He Left Me To Die, I Married The Tycoon

Chapter 3

The rain started falling on my way home from work the next evening.

When I rushed back to the apartment, the elevator doors had barely opened when I ran into several workers bustling around.

I assumed the movers the real estate agent had hired had arrived early.

But when I pushed open the door, the person standing inside was Cecilia.

She was standing in the middle of the living room, wearing my slippers.

Beside her, a designer was holding a set of blueprints, directing the workers as they tore down the TV wall.

Broken pieces of wood were scattered across the floor. The wool rug I'd crocheted by hand had been rolled into a bundle and tossed by the door.

The framed picture Nathan and I had stayed up three nights putting together had a long c***k across the glass. The photo had fallen out and was lying beside a garbage bag.

In the picture, 26-year-old Nathan wasn't wearing an expensive suit like he did now.

He had one arm around me, his eyes full of ambition and light.

He'd told me that once he had money, he'd turn this apartment into our home.

Now, that home was being torn apart piece by piece.

Cecilia turned when she heard me and gave me an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry, Miss Parker. Nathan said this place is going to be our marital home, and we're short on time, so I had the workers come in first. Those cheap things you had before weren't exactly presentable, so I had them put away for you."

By "put away," she meant beside the trash cans downstairs.

I walked past her and headed straight for the bedroom.

The closet doors were wide open, my clothes stuffed into black garbage bags.

Half the things on my desk were gone. The project drafts I'd accumulated over the past six years had disappeared.

All that remained on the floor was the pull tab from a can of cat food.

I spun around.

"Where's Snowball?"

Cecilia paused slightly, as though she'd only just remembered the little detail.

"Oh, the cat?"

She glanced down at her skirt, her voice still soft and gentle.

"I'm allergic to animal fur. Nathan had him put out in the hallway."

The room went silent for a moment.

Rain poured in through the window that hadn't been properly closed, drenching everything in an instant.

I rushed outside.

Snowball was nowhere in the hallway.

There was only an open window and a few cardboard boxes soaked through by the wind and rain.

"Snowball!"

I ran down the stairs.

Rainwater streamed in through the hallway windows, making the steps slick. I nearly fell, catching myself against the rough wall. The skin of my palm burned from the scrape.

Beside the trash cans on the first floor, I finally found Snowball curled up behind a broken cardboard box.

His fur was completely soaked.

When he heard my voice, he struggled to lift his head and let out a tiny whimper.

I dropped to my knees in the rain and pulled him into my arms.

He was so light, like a bundle of cotton about to come apart.

His paws were ice-cold against my wrist.

Nathan came running downstairs behind me.

When he saw me drenched from head to toe, his brows furrowed.

"Are you seriously making this big a deal over a cat? It's just a stray. If it's gone, it's gone. I'll spend a few thousand dollars tomorrow and get you a purebred Ragdoll. Happy now?"

I tightened my arms around Snowball and slowly looked up at him.

Rainwater ran down my eyelashes, blurring the face of the man standing before me.

Six years ago, when he'd pulled this tiny kitten out from underneath a car, his shirt had been torn in several places by its claws.

He'd laughed and said, "It's just like us. Even if nobody wants it, it can still survive."

Back then, the "us" in his words had included both of us.

Now, it had long since become just me.

Cecilia stood at the entrance, with a bodyguard holding an umbrella over her.

She didn't come any closer. She only said softly,

"Nathan, don't let Miss Parker get soaked. She still has to attend tomorrow night's gala."

Nathan immediately turned toward her, lowering his voice.

"You go upstairs first. Don't catch a chill."

The same rain.

He worried about Cecilia getting cold. He worried about her dress getting wet.

Yet he thought I was being ridiculous for refusing to let go of the cat I'd raised for six years.

"Don't worry. Even though this place is going to be our new home, you can stay here until you find somewhere else to live."

I looked down at Snowball and said quietly,

"No need. And Ragdolls are too expensive. Someone like me doesn't deserve to have one."

Nathan's expression darkened.

"Elodie, don't be sarcastic."

I didn't look at him again.

I simply walked into the rain.

When I called my best friend, Claire, she didn't ask a single question.

She drove over and took Snowball and me to the animal hospital.

The lights inside were painfully bright.

When the vet carried Snowball into the emergency room, he still had one paw hooked around my sleeve and refused to let go.

I sat on a chair in the hallway, my phone screen so wet that it wouldn't respond to my touch.

A message from Nathan appeared.

Nathan: Come back when you're done throwing a tantrum. Don't be late for tomorrow night's gala.

I wiped the screen dry and booked a one-way ticket out of the city for the day of his wedding.

Then I moved Snowball to a pet boarding facility recommended by Claire and paid for round-the-clock care.

Before I left, he was lying inside a temperature-controlled incubator, watching me through the glass with those damp, watery eyes.

I pressed my palm against the glass and whispered,

"Once I'm settled, I'll come back for you."

That night, I didn't return to the apartment.

I stood beneath the awning outside the pet shop and removed Nathan's number from my pinned contacts.

The city's neon lights reflected in the puddles, only to be crushed beneath passing tires and scattered into the darkness, piece by piece.