He Faked Being Broke to Win Me Back,I'm Already His Rival's Wife

It had been five years since Harrison Gilbert cheated on me and I quietly walked away. We ran into each other outside an office building.

I was there to discuss a partnership. He was placing a package into a delivery locker.

I froze for a moment. When I turned to leave, he caught my sleeve.

"Sibyl Pruitt, I'm sorry. I lied to you. The way I treated you back then, it wasn't because I loved Gloria Cobb. It was because I was going bankrupt."

"I couldn't stand the thought of the woman I loved seeing me at rock bottom. I didn't want you suffering alongside me."

He looked up, eyes brimming with tears.

"All these years, I never stopped loving you."

Looking at how fragile he seemed, I thought to myself: If only that were true.

What he didn't know was that this wasn't the first time we'd crossed paths again.

Three days earlier, I'd been entertaining a client at the finest restaurant in Stoneridge.

Walking past one of the private dining rooms, I happened to catch the laughter spilling through the door.

"I heard Sibyl's back in the country. You're really going after her again?" someone asked.

Harrison Gilbert swirled the wine in his glass. "I've had my fun. It's time to settle down, start a family. The more I think about it, the more I realize Sibyl's the one who'd make the best wife."

"But after what you did to her, you think she'll forgive you?"

"That's where I'll need your help. But I'm not worried. Sibyl's always been a softie at heart."

——

Now, looking at the anxious, groveling expression on Harrison's face, I drew a deep breath.

Maybe it was because I'd just stepped out of the warm office, and my body hadn't adjusted to the cold yet. I could only clench my fists tighter inside my coat pockets.

I glanced toward the restaurant down the street, then turned to him. "Let me buy you dinner."

His face lit up, but then he shook his head, the excitement giving way to disappointment.

"I still have a few more deliveries. If I'm late, they dock my pay."

"Could you give me your new number? Once I'm done, I'll reach out."

He held out his phone to me with an eager, ingratiating look.

The phone was a model discontinued years ago. Scratched screen. Bulky case.

I punched in my number quickly.

He took the phone back with both hands, careful and reverent, as though he'd just recovered something priceless.

"Sibyl, I'll call you as soon as I'm done." His voice carried a lightness he couldn't quite hide.

I smiled, thin and mocking, then drove the signed contract back to the office.

Outside the car window, the streets looked the same as they always had.

Five years, and nothing had changed. The city hadn't. The people hadn't.

Harrison Gilbert was still the same arrogant, self-entitled man he'd always been, convinced that whatever he wanted would eventually be his.

Once, his parents had looked down on me for being an orphan and pressured us to break up. He'd moved out of his family's house without a second thought, cramming into a two-hundred-square-foot rental with me, and stayed until I'd proven myself enough to earn their approval.

Then he got bored. Our steady, quiet love wasn't enough for him anymore, and he started chasing thrills elsewhere. He let Gloria Cobb provoke me again and again, until every last shred of hope in me was dead and I crawled out of that relationship with nothing left.

Now he wanted to come back, and he assumed I'd still be standing right where he left me.

Fifteen years of knowing each other. Eight years together. I'd been ready to accept my losses and move on. But he just had to try dragging me back into the mud.

Harrison, since you started this game, I don't mind playing along.

The chime of my phone cut through my thoughts. An unfamiliar number flashed across the screen.

I hit answer. Harrison's voice came through the speaker.

"Sibyl, I'm all done. Are you still living at the old place? I'll head over right now."

"There's so much I want to tell you—"

"I sold that apartment a long time ago."

The rambling on the other end stopped dead.