All Chapters of I'm Done Being Your Backup: Chapter 11 - Chapter 17

Before Wesley could open his mouth, Emma stepped in front of him."You destroyed his future, drove him out of the country, and made it so his grandmother couldn't even die in peace. How do you have the nerve to come begging to get back together?"You chose Derek, didn't you? When you were stealing Wesley's data for a liar like Derek, why didn't you think about today?"Natalie, you're apologizing in public because you can't hold it together anymore."You're crying because you just realized that of these two men, one's never coming back, and the other only lied his way into getting you."This whole scene is just you hoping they'll both feel sorry for you at the same time. You want Wesley to say 'forget it,' and you want Derek to say 'Nat, you're my fiancée,' so you can go back to being the girl two men fight to protect."A woman like you doesn't have a sincere bone in her body. It's all calculation."Natalie's lips trembled.Her usually composed face fell apart completely. She tu

Wesley went to the warehouse at the address Natalie had given him.Emma was gagged and tied to a chair. All she could do was look at him with frantic eyes."What do you want?" Wesley looked at Natalie, distant and on guard.Natalie was choking back sobs, her voice almost unrecognizably hoarse."I want you to listen to me. Hear me out. Just this once. One last time."Stealing your data was wrong. Deleting your evidence was wrong. You called me from the police station, begging me to help you be there for your grandmother's funeral, and I said yes, then turned around and went to dinner with Derek. That was wrong too. When they splashed red paint on you and dragged you by your hair, I stood right there and did nothing. I own every single one of those things."But Wesley, eighteen years—from age three to twenty-one—you're everywhere in my life. When I had a temper, you gave in. When I was unreasonable, you talked me down. When I made a mess, you cleaned it up. I didn't understand back

After the wedding, Natalie lived entirely on Derek's charity.To avoid any legal trouble down the road, Derek never legally married her. He didn't give a cent to the woman who was his wife in name only. He found her a do-nothing job handling paperwork that paid just enough to cover her expenses.Derek cheated openly and never bothered to hide it.New interns at the company, the girl at the front desk—he switched every few days.Once, when Natalie brought documents to his office, she opened the door and found him and a girl wrapped around each other in his office chair.The girl apologized in a panic. Derek didn't, unhurriedly buttoning his shirt."Knock before you come in next time," he said without looking up. "If you can't manage that, get out of the company."Natalie set the documents on his desk, turned, walked out, and closed the door.Around the corner, she wiped away her tears, took out her phone, and started texting Wesley again.She'd gotten someone to track down his