My Best Friend Posed As His Girlfriend, So I Walked Away Chapter 10

My Best Friend Posed As His Girlfriend, So I Walked Away Chapter 10

Sabine admitted it without hesitation.

Calder panicked.

“Sabine, have you lost your mind?”

He stared at her.

“The only person I have ever loved is Verity.”

“Before. Now. Always.”

His voice rose.

“If you’d told me you had feelings for me, I never would’ve gotten that close to you in the first place.”

He was angry, almost furious. But I still caught the flash of panic in his eyes, the same look I had seen the night he confessed his feelings to me.

“I haven’t lost my mind!”

Sabine shouted.

“Who decided Verity was allowed to love you and I wasn’t?”

She stepped toward him.

“Answer me honestly, Calder.”

“If you had met me before you met her, would you have fallen for me?”

Calder flinched and took a step back, disbelief written across his face.

Then he went silent.

Sometimes silence hurt more than the truth.

I didn’t wait for his answer.

I opened my door and went inside.

A message from Lysander came in a few minutes later.

It contained a video.

Someone recorded what happened at Professor Ashbourne’s funeral and posted it online.

People are tearing Calder apart. His company is getting dragged into it too.

Sabine’s employer fired her because they said the scandal was hurting the company’s reputation.

Then another message appeared.

Cornered people do stupid things. Be careful, Verity. Stay away from both of them.

opened the video.

Whoever had recorded it had been standing close.

The footage clearly showed Cecily kicking my sunflowers across the floor.

The comments were vicious.

People accused her of disrespecting Professor Ashbourne’s memory.

Others called her cruel and said she had no manners.

Some blamed the entire Ashbourne family for blindly attacking someone who had done nothing

wrong.

I stopped reading.

Then I replied to Lysander.

Thanks for the warning.

His answer came almost immediately.

They deserve the backlash.

You did nothing wrong.

Another message followed.

You’re a good person, Verity. Don’t let any of this get inside your head.

The way Lysander talked to me made it sound as if we had known each other for years.

I thanked him again.

This time, he didn’t reply.

That evening, Sabine sent me a message.

Calder answered my question.

Do you want to know what he said?

He said there is no “if.” He met you first, and you’re the only person he would’ve loved.

Then came one last message.

I’m done fighting for him.

My parents are setting me up with someone tomorrow. I agreed to go.

I’m giving him back to you.

I didn’t respond.

I treated it like a random message from someone I had known years ago and no longer cared about.

The scandal hit Calder’s company hard.

Eventually, he gave up the business he had worked so hard to stabilize and moved back to Dunleigh

to start over.

On the day he left, he called me from an unknown number,

“Verity.”

His voice was quiet.

“If I had told you Grandpa died…”

“If I had never asked Sabine to take your place…”

He paused.

“Would we still be together?”

“No.”

That wasn’t when we had ended.

We had been doomed the moment he chose to get too close to Sabine and started lying to me for her.

But I didn’t explain any of it.

And Calder didn’t ask me to.

Maybe he already knew the answer.

After he left, my life slowly returned to normal.

Little by little, I stopped thinking about either of them.

Six months later, the company I worked for was acquired.

On the new owner’s first visit to our office, everyone gathered to welcome him.

Then a familiar man in a suit walked through the doors, surrounded by executives. Lysander Keene

stopped in front of me and smiled. “Verity. It’s been a while.”