Chapter 2

When I got home, the video conference had already started.

I tossed my bag aside in the entryway and sat down in front of the computer.

Since my father passed away, several of the company's long-time shareholders have been quietly jockeying for power. I had to lock down this contract and secure my position as chairwoman. I couldn't let my father's life's work fall into someone else's hands.

When Bradley came in, I was revising the contract.

He didn't say anything, he just stood in the study doorway, staring at me like that.

I said nothing and kept typing.

The client was giving their seventh round of revisions on the other end of the screen. I took notes and nodded, but my stomach kept sinking, probably because I still hadn't eaten that meal today.

After I don't know how long, Bradley finally spoke:

"Ivy, in your heart, is it Leopold you love more?"

My fingers paused over the keyboard.

On the screen, the client seemed to sense something and spoke up tentatively:

"Ms. Baxter, if something's come up, we can talk another day."

There was a buzzing in my head. If I didn't sign this contract today, those shareholders would seize the chance to snatch the project away.

"No, no! I'm free right now!" I shook my head instinctively, then looked at Bradley and begged him in a pleading tone, "You know how important this contract is to me. Whatever it is, can it wait until I'm done? Just ten minu—"

Before I could finish, he swept the laptop off onto the floor with a loud crash, and the screen went black in an instant.

I stared at the computer on the floor, my mind blank for a moment.

Bradley stood there, an almost twisted satisfaction on his face. He opened his mouth and spoke in that snide tone:

"If Leopold asked you a question like this, you definitely wouldn't make him wait ten minutes, would you? You'd drop everything, look him in the eyes, and tell him you love him more, wouldn't you?"

I crouched down and picked the computer up off the floor. The screen was cracked. I pressed the power button, but it wouldn't turn on.

Half a month of begging for that partnership, the trump card I was going to use to shut those old shareholders up at tomorrow's board meeting, all of it gone.

My fingers trembled as I held the broken computer.

It took me a long while before I looked at him and spoke, word by word:

"Bradley, I do love Leopold more. Are you satisfied now?"

He froze for a moment, then finally broke into that smile of a man whose suspicions had been confirmed.

"I knew it. I was never anything but your second-best choice."

I looked at him and felt nothing but exhaustion.

Anything that didn't go the way he wanted, he would drag Leopold into it.

I sign a contract, he throws a fit. I work overtime, he throws a fit. I come home ten minutes late, he throws a fit.

And every time, it always circled back to Leopold.

But Leopold and I hadn't been in contact once since he jilted me at the altar.

I deleted his number, walked away from that circle, and never so much as mentioned his name again.

I used to think time would show him how I truly felt.

That if I loved him enough, one day he would believe I chose him not as a second-best option, but because I really wanted to be with him.

But now, all of a sudden, I couldn't find a single reason to keep holding on.

I looked at him and said, word by word:

"Bradley, let's get a divorce."