years.

Still, love was hard to hide.

Everyone knew how I felt about him, and over the years, they'd often tried to help things along between us.

Their kindness was one of the few warm things I had left in this company.

When they turned and saw me standing there, their expressions immediately changed.

"Yvette, Mr. Foster isn't that great anyway. His taste in women alone should tell you that."

"Exactly. Bad luck in love, good luck at work. Maybe you'll finally be on the promotion list this time."

Most of them had been here since the early days. They knew better than anyone how much I'd poured into this company and how little I'd gotten in return.

People hired long after me had already made supervisor or manager.

I was still only a team lead.

Caleb always told me there was no point keeping score when we were practically family, so I'd swallowed it.

It wasn't until yesterday, when I had to borrow money from a friend just to cover my mother's emergency treatment, buy an urn, and arrange a simple funeral, that I finally understood how stupid I'd been.

I gave them a faint smile.

"It's fine. I'm leaving the company anyway..."

One of my coworkers suddenly clutched her stomach.

"Oh, Yvette, my client's here. He's really into wellness stuff and always drinks dried cranberry infusion. Can you take care of him for me? I need to run to the bathroom."

I knew exactly what she was doing.

She was handing me the client so I could get the credit.

A rush of gratitude tightened my chest. I didn't want to reject her kindness, so I nodded and went into the break room.

Then I stopped in front of the glass jars.

All the labels were gone, leaving nothing behind but faint smears of adhesive.

The cleaning lady was peeling the label off another jar and barely looked up.

"Oh, that was Ms. Cole's idea. She said the labels made the office look cheap. Mr. Foster agreed, so he told us to take them all off."

I gave her an awkward smile.

"Sorry, Ms. Watson. I'm red-green color-blind, so I can't tell the raisins from the cranberries. Could you tell me which one is which?"

She looked at me in surprise, then picked up another jar and placed it in my hands.

The cold glass pressed against my palm, and somehow the chill seemed to travel straight into my heart.

I'd been severely red-green color-blind since birth.

Years ago, Caleb had once watched me fill an entire thermos with raisins because I'd mistaken them for cranberries. He'd laughed until he could barely breathe.

Then he'd gone out and bought label stickers.

After that, he carefully labeled everything at home and at the office so I would never have to guess again.

He'd kept doing it for years.

Whenever a new employee asked why everything was labeled so meticulously, I'd secretly feel a little sweetness in my chest.

Now our relationship felt no different from the faint glue marks left on those jars.

Just a sticky residue people wanted gone.

I'd barely finished making the dried cranberry infusion when raised voices suddenly erupted outside.

"Sir, ma'am, this is a private office. Who are you here to see?"