Chapter 2

I wiped away my tears and took a cab back to the hotel.

When I checked my phone, Mark’s texts began popping up.

[I only did it to keep our relationship quiet. Stop being ridiculous.]

[You were really out of control today. You almost destroyed everything we’ve spent the past eight years protecting.]

[Post an apology in the group chat and offer to buy everyone lunch. Don’t make this any more awkward than it already is.]

For once, Mark had plenty to say to me. However, every word was just another demand for me to back down.

The sheer absurdity of it left me staring at the screen in disbelief.

I sent a reply. [Which one of us made a scene?]

[You let Katrina take my place at my wedding. Did you ever stop to think about how humiliating that was for me?]

[When they were tearing me apart, why didn’t you tell them they were out of line?]

[Mark, whose side are you really on?]

Several seconds passed before his reply came.

[It’s for the bigger picture. People at work can’t find out about us.]

I smiled bitterly. [What if I want to go public?]

A second later, Mark sent a one-minute voice message.

His tone was more strained than I had ever heard it.

“Emily, don’t be rash. You know everyone thinks Katrina is the bride. If you tell them the truth now, you’ll only humiliate her…”

I stopped listening after that.

I felt as though I were choking on everything I wanted to say.

My feelings were expendable whenever he invoked the bigger picture. Katrina’s pride, apparently, was not.

So, he did know exactly how humiliating this was for me. He had simply decided that, of the two of us, I was the one he could afford to hurt.

In his eyes, I was the one who mattered less.

As I sat there in a daze, several more long voice messages came through.

I refused to play them and hammered out my reply instead.

[I won’t apologize to the people who humiliated me. If keeping us a secret matters so much to you, you can keep it that way forever.]

[We’re done…]

Before I could finish typing the final line, a banking alert flashed across my screen.

[BANK ALERT: A payment of $15,000 was made from an account ending in 0520.]

Mark had made the charge using the card I had given him, which was linked directly to my account.

Another message from him followed immediately.

“I know you’re too proud to apologize, so I stepped in and handled it for you this once. Don’t expect me to do it again.”

He had sent everyone in our private office chat a digital gift card, along with an apology in my name.

For the first time in eight years, Mark had openly acted on my behalf. Yet it felt like nothing but another humiliation.

My hands shook as I typed. [Mark, do you even remember what that money was for?]

He did not answer, so I started calling him over and over.

The phone rang and rang.

Just when I was certain he would not answer, Katrina’s voice suddenly came through.

“I won the bet. See? Emily isn’t the type to apologize so easily!”

Mark gave a fond laugh.

“All right, you win. Consider the money I sent you your prize. That should be enough for the necklace you’ve been talking about all month.”

Katrina gave a smug little huff, but a trace of uncertainty crept into her voice.

“Emily isn’t going to get angry and leave when she finds out, is she?

“That money was supposed to be the down payment on the home you two were planning to buy.”

Mark paused for a few seconds.

“No. She has put up with this for eight years. She won’t leave me.”

The absolute certainty in his voice strangled every question I had wanted to ask.

A tear landed on the back of my hand, hot enough to sting.

Eight years of silently enduring everything had not earned his love. It had merely made me the joke in a game they played at my expense.

What he had wagered so carelessly was the down payment on the home I had dreamed of building with him.

Back then, Mark had taken my hand and led me from room to room. His eyes had been bright as he described the life we would build there.

“This will be our bedroom, and that one will be the nursery.”

He wanted an open-concept kitchen because being able to see me whenever he looked up would make him happy.

He said, “You’ve sacrificed so much for me over the years. I promise I’ll give you a beautiful wedding and the warm, loving home you deserve.”

He had given that wedding to Katrina and gambled away the money meant for our home.

What remained in the account was no longer enough to build a future with Mark.

However, it was more than enough to buy me a one-way ticket home.

After ending the call, I submitted my formal resignation to HR and accepted the job offer waiting for me back in my hometown.

I was leaving Mark and our imagined future behind for good.