His Engagement Was My Final Goodbye

Chapter 2

It was 11 p.m. when I walked back into the apartment I'd shared with Adrian for three years.

A pair of red flats I'd never seen before sat by the entryway.

A dozen cardboard boxes were stacked haphazardly in the living room.

Vivian was directing the movers to carry piles of clothes into the master bedroom.

"Emily, Margaret's coming to see the wedding apartment tomorrow. She's super sharp, and I'm worried the place won't look convincing enough if I don't fix it up properly."

I turned my gaze straight to Adrian.

"You're letting her stay in the master bedroom?"

"Just for a few days," he rushed to say, as if he could make the whole thing less outrageous by speaking fast.

"I'll stay in the study with you."

I let out a sharp, bitter laugh, the sound bursting out before I could hold it back.

"Do you seriously think that's the problem here?"

Vivian walked out just then, hugging a cardboard box to her chest.

Inside were all the photos of Adrian and me together, our matching pajamas, and that little ceramic fox he'd brought back for me from a business trip, the one that used to sit on our nightstand.

"These make it way too obvious that someone else lives here. I'm just putting them away for now," she explained casually.

She paused for a second, then added as if it were no big deal,

"Margaret might drop by a lot over the next few days. Emily, you and Adrian should probably avoid coming and going at the same time, too. If the old lady hears people saying he kept a girlfriend even after he's married, it'll be too much for her heart."

Just as the mover reached for the items on my desk, Adrian stepped forward and blocked his hand.

"Don't touch her stuff. I'll handle it."

He ferried every single one of my documents into the study, not a single page out of place, then poured me a glass of warm water like he always did.

"Emily, I'm not trying to brush you off, I swear."

I didn't say a word to him. I just pulled the apartment key out of my bag and set it down on the table.

"I'll move out tomorrow."

Adrian's face went pale in an instant. He grabbed my wrist hard and dragged me into the study, slamming the door shut behind us with a dull thud.

He pressed me against the door, his voice tight with frustration. "Emily, do you have to torture me like this? This engagement is just to pay off a debt. It's nothing but a formality. You're the one I'm actually building a life with."

His familiar, warm cologne washed over me, the same one that used to make me melt every time he pulled this kind of sweet-talking routine.

But not this time. I just lifted my left hand, showing him my bare ring finger.

His eyes locked on that faint, pale indent where the ring used to sit, and his voice went rough all at once. "Where's the ring?"

"Threw it away."

Just then, there was a sharp knock on the door from outside. It was Vivian.

"Adrian, Margaret called asking when we're going to get our marriage license."

Adrian shut his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath. "We haven't set a date for that yet. I'll figure it out."

I couldn't help but let out a cold, sharp laugh.

"You're not figuring out the license date. You're figuring out how to get me to put up with this mess a little longer."

The next morning, I dragged my suitcase out of the apartment.

Right before the elevator doors slid shut, I saw Vivian standing in the master bedroom doorway, wearing Adrian's gray coat.

"It was cold, so I just grabbed it without thinking," she said quickly, with a fake sweet smile.

Adrian's face darkened instantly. "Take it off. Don't touch her stuff ever again."

The smile slipped right off Vivian's face.

Adrian ran over to the elevator just as the doors were starting to close, slipping his own jacket over my shoulders. "It gets colder in the evenings. Don't be stupid and let your stomach act up again just because you think you're young and tough."

He still remembered my stomach issues. He still fell into that old habit of looking out for me without even thinking about it.

But while he was still going out of his way to look out for my little daily habits, he was the same guy who'd personally cleared out my place in our shared apartment for another woman.

This lopsided, half-hearted tenderness was way more suffocating than if he'd just straight-up fallen out of love with me.

I handed his coat back to him.

"Save it for your fiancée."

The elevator doors slid shut.

Right before I walked into my workplace, I spotted that plain silver band still tucked inside my bag.

Three years earlier, when Adrian slipped it onto my finger, he'd grinned and promised he'd swap it for a proper wedding ring the second I was ready.

I stared at it for two heartbeats, then dropped it straight into the lab's lost-and-found box.

The girl on duty glanced over. "You don't want it anymore?"

"Yeah," I said flatly. "It's not mine anymore."

That morning, I signed off on selling my stake in Wilderness Studio.

The four of us had built that studio from the ground up, brick by brick.

Back when they were scraping by and struggling to keep the lights on, I'd crunched the data, brought in project connections, and even put my own money into the business.

Now, the whole operation was valued at over a hundred million.

But I only took back the exact amount I'd initially invested. Not a single extra cent of the appreciation went into my pocket.

In the withdrawal reason field, I wrote just two words: Personal plans.

Lucas's call came in right away.

"You're ditching the studio just because Adrian got engaged?"

"No."

"Then what's the deal?"

My eyes drifted to the on-site assignment notice sitting on my desk.

"I won't need it where I'm going."

They all thought I was just cutting ties to make a dramatic point, lashing out over the engagement.

None of them had any idea we wouldn't cross paths again for an entire decade.