Chapter 32
And Evelyn had been at the office revising the proposal by herself. For forty-five hours. Secured a signed contract.
He hadn't known a damn thing about it.
Sebastian closed the collaboration records.
On some impulse, he clicked into the email system's drafts folder.
There was only one email in the drafts.
Sender: Evelyn.
Recipient: Sebastian.
Subject: About Us.
Created: one year ago.
Status: unsent.
Sebastian's finger froze on the mouse.
He clicked it open.
The body of the email had only one sentence.
[I've thought about it for a long time. Maybe the problem isn't that you don't love me, but that you don't know what love is.]
Sebastian read that sentence three times.
The first time, his instinct was to reject it.
The second time, his finger pressed hard against the edge of the mouse.
The third time, he closed the laptop.
One year ago.
This email had been sitting in the drafts folder for a year.
She'd written it but never sent it.
Why didn't she send it?
Because she knew it wouldn't matter. Because when she wrote this email, she already understood that even if he read it, nothing would change.
So she saved herself the anger. Saved herself the accusations. Twenty-one words. A statement.
Not the accusation "you don't love me."
But the conclusion "you don't know what love is."
Sebastian pushed the laptop aside.
He stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.
The glass reflected his own image—face haggard, stubble covering his chin and cheeks. When was the last time he'd shaved? Yesterday? The day before? He couldn't remember.
The central AC hummed at a low frequency.
The sun slid down past the city skyline.
It got dark.
His secretary knocked and came in to ask if he wanted dinner ordered. He said no.
The secretary left.
Sebastian sat alone for a long time.
Then he picked up his car keys from the desk.
He didn't tell anyone where he was going.
When the car drove out of Ashford Group Tower's underground garage, the GPS showed the destination was twelve kilometers away.
He turned off the GPS. Didn't need it. He remembered Sophie's address.
The car was on the road for twenty-five minutes.
At 1:17 a.m., it pulled up outside Sophie's building.
Light from the streetlamp came through the car window. The third floor—the level where Evelyn was staying—was dark. The curtains were drawn.
Sebastian killed the engine.
He didn't get out.
He sat in the driver's seat, both hands resting on either side of the steering wheel.
The dashboard's automatic backlight dimmed. Only his phone screen still glowed.
He picked up his phone and opened his photo gallery.
At the very bottom of the gallery was a screenshot.
It was the last status Evelyn had posted before he blocked her. The date was their wedding anniversary last year.
The photo showed a chocolate cake with a crooked line of frosting piped on top: [Happy 3rd Anniversary.]
Evelyn's caption was short.
[Another year. Thank you.]
Sebastian stared at those words.
Did he remember that day?
He remembered.
That day Arianna said she wasn't feeling well and asked him to come keep her company. He said okay, he'd stay for an hour. One hour became two, two became three. By the time he got home, Evelyn was already asleep. On the dining table, a slice of cake sat on a plate next to a pair of utensils and a cup of coffee.
He never ate that slice of cake. When he saw it after his shower, it was past midnight. He put the cake in the fridge. The housekeeper threw it out the next day.
He'd seen this status that same day.
He didn't like it.
Because when he saw it, he'd been replying to Arianna's messages. After he finished replying, he forgot about it.
Another year. Thank you.
Thank him for what?
For remembering their anniversary? He hadn't remembered. That day at noon, Evelyn sent him a message saying "today's our anniversary," and he'd replied "got it," then picked up Arianna's call.
For coming home? He came home, but three hours late. Evelyn had waited until eleven before going to sleep.
For being there? The time he was there was shorter than the time he wasn't.
The phone screen's auto-brightness dimmed with the ambient light. The frosting letters on the cake photo blurred.
Sebastian leaned his head against the steering wheel.
His forehead pressed against the leather surface. Cold.
He closed his eyes.
The light on the third floor never turned back on.
Two a.m. Three. Four.
A gray-white line began to show at the horizon. The streetlamp automatically shut off.
Sebastian sat in the car all night.
Didn't fall asleep.
The projection screen in Parker Group Tower's fourth-floor multipurpose hall lit up.
Evelyn stood to the side of the podium, finger on the remote clicker, not rushing to speak.
Over sixty people sat in the audience. The front two rows were client representatives and prospective investors, the middle rows were industry media and real estate professionals, and the back rows had a scattering of last-minute attendees.
Parker Group had spent ten days preparing this mid-sized investment pitch for the Eastside tourism project. The PR department handled venue setup, invitation distribution, and media coordination. The proposal itself and the presentation were Evelyn's alone.
Luna sat in the second row on the aisle, a notebook open on her lap, pen cap still on.
Evelyn scanned the faces in the audience.
She recognized a few people. Front row left was Mr. King, wearing a dark gray jacket today, same black-framed glasses. On the right were investment directors from two real estate funds—she'd seen their photos in industry reports. The third row had a woman in a beige suit, her name tag identifying her as deputy director of the South District Development Management Committee.
The lighting was dimmer in the back rows. Evelyn's gaze swept over the last three rows without lingering.
She pressed the clicker.
The projection switched to the first slide. Not data, not a chart, but a photograph.
A photo she'd personally taken at the project site three days ago.
Evelyn began.
"This street is called Evergreen Avenue. It's 1,400 feet long, with a hundred and three households and thirty-seven shops. The oldest business is a tea house that's been open for sixty years. The owner ran it from age twenty to eighty and just retired last year."
She clicked to the next slide. The second photo was the same street from the same angle, but taken at dusk.
Sunset light poured in from the end of the alley, dyeing the cobblestone street orange. Under the covered walkways, four old wooden tables sat outside the tea house with a group of people drinking tea and playing chess. Across the way, the general store owner stood in her doorframe holding an orange cat, watching the scene.
Evelyn's voice was calm.
"People in tourism real estate love telling stories, but real stories don't need to be made up. They're already on that street, in that tea house, with that orange cat."