Connor's car was already waiting at the curb when I walked out of the estate gates.
He was leaning against the door, a scatter of cigarette butts at his feet.
The moment he saw me dragging my suitcase out, he crushed the cigarette and crossed the distance in a few long strides to take the handle from me.
“You're sure about this?”
His eyes searched mine, something complicated moving behind them.
“Yeah.”
I turned back one last time to look at the gilded cage that had held me for five years.
“Let's go.”
The engine started, and the car slid into the curtain of rain.
I watched the scenery fall away through the window, and the tears I'd been holding back finally came.
Goodbye, Gavin.
Goodbye to five ridiculous, wasted years I'll never get back.
Gavin didn't realize Eudora was gone until three days later.
For those three days he'd stayed away on purpose, sleeping at the apartment near the office, waiting for her to give in.
That was how it always went. After every fight, she'd show up within a day with a pot of freshly made soup, voice soft, apology ready.
But this time, three full days passed. His phone stayed silent. Not a single message. Not a single call.
“President Delgado, here's the quarterly financial report……”
The new assistant placed the file on his desk with trembling hands.
“Where's Eudora Henson? Tell her to come see me.”
Gavin yanked at his tie, irritated. The coffee never tasted right when someone else made it, and nobody sorted his files the way she did.
The assistant froze for a second, then said carefully：
“President Delgado, Secretary Henson……she hasn't come in for three days now. HR said they received an email. It was her resignation letter……”
“Resignation?”
Gavin was so furious he laughed.
“She's really gotten addicted to the act.”
He picked up his phone and dialed Eudora's number.
“The number you have dialed is currently powered off.”
The mechanical female voice only stoked his anger higher.
“Find her! I don't care what hole she's hiding in, find her!”
Gavin didn't believe Eudora actually had the nerve to leave.
She couldn't survive without him. Not without his money. Not without him.
That night, Gavin went back to Hillside Manor.
The house was pitch black. No soft yellow lamp left on the way it always was.
The faint jasmine scent that used to linger in the air had faded too, replaced by nothing but cold, dead silence.
“Eudora?”
He called out once. No one answered.
He pushed open the master bedroom door on the second floor and flicked on the light.
The room was immaculate, as if no one had ever lived there.
In the walk-in closet, half of Eudora's clothes were gone. What remained were the seasonal pieces he'd tossed her way over the years, tags still attached, never worn.
The vanity was bare. The only thing sitting on it was a car key.
Something unnamed and panicked began to rise inside him.
He strode to the study, and his gaze landed immediately on the two documents lying on the desk.
A resignation letter. A breakup agreement.
The handwriting was neat and graceful, but every stroke cut with finality.
“Gavin—we're even.”
He stared at those words, then crushed the paper into a ball and hurled it at the floor.
“Eudora Henson, you've really outdone yourself!”
He'd thought she was throwing a tantrum. He never imagined she'd been planning to leave all along.
“We're even? You slept with me for five years and you think you can just walk away? Keep dreaming!”
Gavin snatched up his phone and made several calls.
“Shut down every exit route. Pull Eudora Henson's ID usage records. Tear this city apart if you have to, but find her!”
The first month after Eudora left.
Gavin couldn't sleep.
Without that familiar trace of jasmine, he tossed and turned all night, barely managing to doze off at dawn.
His temper grew worse by the day, and everyone at the company walked on eggshells.
Lauren tried to stay the night several times, but he turned her away every time with the same excuse: “I'm used to sleeping alone.”
