My Best Friend Posed As His Girlfriend, So I Walked Away Chapter 02

My Best Friend Posed As His Girlfriend, So I Walked Away Chapter 02

“Calder? Sabine? What are you doing out here?”

A pretty young woman came out of the house.

She was dressed in black, just like Sabine, and her eyes were red from crying.

Her gaze moved over me curiously.

“Who’s this?”

Calder pressed his lips together.

Then he glanced at me and said, “She’s a friend of Sabine’s. She was also one of Grandpa’s former students. She came to pay her respects.”

Cecily Ashbourne nodded.

“Oh.”

She gave me a polite smile.

“We’ve asked Grandpa’s former students to come by tomorrow. You can come back then.”

A friend.

A former student.

The rain suddenly felt colder.

Water struck my bare arms like needles.

I curled my fingers into my palm but didn’t call them out on the lie.

Instead, I forced a smile.

“Sure. I’ll come tomorrow.”

Then I turned and left.

No one stopped me.

Behind me, everything went so quiet it was as if I had never been there at all.

By the time I got into a cab, Calder had texted me the hotel information.

He added another message.

You got soaked. I ordered some hot ginger tea with honey for you. Drink it before you get sick.

And don’t overthink the thing with Sabine.

I stared at the screen.

A warm tear landed on the back of my freezing hand.

He had noticed I was soaked. He had noticed I was upset.

And this was all he had to say.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Before I could reply, another message appeared.

Sabine gets sick easily, and she’s always around you. If you catch something, you’ll probably pass it to her.

I stared at those words until my eyes began to sting.

So he hadn’t been worried about me at all.

He had been worried about Sabine.

I turned off my phone and looked out at the rain streaking across the window.

Something inside me went very still.

Fine, Calder.

If Sabine mattered that much to you, you could have her.

When I reached the hotel, I didn’t use the room Calder had booked. I booked another one myself.

Then I showered and went straight to bed.

For the past five days, I had worked myself to exhaustion because I wanted to finish early and come home to Calder.

The moment my flight landed, I had rushed to Dunleigh.

By then, I had nothing left.

So that night, I slept harder than I had in months.

I didn’t wake until the next morning.

Only then did I see Sabine’s message from the night before.

Verity, you were away for work. I didn’t tell you about Professor Ashbourne because I was afraid it would distract you. I wasn’t trying to hide it from you.

Please don’t be mad.

She followed it with a pleading emoji.

I didn’t answer.

I got dressed and headed downstairs, ready to pay my respects to Professor Ashbourne.

The moment I stepped outside, I saw a man in a black suit leaning against a car, grinning as he waved at me.

“You’re Verity, right? Sabine’s best friend?”

He opened the passenger door.

“Calder thought you might have trouble getting a ride, so he asked me to pick you up.”

I didn’t refuse.

The second I buckled my seat belt, however, I realized he was the kind of person who could talk to a brick wall and make friends with it.

“I heard you and Sabine have been best friends forever.”

He glanced over at me.

“Did you introduce her to Calder?”

I looked at him.

He kept talking, completely oblivious.

“You must be one hell of a matchmaker. I never thought Calder would fall for anyone, and somehow you found him the perfect girl.”

He grinned.

“You think you could find someone for me too?”

There was no sarcasm in his voice.

He genuinely had no idea.

My fingers tightened around the seat belt.

“Are you close with Sabine?”