Lastly, I took the faded bunny keychain he’d given me when we first started dating—a cheap trinket from a street stall, three for ten yuan. Yet he’d said with complete seriousness, “From now on, you’ll keep all my keys.” I gave a self-deprecating smile and tossed it in.
“What are you doing?”
Daniel’s voice came from the doorway, laced with a perfume scent that wasn’t mine.
He saw how much emptier the apartment looked and immediately frowned. “Why are you throwing away perfectly good things?”
I didn’t look back, continuing to remove his suit jackets from the hangers. “These are useless now.”
“How are they useless?” He strode over and grabbed my wrist with a firm grip. “Are you sulking again? I told you I’ve been busy with the company—don’t—”
I yanked my hand free.
He froze, then let out a derisive laugh. “What’s got into you now? Just because of that delivery suite today? Didn’t I explain? Sophie might be connected to the Whitmore family!”
He pulled up a photo on his phone—a shot of Sophie Lane with a middle-aged man. “See? This is Henry Collins, an executive at Whitmore Group Subsidiary. Sophie’s very close to him.”
Every “Sophie” rolled off his tongue with an intimacy he didn’t even seem to notice.
I looked at Sophie’s smiling face in the photo and almost laughed. Henry Collins had toasted my father at his birthday banquet five years ago.
Daniel rubbed his hands together, his tone eager. “As long as we keep Sophie happy and she puts in a good word for us with the Whitmores, the company could secure their investment. I might even take over the Whitmore Group one day. I know I can’t give you the title of Mrs. Reed then, but I promise I’ll make time for you.”
I looked up at him, my throat tight. “Daniel, do you have any idea who’s helped your company get to where it is today?”
He paused, then softened his voice, taking my hand. “Claire, just bear with it a little longer. Once I’m in with the Whitmores, I’ll buy you whatever you want—better than anything that corner-shop dad of yours could give you.”
My fingers went cold.
A corner-shop dad? That was the story I’d made up so he wouldn’t feel pressured. In reality, my father was at the Whitmore Group headquarters right now, reviewing Daniel’s project proposal—the one whose every data point I had stayed up late to verify.