Timothee had been trying to recruit me into his company for a long time.
He promised to make me a senior executive the moment I joined, but I always smiled and politely turned him down.
Because right after I graduated from college, Stephanie had wrapped her arms around me and begged.
“Liam, come work at Myers’s, okay?”
“You’re so talented. If you’re by my side, my dad will feel confident handing the business over to me. And we’ll get to see each other every day again.”
“Besides, once we’re married, you’ll be part of the Myers family. In the end, the company will be yours too.”
I was swayed by the beautiful future she painted.
Even though Timothee tried to poach me three or four times, I refused.
I truly believed Stephanie and I would get married without a hitch.
That we’d live the life we had planned so carefully.
That she would enjoy a smooth, happy life, by my side.
But I hadn’t realized she had already started to rot on the inside.
Behind my back, she had climbed into another man’s bed and forced me to surrender the years of my hard work.
Timothee dragged me to a bar to get drunk.
“Cheers, brother. Quit that job and come work with me,” he said, raising his glass.
“Follow Stephanie and you’ll get scraps. Follow me and we’ll feast like kings.”
I drank until I was hugging the toilet, vomiting miserably.
As I fumbled around for a tissue, a handkerchief was quietly handed to me.
“You drank so much. Aren’t you afraid it’ll make your stomach worse?”
Startled, I looked up.
It was Katie Zetta—my senior from university.
Even Stephanie never knew I had stomach problems.
But somehow, she did.
I gave her a weak nod of acknowledgment, but Katie walked over to our booth and sat down confidently, as if she belonged there.
I was stunned.
Timothee slung his arm around my shoulders and grinned.
“She’s great, right? I found you a blind date.”
“She’s had a thing for you for years and she’s way better looking than Stephanie. Why not ditch that scum and give her a shot?”
I laughed bitterly.
Then suddenly, my phone rang.
It was Stephanie.
She still refused to approve my resignation.
“Liam, I’m really busy right now. If I let you go, how am I supposed to explain it to my parents? Just drop it.”
“If you’re tired, take a few days off…”
I calmly cut her off.
“Stephanie, let’s break up.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then, just as she was about to speak, I heard a soft, whiny voice in the background:
“Steph… it hurts. Come help me rub it…”
“I’m coming…”
Stephanie hurriedly hung up the call, not forgetting to toss out one last lie.
“It’s a staff issue. I’ll explain later.”
What she didn’t know was that I had just seen Dean’s updated social feed.
He had posted a photo of himself lying in a hospital bed, claiming he had been “overexerted”, shamelessly flaunting just how much Stephanie pampered him.
I asked a few former coworkers if they could see the post.
They sent me screenshots, blank.
That’s when I realized, he had set it to be visible only to me.
He wanted to show off, directly to me.
I sneered and deleted it.
I didn’t need explanations anymore.
I agreed to Timothee’s suggestion and decided to give the blind date with Katie a chance.
And things started moving in the right direction.
Back in college, I had thought Katie was distant and aloof.
But once I got to know her, I realized she was just shy, quick to blush, but incredibly thoughtful.
She understood me in ways Stephanie never had.
Half a month later, we were officially dating.
Then one day, Stephanie called me using a different number. Her voice sounded anxious.
“Liam, don’t you still want to leave the company?”
“If you just help me with one last thing, I’ll let you go.”
