His Double Standards, My Final Goodbye Chapter 06

His Double Standards, My Final Goodbye Chapter 06

Dominic didn’t take the agreement.

His gaze swept past Adrian and landed on me.

“You brought an outsider into our business?”

Adrian adjusted his glasses.

“Mr. Vance, Ms. Sterling retained me to handle the intellectual property dispute, termination of the project agreement, and reopening the prior case. I don’t mediate romantic disputes”

“I’m talking to her. I didn’t ask you to answer.”

Dominic reached for me.

I stepped away.

His hand stopped in midair, his fingers slowly closing into a fist.

“Astrid, talk to me alone.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Your mother just had surgery. Are you really going to make a scene here?”

I looked at him.

“You’re the only one who’s been raising his voice.”

Dominic’s jaw tightened. Eventually, he lowered his voice.

“I admit I had another motive when I first approached you. But for three years, I took care of you when you were sick, helped you through problems at work, and spent time with your family.”

“You really think all of that was an act?”

“Whether it was or not doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It matters to me.”

He took half a step closer.

“Astrid, I never planned to break up with you.”

“Because I never crossed your boundaries, never pushed too hard, was easy to calm down, and, could help you win projects.”

“Then why did you never acknowledge me in public?”

Dominic went silent.

I didn’t wait for an answer this time.

Adrian set the documents on the bench in the corridor.

“Mr. Vance, the agreement has been formally delivered. If we receive no objection within three days, we’ll proceed to arbitration.”

Dominic didn’t look at the papers.

He only stared at me.

“Did you go to him because you’d been planning to leave me all along?”

“I contacted him last night.”

“And in one night, you let some stranger handle all of this for you?”

Adrian answered evenly, “Ms. Sterling and I aren’t strangers. We were teammates in an

interdisciplinary design-and-law competition in college. I was also the only person willing to

testify for ber three years ago.”

Dominic’s expression turned instantly cold.

“So it was you.”

Back then, Adrian had seen my original work and agreed to testify on my behalf.

Later, he went abroad for further training, and we lost touch.

The night before, I’d reached out to him with the last shred of hope I had left. He’d asked me only one question. “Do you still have the evidence?”

I told him I did.

He’d said, “Then let’s get back what they took from you.’

Dominic looked at me, and for the first time, urgency crept into his voice.

“You’d rather trust someone you haven’t seen in years than hear me out?”

“He never lied to me.”

That silenced Dominic completely.

A cough came from Mom’s room.

I turned to go inside.

Dominic suddenly caught my wrist.

“Cannoli isn’t Chloe’s cat.”

“That has nothing to do with me.”

“I bought him.”

He sounded almost desperate to prove it.

“I was going to give him to you for your birthday last year. But you said you wanted to move in with me, and I wasn’t ready for that yet, so I kept him at my place for the time being. Chloe was only helping take care of him.”

I looked back at him.

“What did you give me on my birthday?”

Dominic froze.

Last year, he’d gone on a last-minute business trip over my birthday.

A black pen had arrived by courier.

The card had only two printed words on it.

Happy Birthday.

Later, I learned the pen came from a bulk order the Vance family used for corporate gifts.

“If Cannoli was supposed to be mine, why is that his name?”

“You like cannoli.”

“Chloe’s post made it pretty clear. She named him after her childhood nickname, Noli.”

Dominic’s grip loosened, little by little.

Apparently, even he hadn’t known that.

The cat had never been mine. Not even his name had been meant for me.

I opened the hospital-room door.

Behind me, Adrian offered Dominic the agreement again.

This time, Dominic took it.