The Day He Called Off Our Engagement, I Bought Iceland Tickets Chapter 08

But a month passed, and Michael still had no news of Lily.

It was as if she had completely disappeared from his life.

At first, he had been certain she had only gone somewhere to cool off and would come back once her anger faded.

But the longer time dragged on, the more everything felt wrong.

The shirts in his closet were clearly the same ones as before, but somehow none of them felt as comfortable when he wore them.

The food was the same, too, yet it tasted worse than it used to.

When his stomach trouble flared up, he searched through the medicine cabinet and could not find the medication he usually took.

Only then did he remember that Lily had always been the one who kept those things stocked for him.

He went out with his friends less and less.

Whenever someone mentioned Lily, the atmosphere would turn awkward.

He also deliberately avoided Sophia.

But Sophia refused to give up.

That night, she showed up at his door with a container of homemade soup. As soon as he opened the door, her eyes reddened, and her voice turned soft.

“Michael, I know you haven’t been doing well lately. I just wanted to take care of you.”

Michael stood in the doorway without any intention of letting her in.

“I told you. I only see you as family. And…”

He paused, and his eyes turned completely cold.

“I also pulled the security footage from outside the private dining room on your birthday. You deliberately showed that account to Lily.”

“If you don’t want this to get even uglier, leave now.”

The wounded look on Sophia’s face almost slipped.

She never would have imagined that Michael had actually gone to check the security footage.

She bit her lip and, in the end, forced herself to leave while still pretending to be hurt.

The two of them had not been having an easy time lately either.

The online backlash was growing worse, and even the company had been affected.

Business partners had started asking pointed questions in roundabout ways, and every time anyone opened the comment section, it was full of insults.

So during that period, neither of them dared to make any high-profile public appearances.

As soon as Sophia left, Mrs. Whitmore started stirring up trouble.

She did not think her son had done anything wrong. She only thought Lily did not know a good thing when she had it.

“If she left, then let her leave. With everything you have going for you, what kind of woman couldn’t you find?”

“If you don’t want Sophia, then find someone else.”

Within two days, she began setting Michael up on blind dates.

Michael rejected her outright. “I’m not going.”

Mrs. Whitmore’s expression hardened instantly. “You’re not going? Are you still thinking about Lily? She already ran off, and you’re still waiting for her?”

When she saw that he would not budge, she clutched her chest and reached for her medication as if she were about to collapse.

“Are you only satisfied if you drive me to my grave?”

“I raised you all these years, and you won’t even listen to me about this?”

Michael’s expression darkened to the extreme. In the end, he still went.

But when he met the first woman, he frowned.

She had flawless makeup and spoke gracefully, but when she ordered, she only cared about taking photos of the food and never once asked what he could not eat.

The second woman came from a good family. As soon as she sat down, she asked which apartment they would live in after marriage, how much money he would put into a marital trust, and whether they would need a prenuptial agreement.

The third woman was gentle and soft-spoken, but when she poured him coffee, she splashed hot coffee onto the back of his hand and then laughed in a sweet, affected voice.

“Oh, I’m not very good at taking care of people.”

In the past, he probably would not have cared.

But in that moment, all he could think about was Lily.

She knew he had a bad stomach. She knew he liked an electrolyte drink after coming home from business dinners. She knew that whenever he had a headache, he hated having the room lights turned on too brightly.

She even knew which client he was seeing the next day and would iron his tie and match his suit in advance.

He had once taken all of it for granted.

Only now did he understand that someone had taken her whole heart out, held it in both hands, and offered it to him for eight full years.

Even Mrs. Whitmore slowly fell silent.

Because she had no choice but to admit that after several blind dates, not a single woman compared to Lily, the woman she had once looked down on the most.