"Vincent has hurt and humiliated you, Lily, just as Stacy has done to me. Isn't it only fair we make them pay?"
I was more bitter than vengeful because, deep down, I was tired.
Tired of the relationship, tired of having to swallow my jealousy when Vincent let women rub themselves against him with playful touches.
And tired of pretending I was fine after what happened months ago.
But I was also curious.
"How do you propose we do that?"
"Marry me."
My eyes widened. I was sure I misheard him.
But then he repeated those two words as casually as you would talk about the weather.
Like a true businessman, Sebastian responded to my silence by explaining why it would be mutually beneficial for us to get married.
It all sounded so logical when he said it, yet I couldn't say yes.
Unlike him and Stacy, I actually loved Vincent, and marrying just to get back at him felt too much too soon.
He left me with his number on a piece of paper that I immediately tossed into the glove compartment to be forgotten.
Then I drove back home.
The house was hauntingly silent as I began packing everything important into a suitcase.
The smell of Vincent cologne still lingered in the air. The sheets were rumpled from last night, his tie drawer was wide open after him getting dressed a mere three hours ago.
It was all a glaring reminder of how suddenly my life had fallen apart. Or maybe it had been falling apart, but I was too busy trying to convince him that I would one day be the perfect wife while running the company to notice.
Packing away our photo albums, I paused to flip through them, and it led to me curled up on our bedroom floor, crying over our memories.
He had been there after my parents died, helping me pick up the pieces and even offering to assist me in running the company they had left behind.
We had something good. We were the envy of our friends because it was so picture-perfect, and he ruined it.
For real love or a chance to build a relationship with Stacy's father, I could not tell.
I snapped the book closed and tossed it into the trash can. My eyes fell on my hand as it hovered over the garbage, and they narrowed on the ring on my finger.
It was a plastic ring Vincent had won from a vending machine four years ago. He proposed to me with it, and still high off the excitement of our date, I had immediately said yes.