He Gave His Secretary Two Hours Every Day Until Our Wedding. So I Left Chapter 02

He Gave His Secretary Two Hours Every Day Until Our Wedding. So I Left Chapter 02

At ten that night, I heard Nathaniel’s voice from downstairs.

I reached instinctively for my phone, only to find it dead.

His voice went on.

I pulled a jacket over my pajamas and went down.

Nathaniel looked up, ready to call out again. He stopped when he saw me, his face composed.

In all my memories, Nathaniel rarely lost his composure. Raising his voice like this, unconcerned with his image, was rarer still.

“I went home. You weren’t there.”

I tightened my jacket and said lightly, “No. I didn’t go back.”

He fell silent. I stayed quiet too. After a moment, he spoke again.

“Mom told me. You know about Lydia now, don’t you?”

At last, Nathaniel had asked.

I met his gaze, still calm, and found no ripple of remorse or guilt in his eyes.

I’d asked him for three years. He’d hidden it from me for three years.

Now, on the verge of marriage, he was still choosing that woman—Lydia Crane—over me.

How could he feel no guilt?

It wasn’t right.

Pain stole my breath, but Nathaniel didn’t notice. Or perhaps he did, and simply didn’t care.

He gestured toward the closed car door.

The next moment, it opened from within.

A woman with a delicate face stepped out of the passenger seat. Long, soft hair fell down her back. She wore a floor-length skirt and limped toward us.

Before she’d taken three steps, Nathaniel moved quickly to meet her.

His composure broke at last.

The mere threat of her stumbling had undone him completely.

In that moment, my three years of compromise and endurance felt like a cruel joke.

The woman stopped before me and released Nathaniel’s hand from hers.

“Miss Whittemore, I should explain my relationship with Nathaniel myself.”

She lowered her head, patting her right leg with a soft, bitter laugh.

“This leg was ruined because of Nathaniel. He’s kind. He bought me a house and a car. He gives me a hundred thousand a month for expenses. Beyond that, there’s nothing between us.”

Nothing?

If there was nothing, why was Nathaniel called away on our dates?

If there was nothing, why didn’t he return on our wedding photo shoot day?

If there was nothing, why did he still leave after the wedding date was set?

My silence left her words hanging. Her eyes reddened.

Nathaniel cut in sharply. “Elena, where are your manners? Lydia is speaking to you.”

The woman took his hand again, pleading softly. “Nathaniel, don’t scold her. Miss Whittemore is only struggling to accept this. I’m fine.”

Watching their fingers intertwine, I was the only one who saw anything wrong.

They clearly didn’t. Such unconscious intimacy must have happened countless times behind closed doors.

Two alarms sounded at once.

Nathaniel and Lydia both pulled out their phones and silenced them.

Seeing me look, Lydia explained, shy and soft. “On the fifteenth of every month, Nathaniel takes me to the hot springs. It helps my leg. He’s busy and feared forgetting, so he set a reminder for me.”

“And I,” she added, “Nathaniel worried he might miss the alarm and delay my treatment. So before we go, he asks me to remind him.”

Hot springs?

Suddenly I remembered. Several times, when my stomach pain was severe, friends had suggested a relaxing weekend at a lovely resort.

I’d reached the entrance when Nathaniel stopped me.

I never learned where he’d heard it, but he’d called me. “Elena, don’t go in. The owner has a grudge against me. If he learns you’re with me, he might harm you.”

My heart had swelled with unexpected sweetness.

Nathaniel wasn’t usually affectionate. He was quiet, often remote.

But that day, he’d spoken gently for the first time.

Those words—afraid he might harm you—had undone me completely.

That day, rain began to fall.

My friends urged me to stay. With them there, nothing would happen, they said.

But I listened to Nathaniel and drove away alone.

Lightning split the sky. Rain lashed the road until I could barely see. I wasn’t fearless. I drove on sheer will, three long hours before reaching home.

Now I remembered. That day had been the fifteenth. The day he took Lydia to the hot springs.

So that was why he’d stopped me. She was there.