The Day He Called Off Our Engagement, I Bought Iceland Tickets Chapter 11
After the project ended, I did not stay abroad.
Instead, I went back to my hometown.
With the money I had saved over the years, plus the project bonus, I bought a bright, airy three-bedroom condo right next door to my parents.
That night, as I lay in my own room, I felt truly at peace for the first time.
I was not living under someone else’s roof, and I was not waiting for someone to grant me a home out of charity.
Brick by brick, I had earned this home myself.
Later, I opened my own design studio in my hometown.
Because I had worked on a historic city redevelopment project in Southern Europe and now had international project credentials, my reputation actually grew after I came back.
High-end private residences, boutique inn renovations, and commercial space designs came to me one after another.
Clients from out of town kept coming too.
I held Zoom meetings, developed remote design plans, and led teams through implementation. My schedule was booked out for the next six months.
In the past, for Michael’s sake, I had turned down promotions and opportunities, willingly playing a supporting role beside him.
Now, I finally stood where I had always belonged.
I did not need anyone to lift me up, because I had always been capable of shining on my own.
I was my own sun.
Half a year later, I won an industry award for a rural bed-and-breakfast renovation project.
The host interviewing me asked, “Ms. Hayes, a lot of people are curious. Why did you choose to leave the big city and return to your hometown to build your career?”
I sat in front of the camera, calm and composed. After thinking for a moment, I smiled and said, “Because I finally understand that a good life isn’t about what someone else gives you. It’s about what you get to decide for yourself.”
“The size of the city doesn’t matter. What matters is that I feel comfortable and free here.”
After the interview came out, the comments were full of praise.
[This is real main-character energy. After leaving that awful man, she’s glowing.]
[I used to feel so bad for her. Now all I can say is thank God she got out fast.]
[See? Men only get in the way of a woman’s career.]
The winter of the following year, I went to Iceland.
On the night the northern lights rose, I stood in the snow wrapped in a thick down coat and looked up for a long time.
It turned out I did not need anyone’s permission. I had always deserved a view this beautiful.
—
Compared with the life I was building, which kept getting better and better, Michael’s life rotted away inch by inch.
The online scandal did not fade with time. Instead, it became a label he could never peel off.
Whenever the Whitmore family company launched a new product, someone would always bring up what had happened.
[Well, if it isn’t Mr. Whitmore, the guy who ran a couple’s account with his childhood sweetheart for eight years while treating his fiancée like a housekeeper.]
[I wouldn’t buy the product. His character is too rotten.]
[Every time I see this brand, I think of “eight years in, still you.” It’s disgusting.]
Public relations could not bury it.
Several partnerships that had already been under discussion fell through one after another.
New product sales dropped, the brand’s reputation was damaged, and the board began to lose patience with Michael.
The Whitmore patriarch was so furious that he came back from his resort property to the company overnight.
“You managed to turn a romance scandal into a corporate embarrassment!”
“I used to think you were ready to take over. Now I see you are nowhere near capable.”
That was the first time Michael had a project taken from him in front of senior leadership.
The core business he had been managing was handed directly to someone else, and he became a marginal figure with an empty title and no real say.
The friends who used to flatter him scattered one by one when they saw which way the wind was blowing.
When they occasionally ran into him, they were polite to his face, but behind his back, they still treated him like a joke.
“He used to be so smug, with two women circling around him. In the end, one ran off, and he didn’t get the other either.”
“He really thought he was that desirable.”
“After Lily left, he finally found out he wasn’t much on his own.”
He overheard them once while standing outside a private dining room. His face went ashen, but he could not say a word in response.
Because they were right.
After I left, his life quickly spun out of control.
No one ironed his wrinkled shirts. No one reminded him when he matched the wrong tie with his suit.
His home became a wreck that looked like an abandoned model apartment, and the fridge held nothing but expired food and bottled water.
His stomach problems kept flaring up. Sometimes he would break out in a cold sweat from the pain in the middle of the night, and no one got up to pour him a glass of warm water.
Sometimes he sat in the living room for half the night.
Massive regret rose like a tide and drowned him little by little.