Page 67 of Falling for the Wrong Billionaire
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I can’t shake it.
I try to. I do everything I can to forget the way her eyes met mine when she told me about Theo. Her fiancé.
Fiancé.
The word rings in my head like a drumbeat I can’t silence. It doesn’t make sense. It feels like I’m trapped in a dream — some nightmare where everything is wrong, and I’m the last one to wake up.
When she didn’t say anything before she left, before she shut me out, it hit me harder than I could’ve imagined. I thought I was just another person to her, a distraction — someone whodidn’t matter. But the silence… the silence has eaten at me for days now.
I can’t stop thinking about her. Her face, the way her eyes shimmered with a coldness I hadn’t seen before. The way she shut herself off completely the moment Theo walked into the picture. My heart breaks every time I think of it.
Maybe I meant nothing to her. I think that every time my phone buzzes, hoping for a message that will never come. The silence is louder than anything she could’ve said.
She’s gone. And I’m still here.
Stuck.
I can’t focus on anything at work. I’m trying to, but my thoughts keep drifting back to her — to Lucy. To that damn fiancé of hers.
I keep asking myself the same question: Why? Why didn’t she tell me before? Why the lies? Why the distance?
I close my eyes, rubbing my temples, willing the headache to go away. I can’t get over this. I don’t know how to. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face, the way it looked when she said fiancé.
It’s like everything I thought I knew about her, everything I thought we had, is just a lie.
A soft knock on the door snaps me out of my thoughts.
“Liam?” Nate’s voice filters through, concerned.
“Come in,” I mutter, not looking up from my desk.
I hear the door open and close, the sound of footsteps, and then Nate’s voice again, quieter, like he knows better than to push right now.
“Bryan’s here too,” he says gently, his voice more familiar now. “We figured you could use some company.”
I don’t say anything at first. I can’t. My throat’s too tight, and the lump that’s been in my chest for the past few days feels like it might crack me in two.
I wave them in, but I don’t lift my head.
I hear the chair scrape against the floor as Bryan sits next to me, and Nate takes the seat beside him. I can’t even look at them. I can’t bring myself to. They know. They know what happened.
“Liam, listen,” Nate starts, but I shake my head, cutting him off.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I mutter. My voice sounds foreign to me, rough, tired. “I don’t want to talk about her. Or him. Or anything that’s happened.”
“You don’t have to,” Bryan says softly, his voice always calm, always understanding. “But you should. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
I feel the weight of his words sink in. They’re right. I’ve been shutting myself off, trying to bury everything beneath the surface. But it’s not working.
Leaning back in my chair, my hands grip the arms, and I finally let out a breath.
“I thought it was different this time,” I admit quietly. “I thought… I don’t know. I thought maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t like the rest of them.”
I can hear the sympathy in their silence, but I don’t look at them. I can’t.
“She left, Nate. She didn’t even have the decency to explain. She just… disappeared. After everything we shared, everything I thought we had… she didn’t think to tell me the truth.” I let out a frustrated sigh, my fist slamming onto the desk. “It’s like she used me, made me believe in something real, and then just tossed me aside when the real thing showed up.”
