They Said I Was Lying, They Forgot I Couldn’t Speak Chapter 05

They Said I Was Lying, They Forgot I Couldn’t Speak Chapter 05

Derek didn’t wake up until the next afternoon.

He instinctively leaned over to kiss the forehead of the person beside him, then jolted upright.

Sienna was lying next to him.

She stirred awake and looked at him sleepily.

“You’re up, Derek. You were so rough with me last night. I’m still sore.”

Only then did the night before come rushing back.

He’d been furious at Tessa for lying to him and embarrassing him.

So that night, he’d been rough with her in bed, taking his anger out on her…

Derek threw on some clothes and rushed out, ignoring Sienna as she called after him.

Tessa was nowhere in the sprawling house.

Worse, every trace that she’d ever lived there was gone.

Only then did Derek understand the look in her eyes the night before.

She’d been saying goodbye.

He refused to believe that the woman who had loved him for five years had actually left him.

He shook off Sienna, who kept trying to stop him from going, and raced to the office.

Tessa was so frugal. There was no way she’d taken the day off today.

She had to be at work.

All he needed to do was explain that he’d mistaken Sienna for her the night before.

Tessa was kind. She loved him.

There was no way she could really leave him.

Once his current project wrapped, he’d take her on a trip.

But the moment he reached the office, his unease only got worse.

Ignoring the strange looks from his coworkers, he rushed into the department director’s office.

“Where’s Tessa? Why isn’t she here today?”

The director frowned. Once he saw who it was, his expression turned impatient.

“She quit.”

“You’re her boyfriend. If you don’t know where she went, how would I?”

It was a lie.

The director genuinely cared about the hardworking young woman, and as far as he was concerned, the farther she got from a man like Derek, the better.

So he’d moved up her assignment start date and gotten her on a flight to Germany as quickly as possible.

Forty minutes later, Derek was standing in the Monroes’ living room.

Dad sat on the couch with a mug of coffee while Mom peeled an orange beside him. Sienna had gotten there first and was sitting close to Mom, one arm looped through hers.

The moment she saw Derek, she stood.

“Derek, what are you doing here? Did you find Tessa?”

Derek shook his head.

“She quit. Her phone’s off, and she didn’t tell anyone where she was going.”

Dad set down his coffee and frowned.

“This is getting ridiculous. She can’t just disappear without telling anyone.”

Mom immediately agreed.

“Exactly. She did the same thing last time. We scolded her a little, she ran away from home, and by that night she came crawling back once she got hungry.”

“Text her. Tell her we’re not mad anymore. She’ll come back.”

The way they dismissed the whole thing so casually suddenly struck Derek as wrong.

Then he remembered the medical records Tessa had posted in the company Slack channel the day before.