Chapter 3
"Babe, I've got something to take care of. I'll be back," Brayden said.
He got up and pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead.
"Get some rest, okay?" Brayden said.
The door closed behind him.
I lowered my head.
Emma had posted on the burner account.
Emma: [If I'd met you first, you should've married me.
[She isn't the only one who could've gotten through the hard years with you.]
The photo showed a floor littered with empty bottles.
The comments were full of question marks.
Emma replied: [He said he owed her, so he married that Little Miss Innocent.]
[No way. All she did was deliver food and stick around while he was broke. Little Miss Innocent types always have an angle. How could she not know B would bounce back?]
[Right. She could've made money streaming, but she picked the hardest job so B would feel sorry for her and stay guilty.]
[At least B only spends his money on Emma.]
Emma: [Yes. He said the money goes to me and the love goes to her.]
My hands were shaking hard.
My phone pushed an alert from an account I had notifications enabled for.
Emma's main account had posted a new video.
It was a photo of the two of them kissing.
Brayden had been edited out.
Emma's eyes were red at the corners, and she'd closed them and kissed him deeply.
His arms had her slim waist locked against him, and the veins stood out on the back of his hand.
There was more between them than either of them had time to say.
There was a caption under it.
Emma: [After sunrise, we'll be strangers.]
The comments section exploded.
Her fans couldn't make sense of it because B would've given his life for her, only to walk away.
When they learned B had fallen for someone else, the fans turned furious.
[Men are all garbage.]
[I really want to know who that Little Miss Innocent is.]
Across a whole screen of comments, I'd become the homewrecker.
They accused me of stealing Emma's happiness and pulling B away from her.
But nobody knew that Emma was the one who'd come along later.
[Seriously? Does that homewrecker deserve him? The diamond on her hand is plastic. Does she think B's money makes her somebody?]
Emma replied: Emma: [B doesn't plan to spend a cent on her. That's his way of making it up to me.]
[If he won't spend money on her, doesn't that mean he doesn't love her? Then why marry the homewrecker at all?]
[The homewrecker helped him when he was at his lowest, so he feels like he owes her.]
I couldn't make myself read any further.
In their eyes, I'd turned into the scheming woman everyone wanted to see punished.
I was the villain of some novel who cashed in a favor to tear the real couple apart.
My hands were shaking as I lifted them up.
I looked at the calluses that years of sun, wind, and delivery runs had left on them.
And then there were my knees, swollen and red across both caps.
I poured the chicken noodle soup into the drain outside the door.
On Emma's account, two figures leaned into each other one last time at the top of a skyscraper.
The bowl slipped out of my hand.
The shards sliced my finger.
The wind hit the cut and turned it to fire.
And in a suite that ran 300 thousand dollars a night, my fiancé held another woman one last time before letting her go.
I went through Brayden's old laptop.
I'd never gone through his things before.
I'd never understood anything about computers either.
So his laptop didn't have a password.
That was how I found out the freelance jobs were fake.
He rarely touched the laptop unless I was home.
The only history on it was a chat thread with his friends.
His friend asked: [Brayden, are you really going to keep this from Lucy? If she ever finds out, she'll hate you for life.]
Brayden: [She won't. Back when we couldn't afford food, she gave up a fully funded PhD spot to stay broke with me. Being the other woman is nothing next to that.]
Friend: [Man, nobody knows Lucy as you do.]
I dropped to the floor with a thud.
The cut on my knee tore open again.
Blood soaked into the carpet.
An hour later, someone knocked on a door at the top of a skyscraper.
Emma's voice came through slurred.
So Brayden answered for her.
"Who is it?"
"Delivery," I said.
The door opened, and his familiar voice came to me.
"I don't think we ordered anything."
"I know," I replied.
I raised my head slowly.
I pushed up the visor on my QuickEats helmet and showed him my face.
Brayden froze where he stood.
Emma's voice drifted out from inside, still slurred.
"Brayden, what's taking you so long at the door? Lucy?"
Emma instantly sobered up.
I held out the bag with the box of Trojans in it and smiled.
"B showed up in a hurry, so I figured you two might not be prepared."
"Lucy!" Brayden scrambled to grab my arm.
I pressed the bag into his hand instead.
I turned and got into the elevator without looking back.