He Came With a Ring. I Had a Fiancé Chapter 01

He Came With a Ring. I Had a Fiancé Chapter 01

It started pouring after I finished working late that night.

While I waited for my ride, I sent my boyfriend a message to vent.

[Seriously, it’s pouring, and I didn’t even bring an umbrella.]

More than ten minutes passed before Dylan Walker replied.

[Is that supposed to be a hint? You expect me to take a train all the way over there just to bring you an umbrella?]

[We’re long-distance. Stop being so dramatic.]

I froze.

At the same moment, my Uber driver canceled on me.

Rain splashed up my pant legs, leaving them wet and clammy.

Then my best friend posted something on Instagram.

Before I could get a proper look, the post disappeared. When I refreshed, she’d cropped and carefully selected the photos. All that remained was a shot of someone busy cooking in the kitchen, their back to the camera.

[Thanks to a certain someone, my brand-new heels didn’t get a single drop of rain on them.]

My fingers trembled as I zoomed in.

I’d recognize that back anywhere. It was Dylan.

And the recipe notebook in his hands? I’d written every page myself, tailoring each dish to his tastes.

By the time I got back to my rented apartment, I was soaked to the skin.

Dylan messaged me as if nothing had happened.

[Why’d you go quiet? Did you get home?]

…

Raindrops fell from my bangs onto Dylan’s Inuyasha profile picture, each drop acting like a tiny magnifying glass.

I’d actually gone out of my way to use Kagome as my own picture so we’d match. God, I’d been so childish.

I opened our conversation and asked him one last time.

[Can you change your profile picture?]

This time, his reply came almost immediately.

[Audrey Bennett, are you ever going to let this go?]

[I already transferred out of state to avoid any suspicion about Claire and me. What more do you want?]

There it was again. Somehow, everything was my fault.

Claire Morgan’s profile picture was Kikyo, Inuyasha’s first love, the woman he’d never forgotten.

I’d only discovered that Claire and Dylan had dated after Dylan and I had been together for six months.

It had been awkward, but I hadn’t thought much of it. Everyone had a past.

Then Claire started coming up in our conversations more and more often.

“A friend gave me three movie tickets. Let’s invite Claire, or the extra one will go to waste.”

“Don’t you girls all like dessert? They’re buy one, get one free. We might as well get one for Claire.”

“What’s so fun about camping? Claire likes whitewater rafting, doesn’t she? The three of us could share a raft.”

Even when I took him to meet my parents, he insisted Claire come along.

“What if your parents don’t like me or don’t approve of us? Claire could put in a good word.”

My parents and I waited two hours. Dylan never showed.

Claire had twisted her ankle on the way, and he’d rushed her to the hospital.

That was the day I finally snapped and told him we were breaking up.

He didn’t argue. He simply sent me a copy of his transfer notice.

“Is this what it takes to put your mind at ease?!”

He moved six hundred miles away and gave me the cold shoulder for six months.

In the end, Claire had to trick him into coming to see me. She brought us face-to-face, and only then did we make up.

I’d thought he’d change.

I no longer wanted to talk to him. I tossed my phone aside and went to shower.

He didn’t say anything else, either.

At two in the morning, my phone rang.

Dylan’s annoyed voice came through.

“Why aren’t you answering my messages?”

Only then did I notice the dozen or so texts he’d sent, all asking how to make that cheesy omelet I’d cooked once.

But he’d complained that it didn’t taste good the last time I made it. That was why I hadn’t included the recipe in my notebook.

My head was spinning, and I didn’t have the energy to play along.

“Claire wants to eat it, doesn’t she?”

“How did you know…”

He stopped mid-sentence.

A second later, he sent a picture of a couch with a thin blanket tossed across it.

“Stop assuming there’s something dirty going on. I’m sleeping out here. Nothing happened between us.”

I narrowed my eyes.

The loveseat couldn’t have been five feet long. Dylan was six-foot-three. His legs would have hung right off the end.

I rolled over, my throat painfully dry.

“Sure. You drove for more than ten hours to pick her up from work. You got up in the middle of the night to make her a snack. You were so desperate to stay at her place that you settled for sleeping on a couch.”

“You’ve already done everything you shouldn’t have. What’s left?”

Taking off their clothes? Giving in to their physical desires?

What difference would it make?

“Audrey! What the hell is wrong with you this time—”

“I’ll send you the recipe in a minute.”

I cut off his furious accusation. My voice was flat, utterly devoid of emotion.

The silence seemed to unsettle him. When he spoke again, his tone softened.

“You’re not mad?”

I gave a faint, humorless smile.

“We’re broken up. Whatever you do has nothing to do with me anymore. Why would I be mad?”

He went quiet for a few seconds. Then his voice shot up.

“What do you mean, broken up? What’s with the attitude? When did I ever say we were breaking up? Did I agree to this?”

Question after question, without a single explanation for what he’d done.

For the past two months, I’d worked until midnight every single day to save up time off to visit him.

During video calls, Mother and Father had worried about how much weight I’d lost, nearly fifteen pounds.

And him?

It was almost funny.

“So tell me, Dylan. As my boyfriend, did you ask my permission before spending the night at another woman’s apartment?”