Chapter 2

I looked down and saw the message he'd sent: 【Sorry, babe, my advisor sprang a lab experiment on us out of nowhere. I've got to put my phone away for a while. I'll come home tonight and cook you a big dinner!】

He'd attached a screenshot, the muster message from that old professor.

Too bad he didn't know the phone I gave him was a new model our company hadn't even released yet. Every screenshot floats our logo across the top.

And this image had nothing there at all.

2

I sat frozen on the couch until the glare off the glass hit my eyes and stung tears down my whole face.

For three full hours, Reuben hadn't sent a single message.

But through that girl's feed, I could see exactly what he was doing.

The Skytower, the hardest table to book in all of Carrington City, and the two of them sitting across from each other in a couples' room full of roses, on the table the gift he'd bought her, a limited-edition handbag.

I raised my eyes and saw my own reflection in the window in front of me.

For today's lecture I'd hired someone to do my styling. I'd looked beautiful.

Now the carefully done hair stuck in messy strands against my cheeks, my makeup smeared into a blur somewhere along the way, the whole picture a wreck.

I shifted my numb body and knocked the bag beside me to the floor.

He'd given me that bag a few days ago, for our anniversary. He said I needed something to carry documents, so he'd bought a big, practical one just for that.

Now it looked like maybe it had only come free with that handbag of hers.

I picked up my things and forced myself to think.

I wanted to think carefully about what to do next. But my mind wouldn't stop running off.

What was he doing with that girl right now? Would he be showing off the dimples on that pretty face when they were together?

Reuben had a handsome face, and he loved to smile.

What I loved most were the faint dimples in his cheeks when he laughed, and I'd kiss them every time we were caught up in the moment.

He always said those dimples were born just to be kissed by his Sabrina.

Too bad the dimples were still as sweet, while the man they belonged to had rotted.

"Hello?" A delicate, girlish voice cut into my thoughts. I looked down and found that somehow I'd dialed Reuben's number.

The number saved under a little heart had just been answered by another girl.

"Who is it?" Reuben's voice came closer.

My heart slammed into a fast rhythm. I gripped the phone and didn't hang up.

"No idea. It says Sabrina. Here."

Sabrina...

I gave a bitter laugh.

I don't know how long the silence on his end lasted before I finally heard his voice. "Sabrina, wait till I get home and I'll explain."

The call cut off. I stared at that blood-red heart, a little dazed.

An adult's kind of courtesy is knowing when to make your exit.

Before I even had the chance to cry over the relationship I'd just lost, someone knocked at the lounge door.

Betty Swanson, the secretary who'd come to the school with me, hurried in with a stack of documents in her arms. "Ms. Lawson, there you are. The tower project over in Ashford City is officially underway. This is the plan they just sent, and they need your signature."

Betty pushed me straight into the bathroom.

I splashed water on my face and started going through the documents. The very first page was the partnership project Reuben and I had once discussed.

Last year, after he got into his master's program, he started his own company. It pained me to watch him drinking and schmoozing every day, so I'd steered plenty of partners his way, openly and quietly, the kind Reuben could actually land, helping him find his footing in this city.

And this partnership was the one he'd sent me, saying he wanted to repay everything I'd once done for him.

Honestly, if you set aside the filter I saw him through, Reuben really did count as a young talent, worth close to a hundred million at his age.

But this partnership was only worth ten million or so in profit. To my huge parent company, it was still charity.

My fingers tightened on the paper, but I set the partnership contract aside and kept it.

Sensing the shift in me, Betty quietly handed me another document. "Ms. Lawson, Mr. Greer's Greer Tech has a fifty-million investment project going right now."

Fifty million. Every bit of liquid capital Greer Tech could put up.

I frowned hard and flipped through the file in my hand. He'd invested it in an amusement park?

"Has he gone..." I murmured. Crazy?

To push through the partnership with Greer Tech, I'd given up plenty of my own gains to appease the shareholders who weren't happy about it. And he'd sunk every bit of liquid capital into an amusement park. So what was he going to fund the partnership between our companies with?

My eyes moved down and I saw the project name: 【The Reuben & Penny Water Park】proposal.

Ha.

Penelope Fox. Reuben Greer.

I crushed the paper in my fist and threw it hard into the trash.

Betrayal in love I could chalk up to rotten character. But if he could betray his own interests too, then all I could say was there was something wrong with his head.

"Betty," I said through gritted teeth, "from now on there's no need to keep track of little things like this."