There was a tradition in the village: if you weren't married by thirty, the elder would arrange for you to come back and meet potential matches.
When I told Felicity Pruitt about it, she let out a cold laugh.
“What is your village, some kind of medieval cult?”
“Ashton Whitfield, I told you I'd marry you and I will. But pressuring me into it is a whole different thing.”
She pulled out the ring and handed it to her assistant without a second glance.
He took it, his face flushing red.
“I was going to propose. But since that's how you feel, let's take some time to cool off.”
The ring I'd waited years to give her, and she'd tossed it to someone else like it was nothing.
For a moment, I just stood there, blank.
Felicity swept out of my office, the corner of her mouth curled in a triumphant little smile.
Julian held the ring out to me.
I didn't take it.
“Keep it. She bought it for you anyway, didn't she?”
“Go ahead and wear it. Looks like it fits.”
The color drained from his face.
I showed him out.
Before closing the door, I said：“Tell your Ms. Pruitt that she and I are done.”
——
That evening, Felicity came home from work to find me packing.
She spotted the two large suitcases in front of me and her steps faltered.
“Why'd you come back without waiting for me today?”
There it was again.
She always had that ability to flip the page on her own, as if nothing had happened.
And I was supposed to take the exit she offered and step right down.
Pretend everything was fine. Play the devoted couple again.
But I was done pretending.
“Didn't your little assistant pass along my message?”
Her brows pinched together instantly, like I'd struck a nerve.
“I'm trying to talk to you like a normal person, and you have to be passive-aggressive about it?”
“Julian's practically your little brother. You're the one who brought him in. What's with the attitude now?”
She wasn't wrong.
Julian Simmons had come to the company because I'd invited him.
He was from the same village as me, and Elder Harmon had always told us to look out for each other when we were away from home.
So when Julian graduated college and couldn't land a job,
I brought him into our company myself.
He was eager and obedient, and I was happy to mentor him.
Until I noticed the way he looked at Felicity. The lingering, the softness in his eyes growing harder to miss.
I recognized that look.
Felicity had been the center of attention back in college,
and I'd seen countless guys look at her the same way.
But her gaze had never landed on any of them, not even for a second.
So I wrote it off as a young man's crush and let it go.
But his mistakes at work started piling up,
and one day I called him out on it. Nothing harsh, just a few words.
He didn't talk back. Just stood there taking it, eyes rimmed red.
Felicity, though, wasn't having it.
She tore into me in front of the entire company for the first time.
“He's just a kid. A few words would've been enough, don't you think?”
“He's basically your little brother. What are you doing, pulling rank on him like some big boss?”
I was so furious I laughed, but I didn't back down.
“Do you have any idea how many people had to clean up his messes? How much extra work his screw-ups cost this team?”
She waved me off with a flick of her hand, unconcerned.
“Fine. Then Julian can be my personal assistant from now on.”
She looked around at the coworkers watching the spectacle.
“Anyone else has a problem, bring it to me directly. Stop talking behind people's backs.”
“If you can do the job, stay. If you can't, get out.”
She marched off ahead, long strides, like she'd just won a war.
Julian followed close behind her, and even from the back you could see the worship in his posture.
……
I looked up. Felicity was standing over me, staring down.
At some point I couldn't quite pin down, everything she said to me had stopped being about the issue at hand and started being about winning.
It always had to be about winning.
She wasn't the same woman who'd once looked at me in that tiny rented apartment and said：“You're the only person I'll ever lose to.”
