He Thought I’d Compromise Chapter 08

After that one hard cry, it felt as if I had come back to life.

Pain needed to be diluted. Otherwise, the more you turned it over, the more bitter it became.

So I gave myself a stretch of time to empty everything out and went to see places I had never seen before.

Every stretch of road brought new scenery and new winds. Only after seeing how vast the world was, and how many kinds of lives people lived, could I finally begin to see myself clearly.

After the trip ended, I left for the U.K.

When I landed, I saw the person who had come to pick me up.

Chloe waved at me. She had been the first person to mentor me at Kingsley. Later, she left Kingsley and spent several years making her own way.

For the past two years, she had been working to start her own company, and she had been inviting me to join her the entire time.

The bet had also been her way of goading me into leaving Kingsley and joining her.

Over the years, she had understood my situation better than anyone. Sometimes she would curse Bennett for me. Sometimes, when she saw I was hurting too much, she would lie and tell me there would be a good ending.

Later, when she could not stand watching it anymore, she resorted to that bet.

“I knew you wouldn’t go back on your word. Stella, welcome to the team.”

I smiled and reached out to clasp her hand.

The new company was not even more than an outline yet, and I had still dared to come. In its own way, that was a high-risk gamble too.

At the beginning, things were extremely difficult. Chloe and I pitched VC firms from Shoreditch to Canary Wharf, only to have our pitch deck picked apart and rejected over and over again. Then we would return to our cramped desks and stay up all night revising it.

We kept revising through every rejection. Little by little, the company began to take shape, and the business finally got on track.

By the time I looked up again, three years had passed.

Cloudrise Technologies now served clients in more than twenty markets worldwide, and our market share was steadily rising.

Three years was enough to change too many things.

I was invited to attend an industry summit in San Francisco. As a representative of a fast-growing company, I was invited onstage to speak.

When I stepped onto the stage, I swept my gaze across the room out of habit, then stopped at one spot.

It had been three years. How had Bennett fallen so far that he had to attend a summit like this in person?

His gaze seemed to have stayed on me from the moment I walked onstage, full of scrutiny and curiosity.

I looked away and calmly adjusted the microphone. I had given this kind of presentation countless times, so the words came almost effortlessly.

When I finished speaking, applause rose from the audience. I gave a small bow and stepped down from the stage.

Our company had gradually been shifting its operational focus back to the States, and for now, the San Francisco branch was the best place to anchor that move.

I would be staying for more than half a month this time to get the local operations in order.

The summit ended with one work conversation after another, and as I walked out, I saw Bennett emerging with a crowd gathered around him.

Everyone treated him with deference. Someone saw me and said, “Ms. Shaw, your speech just now was truly eye-opening. You really are a rare talent. Mr. Lancaster, what do you think?”

My fingertips tightened. A summit like this meant nothing to Kingsley, but for our company, it was a decent platform. If Bennett wanted to retaliate and casually say a few damaging words…

He looked at me and spoke in a low, measured tone. “Ms. Shaw spoke very well. Cloudrise Technologies has real promise too.”

The tension in my back eased slightly, and I thanked him politely.

When Bennett looked at me, his expression remained faint and unreadable. Three years had passed, and he had probably stopped caring about what had happened back then a long time ago.

In the parking garage, I took out my car key when a voice broke the quiet.

“You still have the same problem as before. You only know how to pile on data, and you can never find the main point of a presentation.”

I looked toward the voice. Bennett was leaning against the front of his car, watching me lazily.

So he had been waiting for me here. I did not hold back either.

“Bennett, put away your arrogance. I’m not your subordinate anymore. I’ll accept sincere advice from you, but I have no obligation to accept your random nitpicking.”

“Look at you, all grown up, Ms. Shaw.” He stepped closer to me. “No wonder you walked away without looking back.”

“Of course. I should also thank Kingsley for training me so well.”

He grabbed my arm, a trace of frustration slipping through. “All these years, did you never think about coming back to New York?”

I looked into his eyes. Time had been so kind to him. Somehow, those eyes were even more beautiful than they had been three years ago.

The human body was an incredible thing, capable of healing itself. Many wounds would slowly heal over with time.

Back then, I had cried until it felt as if every organ in my body hurt. I had cried as if there would be no tomorrow and sobbed that I would never find anyone I loved that much again.

But over these years, I had loved one man after another. Each one was different, each one was beautiful in his own way, and every relationship was real.

The only difference was that when those relationships ended, it never hurt the way the first one had.

I thought it meant I had not loved them enough.

But now, looking at Bennett, I suddenly understood.

It was not that I had not loved enough.

It was that love no longer occupied so much space in my life.