By the time I saw the video, it already had tens of thousands of likes.
The comments were a flood of adoration.
[OMG! They’re so gorgeous! I ship it!]
[My heart! A true love story! There’s hope for us all!]
[So sweet! You two have to be happy forever! Wishing you all the best!]
I stared at the video, stunned.
Did Christian really love her that much?
Had he forgotten?
Five years ago, we had just gotten married. We were at the peak of our love. We were poor, but we were deliriously happy.
Chapter 1
11:18
And now, here he was, on camera, saying he wished he had met her five
years earlier.
I expected to feel the usual surge of rage, the uncontrollable fury. I expected to grab my phone and unleash a torrent of angry calls and texts. If he didn’t answer, I would have smashed everything in the villa to pieces, screaming my frustration into the void.
But strangely, this time, I just sat there, perfectly still.
The comments that should have stung, that should have provoked me, just scrolled past my eyes like lines of code.
Then, something inside my head seemed to loosen and drift away.
And I was shocked to find…
I felt nothing.
Obsession can be born in an instant, and clarity, it turns out, can arrive just as quickly.
And that’s what led to my phone call.
4
Christian sent me a message.
Amidst a sea of red exclamation marks from my blocked messages, his new text stood out in its simple black and white box.
Looks like he’d unblocked me, I thought with a self–deprecating smirk.
He told me to come to his office on Monday. His lawyer would have the agreement ready. If we both agreed on the terms, we could sign and then
just wait for the mandatory cooling–off period to pass.
【Okay.]
On Monday, I went to Christian’s company as planned.
Since I didn’t have an appointment, the receptionist had to call upstairs for clearance. “Yes, a Ms. Kingsley is here.”
After hanging up, she told me to go up to the executive floor, where a secretary would meet me.
I thanked her and headed up.
The young woman who greeted me was a stranger. I didn’t recognize her. But then again, it had been six months since I’d last set foot in this
place. She was probably a new hire.
“Ms. Kingsley, please wait here. Mr. Frost is in a meeting.”
She didn’t know me either. She called me Ms. Kingsley and led me to a waiting area.
I used to go straight to Christian’s office. His meetings always lasted at least an hour, and I hated waiting. He knew this, so he’d filled his office
with books and movies to keep me from getting bored.
“You can read or watch a movie. If you get tired, you can wait for me in the break room,” he’d told me back then.
The last time I was here, all my things had been removed from his office. The person with free access to his private lounge was someone else.
Now, to see him, I had to wait in a generic reception area.
But I didn’t have the energy to fight over such a small thing anymore. So I waited quietly. I had plenty of time.
I didn’t expect to wait for two hours. Still, no one came to get me,
“Excuse me, is Mr. Frost’s meeting over yet?” I finally asked the young woman who had shown me in.
She fidgeted. “Mr. Frost is… still in the meeting…”
I frowned, about to say something, when I heard laughter down the hall.
“Let’s go to that new restaurant for lunch, then.”
“Okay!”
