After missing my birthday for the seventh time, Robert Whitney said he wanted to make it up to me.
I waited at the mountaintop for more than three hours.
Even when the rain came down in sheets, he never showed.
His little secretary, on the other hand, posted a photo of the two of them kissing in a hotel room.
“Thank you, Mr. Whitney, for the limited-edition necklace.”
“Someone who loves you never makes you wait. The things I want, I always get right away~”
A romantic round bed, the kind meant for lovers.
The two of them, fingers laced tight, bare from the waist up.
The wedding ring on Robert's hand had vanished.
In its place, a dense scatter of kiss marks.
And the words Philippa Pruitt had written across his chest: “I love you.”
Swallowing the disgust rising in my throat, I blocked her. Deleted her.
And Malcolm Whitney along with her, wiped clean out of my world.
——
Less than five minutes after I blocked them, Robert called.
“You deleted Philippa as a friend?”
“Add her back. Now.”
“She's just a young girl, new to the workplace, doesn't know any better. She thinks she did something wrong and she's been upset about it for ages.”
“Add her back, explain yourself, apologize, and I'll let the whole thing go.”
She stole what was mine, and I was the one expected to apologize.
The corner of my mouth curled. I bit out two cold words.
“Let's divorce.”
Robert was silent for a moment.
“Are you actually angry at me over the Philippa thing?”
“How many times have I told you? Philippa and I grew up together. She's like a brother to me.”
“She's working at my company now. What's wrong with me looking out for her a little?”
“And the rain was coming down hard today, and her health isn't good. I couldn't just leave a young girl stranded out there, could I?”
The more he explained, the guiltier he sounded.
Robert seemed to have completely forgotten.
It was because my own health was poor that I gave up my future and handed the company over to him to run.
At that thought, I cut him off, impatient “I'm still up on the mountain.”
I'd waited three hours for him. Stood in the rain for one.
There was no shelter at the top, and I didn't dare risk the way down alone.
Hearing I was in danger now, Robert sounded a little anxious.
“Wait for me. I'm coming to get you.”
I waited another hour.
The rain stopped, and still Robert never came.
The mountain path was a mess of mud after the downpour.
A few steps in, I was spattered head to toe.
I sneezed several times in a row, and all at once I felt my heart sink into the mud too.
Miserable and sick to my stomach.
Once I got home, I took a hot shower.
Philippa video-called me from a new number.
“Ethel Summers, sweetie, are you mad just because Robert gave me this necklace?”
“I'll have him buy you another one right away, so you'll stop fussing over these little things, okay?”
That cloying, baby-soft tone, dripping with malice.
The necklace was a limited edition. One single piece, the first of its kind in the world.
She knew perfectly well it was the birthday gift I'd been waiting for.
And still she'd snatched it right out of my hands without a shred of shame.
My head pounded. I didn't want to deal with her.
I swallowed a few cold tablets and sank into a heavy sleep.
I hadn't been asleep long when Robert yanked the blanket off me.
“Why didn't you wait so we could come back together? Do you have any idea how long I looked for you?”
“I'm hungry. Get up and make me something to eat.”
“And boil an extra bowl of ginger soup. Philippa got caught in the rain. I'll take it over to her in a bit.”
Jolted awake, my head throbbed worse than before.
My tone came out even more impatient. “Didn't Philippa feed you enough?”
Robert shot to his feet, glaring down at me, his face full of fury.
“Ethel! Are you never going to let this go? Haven't I already explained it all to you? Running into Philippa was just a coincidence. You really have to make a scene over something this small? And here I went to all this trouble to plan a surprise for you.”
