I Got A Thanks You Card While She Got His Pink Diamond Chapter 09

I Got A Thanks You Card While She Got His Pink Diamond Chapter 09

I caught the earliest bus to Riverton.

The coach was old, the seats were hard, and cold air slipped in around the windows. Yet as I settled into a window seat, I felt lighter than I ever had before.

A new job offer lay inside my bag.

An arts and media company in Riverton had hired me as its office manager. The salary wasn’t

especially high, but it was enough to support myself.

More importantly, no one there knew Ethan Caldwell. No one knew Noah Sullivan. And no one

would tell me to be the bigger person whenever I was hurt.

The rain stopped as the bus left the city.

Sunlight broke through the clouds.

As I stared out the window, I suddenly remembered something Ethan had asked me years ago.

“Leah, how are you always so easy to please?”

That day, he had bought me a cup of hot cocoa.

I had cradled it in both hands and sipped it the entire way, as happy as if he had given me some

extraordinary gift.

Back then, I really had been easy to please.

A little tenderness, one small sign that he remembered, or a single glance back at me had been enough to keep me lying to myself for years.

When the bus stopped at a highway rest area, I got off to buy some water.

I had just reached the convenience store when someone called my name from behind me.

“Leah!”

I turned around.

Ethan stood several yards away.

His suit was badly wrinkled, his hair had been blown out of place, and his eyes were frighteningly

red.

Noah was there too, still holding the black umbrella with my name engraved on the handle.

They looked at me as though something they had lost had suddenly been returned to them,

Ethan walked toward me one step at a time, his voice trembling.

“Leah, I found the earrings.”

He opened his palm.

My mother’s pearl earrings lay quietly in his hand.

My eyes finally filled with tears.

Not because of Ethan, but because of my mother.

I took the earrings and carefully placed them inside their case.

“Thank you.”

The words seemed to wound him.

“Leah, don’t talk to me like that.”

I looked up at him.

“How am I supposed to talk to you?”

His throat moved as he swallowed. Then he suddenly held out a ring box.

“We can have another wedding.”

“This time, Sienna won’t be involved. It’ll be just the two of us.”

“I’ll review every detail myself. I’ll choose every photo, and we can go anywhere you want for our honeymoon.”

“Leah, I know I was wrong.”

By the time he finished, tears were running down his face.

“Please give me one more chance.”

-…

I looked at him.

It was the first time I had ever seen Ethan cry.

I used to believe that if he ever shed even one tear for me, I would forgive every cold, careless thing

he had done.

But now that it was finally happening, all I felt was calm.

Noah held the umbrella out to me, his voice choked with emotion.

“Leah, this is the umbrella you should have had when we were eighteen. I’m giving it to you now”

I glanced at it.

It was brand-new, and my name had been engraved into the handle.

But the rain from that night had soaked me through years ago.

I didn’t take it.

“Noah, an umbrella that comes too late can’t keep out the rain that already fell.”

His hand froze in midair.

Ethan looked at me with red-rimmed eyes.

“What about me?”

“Leah, what am I supposed to do?”

I was silent for a moment before answering softly.

“What either of you does has nothing to do with me anymore.”

Not far away, the driver called out, “Riverton passengers, back on the bus!”

I turned and started walking toward it.

Ethan suddenly wrapped his arms around me from behind.

He held me so tightly that he seemed like a drowning man clinging to his last piece of driftwood.

“Don’t go.”

“Leah, I’m begging you.”

“I really can’t live without you.

I lowered my eyes to the hands locked around my waist.

Those hands had held Sienna’s as they walked through rainy nights.

They had fastened a pink diamond around her neck.

They had protected her while he forced me to apologize.

Now he was finally holding me, but I no longer wanted his embrace.

But I no longer wanted them.

I pried his fingers away one by one.

“Ethan, it isn’t that you can’t live without me.”

“You just can’t accept that the person who always waited for you has finally stopped.”