The Contract Said Leave After, His Mind Said Please Stay Chapter 05

Things took a turn without warning. I’d gone out shopping that afternoon.

When I got home, a woman was standing in the foyer. Early thirties, flawless makeup, the kind of presence

that filled more space than her body ever could.

–

She spotted me and looked me over, slow and deliberate. A smile curved onto her face the kind with an

agenda.

“You’re Julian’s little sugar baby, aren’t you?”

I stopped walking. She extended a hand. “I’m Vanessa Kensington. Julian’s… ex-fiancée.”

I didn’t take it. “Can I help you?”

She smiled. “Nothing serious. I just wanted to see for myself what kind of woman Julian’s been keeping

around for three whole years.”

She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “A little advice? Don’t get too comfortable.”

“Julian is cold to everyone – that’s not something he saves just for you. You’re a warm body to him. The

second he’s bored, you’re gone.”

I looked at her. Three days ago, those words might’ve actually hit.

But now all I could hear was his voice in my head – “Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go” and “I could die right now

and I’d be fine with it.”

A warm body? The man who couldn’t even bring himself to sniff my hair once?

I smiled. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

I turned and walked inside. Whatever she said as I walked away, I didn’t catch it.

I sat on the couch afterward, feeling unsettled. It wasn’t because of anything Vanessa said.

It was because something else had finally clicked.

I knew what Julian was really thinking because I could read his mind. But he had no idea.

He didn’t know I could hear him. He didn’t know I already knew how he felt.

He was still over there, alone, fumbling through every interaction, hiding everything behind that frozen face.

And I was sitting here with all the cheat codes, enjoying every second of it with zero consequences. Was

that… fair?

I thought about it for a long time and decided that no, it wasn’t fair.

But then again, he’d had three years to say something and didn’t. So honestly? He had it coming.

I decided to turn up the heat.