Todos los capítulos de The Life I Was Waiting For: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 10

At 4:30 a.m., I heard the front door unlock. I was sitting on the living room rug, scanning the last contract into my laptop when Cameron walked in, smelling faintly of whiskey and expensive cologne. The moment he saw me, he stopped. "You're still awake?" I kept my eyes on the screen. "I had some work to finish." He seemed to be in a good mood. He crossed the room to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and loosened his tie on the way back. "Today was insane, but at least I finally got the award. The offers should be better from here on out, and maybe the studio will finally stop breathing down my neck." "Mm." That was all I gave him. Cameron paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth and glanced over at me. "Noelle, are you upset?" Once, any good news from him would have made me happier than it made him. I would have thrown my arms around him and told him, over and over, that I knew he could do it. I would have taken his hands in mine, tracing e

I asked, "What are you doing with that?" The trunk had belonged to my mom. Inside was the pale blue shawl she had worn during her final stage performance, along with a pair of earrings—the only piece of her jewelry I had never been able to bring myself to sell. I reached for the trunk, but Cameron moved it out of reach. "Rose has to film a video for her fans tonight. She's already upset, and her team wants something personal in the background. Something meaningful." For a moment, I thought I had heard him wrong. "That belonged to my mother." "We're just borrowing it." "Cameron." My voice trembled despite my efforts to stay calm. "You gave her my wedding ring, and now, you want to use my mom's belongings to make her seem sympathetic?" His expression hardened. "Noelle, do you have to make everything sound so ugly?" I shot back, "Am I making it sound ugly, or are you just finally hearing what you're doing?" Cameron fell silent for a moment, then let out a humorless laugh

I looked down at the statement in my hands. It was only one thin sheet of paper, yet somehow it felt heavier than anything I had ever held. Cameron's manager leaned closer. "Read it, Noelle. Everyone's waiting." Dozens of cameras were pointed at me from below. I looked at them for a moment, then smiled. I took the microphone, walked down to the stage, and unfolded the statement under the bright lights. For a second, Cameron's smile faltered. He clearly had not expected me to cooperate so easily. I looked directly into the cameras and began to read, "I, Noelle Gill, worked with Mr. Cameron Baxter in the early years of his career. There has never been a marriage or romantic relationship between us." The ballroom fell silent, but I continued, "Online claims that Mr Baxter and I were secretly married, or that I exercised personal control over his career behind the scenes, are false." Every word felt like I was cutting away a piece of myself, but somewhere along the way, the

The next morning, Nathan had my mom's shawl delivered to Rimevik. When I opened the package, I could only stare. The pale blue shawl had been poorly washed. Its fabric was wrinkled, and the crooked red stitching my mom had hand-sewn near one corner had broken. The tear appeared fresh, as if it had been yanked open in haste. The old wooden trunk had been returned too. I opened it and froze. One of the earrings was missing. I stared at the empty space where it should have been until my eyes burned. My mom wore those earrings during her final performance. Years later, when Cameron needed money for acting school, I sold almost everything she had left me. Those earrings were the only thing I could not bring myself to part with. And now, only one remained. I immediately texted Nathan, 'Where's the other earring?'… Ten minutes later, his reply came through. 'Mr. Baxter's team says Ms. Berger misplaced it during the livestream shoot. They're looking for it.' I stare

Cameron did not take the papers. He just stared at the first page as though he could not quite believe what he was seeing. "I'm not signing that." I set the agreement down on the stone steps beside us. "Then, we'll go to court." His head came up sharply. "Noelle, we've been together for eight years. You're really going to throw all of that away?" I held his gaze. "I'm not the one who threw it away, Cameron. You lost it little by little." He shook his head. "I was busy." "Is that supposed to explain everything?" I asked him. "You were too busy to remember my birthday, but not too busy to leave at night for Rose. "You didn't consider how it would affect me when you let her wear my wedding ring or when you gave her my mom's belongings. Yet, you still didn't care when you made me stand before those cameras and deny our eight years of marriage."… By the time I finished, his face had gone pale. I did not want to argue anymore, so I turned to leave. Before I could get far,