The apartment felt empty and cold. No one would ever instinctively turn toward me in the middle of the night again, pull me into his arms, and tuck the blanket around me.
I suddenly came to my senses and remembered that Kristian was no longer here.
From the moment he chose Regina and left me, the seven-year secret relationship between us had ended in the most humiliating way possible.
I forced myself upright, but my body was weak, and my head was spinning, and I saw black spots before my eyes.
Years of high-pressure work had left me with chronic migraines. Whenever one struck, I could not get through it without painkillers.
I had no choice but to brace myself against the wall and slowly walk toward the living room to search the cabinet for the painkillers I always kept on hand.
Just as I steadied myself, the doorbell rang softly.
My heart skipped a beat. I walked to the entryway and opened the door.
On the doormat sat a brand-new box of imported painkillers and a packed thermos with warm, soothing herbal tea in it.
Two sticky notes were attached to the medicine box. I could recognize the handwriting at a glance.
I could see Kristian's bold and sharp strokes he wrote with a pen. "I know you will get a headache in the middle of the night. Remember to take your medicine on time. Do not try to tough it out."
And I could see the other one Regina wrote with small words and elegant handwriting. "Elianna, take care of yourself. We did not mean anything by this. We just feel sorry for you."
I looked down at the two notes, written in such nonchalant tones, and found the whole thing deeply ironic.
The two people I trusted most had cheated on me, and now they were pretending to care about me and trying to comfort me.
I picked everything up and hurled it outside before slamming the door shut. The click of the lock sounded painfully sharp in the silence of the night.
And my headache only got worse after that.
I could not be bothered to deal with anything outside. I went into the kitchen, turned on the stove, and cooked a simple pasta.
I carried it to the empty dining room, took my painkillers with some warm water, and mechanically shoved forkful after forkful of pasta into my mouth.
The pasta tasted utterly bland.
When I was about to take the last bite, a lump suddenly formed in my throat, and hot tears fell down without warning and landed in the porcelain plate.
I could not understand it.
Kristian and I had been together for seven years.
Things between us began when we had been business rivals, then we had secretly fallen in love and been together. We had survived countless battles in the business world, schemes from our competitors, and all kinds of crises when dealing with overseas projects. We had been to the darkest lows together and shared the joy of reaching the top.
I could not believe that everything between us after all those years could really be destroyed so easily because of someone else.
I could not understand Regina either.
She had been my best friend for more than a decade, and I had treated her like family.
When her ex-husband abused her, I flew 621 miles back to the country to help her. She had hugged me and told me she loved me the most in the world.
They had both said they loved me. Yet they had both chosen to betray me.
I did not understand what kind of love could make Kristian give up on me, whom he had loved and had been with for seven years.
I did not understand what kind of obsession could make Regina betray me without hesitation, despite everything I had done for her as her best friend for more than a decade, either.
I spent the entire night lying awake until the sky began to lighten.
The next morning, I put all my negative emotions aside, changed into a sharp business suit, and arrived at Lambert Group headquarters right on time.
There was a crucial negotiation today.
My car entered the underground parking lot in the headquarters office building. I had just parked my car, and when my eyes happened to drift toward the lounge area nearby, I froze.
Two familiar figures were standing side by side over there.
Kristian was dressed in a custom-tailored suit. He had his head slightly lowered as he patiently fixed the loose strands of hair around Regina's face.
Regina tilted her head up to look at him, her gaze soft and affectionate, and she leaned against him dependently.
They were naturally intimate, as though they had always belonged together.
I forced myself to look away and walked past them without glancing sideways at them.
Kristian noticed me too. A flicker of barely perceptible awkwardness crossed his eyes, and he instinctively let go of Regina.
He took several steps forward and stopped me. "Elianna, you should get more rest with such a bad headache. I will let you have today's project."
He was probably trying to make it up to me and ease his guilt.
After all, Kristian had been born privileged as the heir of the Reynolds family, the most powerful elite family in the world.
And I was the only person in the past twenty years who had ever taken a project away from him.
That summer, when I was eighteen years old, he had stopped me and grinned at me with that cocky, teasing smile. "Elianna, right? I remember you. You are good, but I will beat you next time."
I had smiled at him. And just like that, seven years had passed.
To keep people from getting suspicious, we had always kept our relationship a secret.
So no one knew that we had already broken up.
I looked up at him and said, my voice cold and utterly emotionless. "No need. Mr. Reynolds, one could only win in business competitions with one's ability. I have never needed anyone to give me a project out of mercy, and I certainly do not need you to step aside for me."
With that, I stopped looking at him and walked straight past him into the headquarters office building, throwing myself into business negotiations.
By the time I finished all my work, it was already noon.
Lambert Group and Reynolds Group shared the same employee cafeteria. With people coming and going all around me, I found a quiet corner by the window and sat down alone for lunch.
I looked toward Regina, who was nearby and surrounded by people, all of them asking about her relationship with Kristian.
It seemed that in just one night, everyone at Lambert Group had already learned that Kristian, the CEO of the Reynolds Group, had been with a woman, Regina, who was sweet and gentle.
I found it deeply ironic that it was not that he did not want to make his relationship public, but he simply had not loved me enough.
He loved Regina so much that he wanted everyone to know she was his girlfriend.
I was lost in thought when a figure stopped beside my table.
It was Regina.
She quietly slipped away from everyone without letting them notice her and came to me. She held out her delicately slender hand, a single piece of fruit-flavored hard candy resting in her palm.
It was my favorite when I was a child.
I stared at the candy for a moment, lost in thought.
I had grown up under my parents' strict discipline. If I failed to complete my studies or pass my tests, I was not allowed to eat or rest.
Through countless hungry days, Regina had secretly slipped over to me and thrust a piece of candy into my hand.
Later, I had told her everything I liked without holding anything back, and it had been her who had quietly told Kristian that I loved candies.
That was why, for the next seven years, Kristian always carried my favorite candy in his pocket.
Regina looked at me with guilt in her eyes and spoke softly. "Elianna, this is the candy you love. Here."
