My Gorgeous Director

Chapter 5

Movement suddenly came from the sofa. At some point, Adrian had woken up. His eyes were still stained red from alcohol, dark and unreadable beneath the dim living room lights.

The moment Wren looked at him, their gazes locked. And she heard herself ask, voice trembling despite every effort to stay calm. "Adrian… what exactly was I to you these past three years?"

Before Adrian could answer, Yara cut in first after noticing his silence. "What were you?" she repeated mockingly. "Obviously, when I got married, Adrian was heartbroken and needed someone to distract himself."

Her lips curled coldly. "And then you conveniently threw yourself at him." She crossed her arms and looked Wren up and down. "To put it nicely, you were my substitute."

Her smile sharpened deliberately. "To put it bluntly, you were just someone he used to numb the pain. A mistress he could never acknowledge publicly." She emphasized the final words slowly and deliberately.

"You were together for three years, yet he never made the relationship public. Do you know why?" Yara stared directly into Wren's eyes. "Because he was still waiting for me."

Wren parted her lips slightly, but suddenly even breathing felt difficult. It was true that she and Adrian had been together for three years, yet no one at Winslow Capital knew about their relationship because they had always kept it a secret.

And Adrian had been the one to suggest it in the first place. At the time, he told her that he disliked exposing his private life to others and preferred relationships that could exist quietly, far away from gossip and outside interference.

At the time, Wren accepted his explanation without question. Adrian had been her superior ever since she joined the company, and office relationships were complicated enough as it was. Because of that, they managed to keep their relationship completely secret for three years.

No one at Winslow Capital knew they were together. Only then did Wren finally understand that Adrian had never truly wanted to keep their relationship private. He had refused to make it public because the place beside him, the one meant to be seen by the world, had always been reserved for Yara.

A bitter laugh nearly escaped her throat. Of course. What else had she expected? A sudden itch spread across her palm, and the overwhelming urge to slap someone hit her hard.

But Wren had always been someone who believed in fairness. Even now, she still wanted to give Adrian a chance to explain himself. So she looked at him steadily and asked in a frighteningly calm voice:

"A replacement. An emotional crutch. A hidden mistress." She paused briefly. "Adrian, do you agree with the labels Miss Winslow just gave me?"

She waited for his answer as if clinging to the last shred of hope before finally giving up. Yet Adrian stayed silent for what felt like an eternity, and that silence became the cruelest answer he could have given her.

The living room fell into a suffocating silence. The air was so still that even the sound of breathing seemed to disappear. Then, without warning, Wren rushed forward and slapped him hard across the face. The sharp c***k rang through the room, yet strangely, neither Wren nor the man she hit showed much reaction.

Instead, it was the spectator beside them who screamed first. "Wren, are you insane?"

Yara immediately rushed toward Adrian, heart aching as she reached for his face. But Adrian turned away slightly before her hand could touch him. Then he caught her wrist gently. Even now, his voice remained calm and soft as ever. "You should go home first."

Yara could already picture exactly what would happen next. Wren would lose control completely, and the night would end in tears, screaming, and possibly even a breakup.

Yara would have loved nothing more than to stay and watch the entire disaster unfold, but she also knew when to stop. She had already gotten everything she wanted tonight. After all, the entire performance had been orchestrated by her from the very beginning. If she pushed Adrian any further now, he would truly lose his temper. So in the end, she chose to leave.

But as she passed Wren, she shot her one last vicious glare. "I'll remember that slap," she said through clenched teeth. "Just wait."

The apartment finally fell silent again. After a long moment, Adrian spoke quietly, "I'm sorry."

Wren said nothing. She walked over to the wine cabinet, pulled out a bottle of red wine, poured herself a glass, and drained it in one gulp. Then she let out a low laugh that sounded empty and utterly exhausted.

"You stayed silent all this time just to give me one pathetic 'I'm sorry'?" She looked at him. "So this is your answer to my question?"

Her voice trembled no matter how hard she tried to stay calm. "So you agree with everything Yara said. You think every word she said was true."

Adrian froze. Silence stretched between them for a long moment before he finally spoke again. "I'm sorry."

Wren poured herself another glass and drank that one too. "So you've loved her for more than ten years," she said softly. "And I was just some disposable extra in your tragic little love story." Her eyes reddened. "A stand-in. A placeholder. Someone who didn't even deserve a name."

She laughed again, but this time her voice was beginning to break apart. "Adrian, you're unbelievable. Your love is so noble. So moving. If you loved her that much, you should have stayed loyal to her from the start. Better yet, you should have gone and become her lover."

Her breathing turned ragged. "No. If your love is really that deep, then you should have died for her. Aren't you suffering so much? Then why didn't you die? Why did you have to drag me into this and destroy my life instead?"

The composure she had been struggling to maintain finally collapsed. She grabbed another glass of wine, but instead of drinking it, she flung it straight into Adrian's face. Red wine splashed across his features and soaked through his shirt, yet her anger still refused to settle.

A second later, she slammed the wine glass onto the floor. The sharp crash shattered the silence of the room as fragments of glass scattered in every direction, like the wreckage of the past three years of their marriage.

Adrian never moved. He simply closed his eyes and let the wine slide slowly down his face. But the guilt and exhaustion written across his expression only made Wren hate him even more.

"Adrian," she said hoarsely, "I met you when I was eighteen, and I fell in love with you at twenty. You told me you were not ready for a relationship, so I stepped back. While you chased your ambitions, I chased mine. When you joined Winslow Capital, I joined the company as well."

She let out a weak laugh. "The internship evaluations said that the top performers could choose any department they wanted. I wanted to work in your department, so I fought for first place in everything. People said I worked like a machine. They said women who pushed themselves that hard would never get married, but I kept going anyway because I wanted to stand beside you. Every time you earned a promotion ahead of schedule, I forced myself to keep pace with you."

She lowered her eyes. "Of course, I did not do all of that just for you. Part of it was for my own future too, so I never expected to have every piece of your heart. But the moment you chose to be with me, you lost the right to treat me like this." Her voice finally trembled. "All I did was fall in love with someone I truly loved. So how did I end up becoming your emotional substitute without even realizing it? When I fought for the Beacon deal, I nearly worked myself to the breaking point. Do you know why I pushed that hard? Because I wanted to marry you. I wanted us to build a family together. I wanted to have your child."

A sudden cough shattered the silence. Adrian had just lit a cigarette, but after hearing her words, he choked on the smoke before taking a single drag. The cigarette continued to burn quietly between his fingers, untouched.

Meanwhile, Wren slumped weakly against the sofa, no longer looking at him. Her eyes stayed fixed on the shattered glass scattered across the floor.

"I already had everything planned out. Once the Beacon deal closed successfully, we would get married. The money we had saved over the years, together with the bonus, would have been enough for me to finally take a break for a while." She gave a faint smile, her gaze distant and unfocused. "You grew up in a single-parent household, and so did I. You had a terrible relationship with your mother, and I had the same with mine. We both knew what it felt like to grow up without a complete family, which was why we wanted one so badly.

"Before Yara came back, you were always so good to me. I truly believed you wanted marriage just as much as I did." Her voice gradually softened. "But Adrian, while I was planning our future together, what were you thinking about? Were you waiting for Yara to come back? Were you counting the days until the woman you truly loved returned to you?"

She let out a bitter laugh. "And I actually forced you to choose between quitting and staying. I even said things like 'while there's still a place for me in your heart' and 'while I still have a chance.' Looking back now, I sound ridiculous. These past few weeks, I really thought you were considering a future with me. I thought you were struggling over whether to leave Winslow Capital because of us."

"But the truth was…" Her voice finally cracked. "All this time, you were probably only thinking about how to get rid of me once the woman you really loved came back." She slowly lowered her head. "That must have been exhausting for you, pretending to love me for all these years."

A long silence followed. Then she finally spoke again. "But Adrian…" Tears completely filled her eyes. "Why would you do this to me? Why?"

Poison hidden beneath honey still tasted sweet at first. Only after the sweetness faded did the poison reveal how deadly it truly was.

Throughout all of it, Adrian said nothing.

And in that moment, Wren finally understood something with perfect clarity. In their relationship, she had always been the one taking the first step. She was the one who confessed first, the one who kept moving closer. So this time, she would be the one to take the final step as well.

Without saying another word, Wren walked to the cabinet and took out two clean wine glasses. She slowly filled both with red wine before returning to Adrian and handing one to him. After a brief hesitation, he reached out and accepted it. Wren raised her own glass and lightly clinked it against his.

"Here's to the love story we never managed to finish," she said softly. Then she looked up at him at last. "Mr. Jensen, let's break up."