Chapter 3

I changed clothes. The pre-engagement family dinner was being held in the villa just down the street from my house.

Standing at the door, I pulled open the foyer closet—empty. The little bunny slippers were gone.

I searched upstairs and downstairs, then finally stepped outside. The rain had just stopped, water still dripping off the eaves. The lid of the black trash bin on the porch had been blown half open by the wind. I looked down—and there they were, my little bunny slippers, lying quietly inside.

Next to them was a transparent cleaning bag: water cups, toothbrushes, towels, pajamas... All my stuff, neatly folded, yet they were dumped here as trash.

“Miss Serena, Don threw all of these out. Please use the slippers we arranged,” the housekeeper reminded me softly.

I stared at the trash bin, listening to my own heartbeat pounding in my ears, one heavy thud after another.

He had so many villas around the city, but he specifically picked this one—the only place where the two of us had ever left traces of a daily life together.

I came over almost every day, sometimes stayed the night. He’d prepared a bedroom just for me, even picked out a whole matching set of little bunny slippers because he knew I loved them. He’d laughed as he said, “This place is your home too. Don’t be so polite.”

We’d hidden things from both sides of parents, hugging at the door, holding hands under the dinner table, whispering in the study late at night.

And now, Amelie was back.

To keep the girl he’d always had a crush on from misunderstanding, he cleared out every last trace of me, right down to my slippers—one item after another, clean and efficient, straight into the trash.

It took me a long time to steady myself. Only then did I slide on the shoe covers and step inside.

The moment I walked into the living room, I saw him peeling fruit for Amelie. The two of them were laughing and chatting away.

He wore a custom satin suit, hair carefully styled, a light cologne wrapping around him, amplifying that scholarly, ascetic, yet dangerous aura of his to the extreme.

Back in school, plenty of girls said he was so good-looking he’d still be handsome even in a potato sack. If he ever actually dressed up, all the boyband idols on TV would have to move aside. But he’d always been naturally careless, loving simple T-shirts and shirts, never bothering to dress up for anyone.

Turns out, in front of the person he liked, he would put in the effort to please.

The man who had been tangled up with me in bed just last night, today looked right past me like I was a stranger. After the faintest glance, he shifted his eyes away, giving all of his attention to her. From hobbies to the weather, from work to jewelry, from childhood stories to high school days—he talked and talked, trying his best to keep the conversation flowing.

Watching him rack his brains for topics, talking so animatedly, I dropped my gaze and gave a small, self-mocking smile. So this was him, too—so proactive, so eager—when it came to the person he actually loved.

“It was pretty crazy back in high school,” Amelie said with a laugh, recalling the past. “You were a year above me, we weren’t even in the same building, but we kept running into each other on campus. It really felt like fate.”

I saw the tips of his ears flush red, and he couldn’t help but smile again. Fate? Those “coincidences” had all been carefully staged by him.

Back then I’d followed behind him, watching him use every bit of his cleverness for the girl he liked. My heart ached so badly it felt like it might split open.

Later, when she went off to Italy for college, I thought it was finally my turn to get what I’d always wanted. Looking back now, he was the one who finally got what he’d always wanted.

Lost in thought, I suddenly heard my own name.

“I heard back in high school you had a close friend. That should be Miss Serena, right?” she lifted her eyes to look at me, asking gently.