My Fiancé Taught Me How To Cut My Losses

Chapter 3

The 5th Anniversary Listener Meetup was held at a brewery and broadcast live. The room was packed.

Before it started, Tessa stopped me backstage.

She held out her phone. My anonymous letter was open on the screen.

"Quinn, I recognized it last night. Don't worry, I won't tell Ethan. Imagine how humiliating it would be if he found out you'd turned your private life into an anonymous letter and made him analyze himself in front of all his listeners."

She lowered her voice, but her smile only deepened.

"But Ethan was right. If a man truly loves you, he doesn't leave you in the hospital to keep someone else company. You didn't even have the nerve to ask him these things to his face. All you could do was send an anonymous letter to the show."

She leaned close to my ear.

"You stayed with him for 7 years, and he still couldn't tell how hurt you were. Quinn, don't you feel pathetic?"

I closed my eyes for a second, then reached for the phone.

She lifted it out of reach and leaned backward.

I grabbed her wrist, trying to take the phone from her.

Her foot caught on a prop case, and she fell backward onto the floor.

The phone flew from her hand and landed by my feet.

Staff members heard the commotion and began gathering around us.

Tessa's eyes reddened as tears spilled down her cheeks.

"Tessa was just trying to reason with her. How could she shove her?"

"Tessa was trying to help. If she didn't want to listen, fine, but why attack her?"

"Her fiancé and the producer are just coworkers. What's she making a scene about?"

"Being Ethan's fiancée doesn't give her the right to bully people backstage."

Tessa shook her head quickly, crying as she tried to explain.

"That's not what happened. Quinn didn't mean it. She's just been under a lot of pressure lately, and she's misunderstood a few things about me."

The more she defended me, the colder the looks around me became.

"She shoved Tessa to the floor, and we're supposed to believe it wasn't deliberate?"

"Tessa is the one who got pushed, and she's still defending her."

"It's the show's fifth anniversary today, and someone still had to ruin it."

Ethan hurried over.

The moment he saw Tessa sitting on the floor with red eyes, he shielded her behind him.

"Quinn, have you lost your mind?"

I had barely opened my mouth before he cut me off coldly.

"Whatever she said, that didn't give you the right to lay a hand on her. Apologize."

Tessa, her eyes red-rimmed, caught hold of his sleeve.

"I'm fine. Quinn just cares too much about you."

Ethan looked at me without a trace of warmth, as if I were a stranger.

"If you can't even control your emotions, we're postponing the wedding."

I opened my mouth, then stopped.

'Forget it. Nothing I said would make him believe me anyway.'

Once the meetup began, Tessa took her place at the host's table, her eyes still red.

During the listener Q&A, she suddenly took off her headphones.

"Today is my last time hosting this show."

With tears in her eyes, she bowed to the audience.

"For the past 5 years, Ethan and I have been nothing more than professional partners. But if our partnership is hurting his relationship with his fiancée, I'm willing to leave."

Someone in the front row suddenly stood up.

"Tessa, why aren't you telling the truth? I saw Ethan's fiancée shove you backstage."

Another listener immediately called out.

"Are you leaving the show because of her too?"

The room went silent.

Tessa hurriedly shook her head.

"No. Don't make things up. Leaving is my own decision. It has nothing to do with Quinn."

A wave of murmurs swept through the room, and phones rose into the air.

Within minutes, hashtags about it were trending across social media.

#QuinnShovedTessaandForcedHerOut

#QuinnApologizeNow

#DoesSheEvenDeservetoGetMarried

Ethan took the microphone from Tessa.

"Tessa isn't leaving the show. She's poured 5 years into it. She hasn't done anything wrong, and she shouldn't have to give up her career because someone else decided to make a scene."

Each word stabbed straight through me.

Everyone there was tearing me apart, while the fiancé I'd loved for 7 years stood in front of them all and defended another woman.

I slowly loosened my grip on my skirt, stood up, and walked out of the venue.

I immediately changed my flight, which had originally been scheduled for 3 days later, to an earlier departure.