"A man should know his place, you know. Some things just can't be forced. Don't you agree?"
"If I were you, I'd hand my shares back to the company on my own. Save myself the trouble—"
I cut him off before he could finish, my voice flat. "Does breaking up someone else's relationship make you feel like a winner?"
"Did you forget how you fawned all over me when you first joined the company?"
"Has anyone ever told you that this smug little man-who-got-lucky face of yours is genuinely sickening?"
My words wiped the look clean off Richard's face. It went dark in an instant.
Something vicious flickered through his eyes. He raised his glass with that smile that wasn't a smile and said, "Whatever you want to call it, I won."
"Winner takes all. I can't be bothered to argue with you."
"When Prudence and I get married, you have to come. If you're not there at our wedding, I think it'll feel like something's missing."
Even an idiot could hear the taunt and the sneer underneath.
I watched him through narrowed eyes and said evenly, "Sure. I'll make sure I have a big wedding gift ready for the two of you. I promise it'll make you scream."
Richard let out a cold snort. "Then I'll be looking forward to it."
The words were barely out before he pretended to lose his footing, stumbling so the glass in his hand tipped and the wine poured straight over my head.
Half the people at the gala gasped before they could stop themselves.
Richard's voice dripped with mockery. "Oh, sorry about that—lost my balance for a second!"
"Such a waste of good wine."
I forced down the urge to beat him into the floor. With his contemptuous, sneering eyes still on me, I looked toward Prudence, standing a little way off.
She was ignoring our corner entirely, laughing and clinking glasses with the company's executives and a few business partners.
In that moment, I felt a deep doubt about the man I used to be.
Had I lost my mind back then?
How had I ever fallen for someone like this?
I didn't bother getting tangled up with Richard.
I'd come out of it the loser, but in the end I held back from tearing him apart.
After all, Prudence had made it plain enough how differently she treated Richard and me. If the two of us came to blows at the gala, the one she'd side with would never be me.
When I walked out of the company gala, soaked and a mess, Prudence didn't so much as glance at me.
This was the woman I'd once loved with everything I had.
Love is blind. There's not a word of a lie in that.
Who was there to blame?
Only myself, for being too blind to see it back then.
Back at the apartment, I threw out every one of Prudence's personal belongings.
Especially those clumsy, earnest love letters I'd written her years ago. I'd kept them like treasures all this time. Now I tore them to pieces and dropped them in the trash.
This stuff belonged in the garbage, same as that vicious woman herself.
I'd thought that after Prudence's betrayal I'd cry until I couldn't breathe.
After all, I'd always been the sentimental type. Once I was with her, there was a time I treated her as the anchor of my whole life.
She used to look at me with such tenderness and swear she'd be true to me until death.
I used to picture the two of us walking up the aisle, picture the happy life we'd have together.
More than once I'd told her that if she were gone from my life, I wouldn't know how to go on living.
And yet, when that day actually came, I didn't shed a single tear.
