My Boyfriend’s “Just a Friend” Became the Reason I Walked Away Chapter 04

My Boyfriend’s “Just a Friend” Became the Reason I Walked Away Chapter 04

That afternoon, I took my resignation letter to Ethan’s office.

The door had been left slightly open.

Through the narrow gap, I saw Ethan leaning toward Vanessa and gently brushing a loose strand of hair away from her face.

They sat close together in front of the same monitor, discussing a design proposal with an intimacy that had nothing professional about it.

I stood quietly in the doorway, feeling like an intruder in a moment that had nothing to do with me.

Ethan looked up and noticed me.

The tenderness vanished from his face at once. His gaze briefly dropped to the document in my hand.

“Leave it there.”

He didn’t ask what it was. He simply picked up a pen and signed at the bottom without reading a single word.

The moment he finished, his attention returned to Vanessa’s screen.

“If you have that much free time, learn from Vanessa how to put together a proposal. Stop spending all day doing nothing but serving coffee.”

He didn’t even bother to look at me as he spoke.

My nails dug painfully into my palms.

I had imagined several ways he might react when he saw my resignation letter. It had never occurred to me that he would be so focused on Vanessa that he wouldn’t even check what he was signing.

I smiled bitterly. I had just turned to leave when shouting erupted outside the office.

A burly man burst through the door, gripping a jagged piece of glass. His eyes were red with rage.

“Ethan Walker, you crooked architect!”

I recognized him as the project manager for a client whose contract the firm had abruptly terminated.

“You approved substandard materials just to keep the project on schedule! Now there’s been an accident, and you’re trying to pin everything on me. I’m not taking the fall for you!”

Completely out of control, he charged toward us with the shard raised in his hand.

Vanessa screamed, her face turning white.

My chest tightened, and I instinctively stepped back. Before I could move, Ethan shoved me forward.

Then he pulled Vanessa behind him and backed away, shielding her with his body.

Caught off guard, I lost my balance and stumbled directly toward the enraged man.

The shard sliced across my arm.

A sharp pain shot through my arm as blood ran down my skin and soaked through the white sleeve of my blouse.

I stared at Ethan in disbelief.

My arm was bleeding, but in that moment, any love I had left for him was gone.

He didn’t even look at me. He kept Vanessa protected behind him while calmly trying to talk the man down.

Security rushed into the office moments later, restrained the attacker, and dragged him away. Silence finally returned to the room.

Only then did Ethan turn toward me and glance at my injured arm.

He frowned, pulled a tissue from the box on his desk, and held it out.

“Vanessa is working on an important proposal. She couldn’t afford to get hurt. You aren’t handling anything critical, so you can take a few days off and recover.”

He spoke as though his decision had been perfectly reasonable.

I looked at the tissue in his hand but didn’t take it.

Instead, I pushed his arm aside, bent down to pick up the bloodstained resignation letter, and walked out of the office.

Ethan didn’t know that Sterling Properties belonged to my family.

Nearly seventy percent of the firm’s projects had come through my father’s support.

Even Ethan’s invitation to the industry summit the following week had only been secured because I had called in family favors and swallowed my pride to convince the organizers to include him.

None of that mattered anymore.

He had said I wasn’t doing anything important.

From that moment on, nothing in his life would have anything to do with me.

Vanessa watched me leave, then gently patted Ethan’s arm.

“Ethan, do you think Claire’s angry?”

Her voice was soft and innocent.

“She’s just upset. Say a few nice things and she’ll get over it. It’s not like she could actually leave you.”

Ethan stared at the small smear of blood on his hand. For some reason, the sight unsettled him.

He walked back to his desk, intending to put away the document he had signed, only to find the surface empty.

“What did Claire ask me to sign just now?”

His brow furrowed, but he couldn’t remember.

Vanessa gave a dismissive laugh.

“Probably another reimbursement form or a request for time off. What serious document could she possibly have?”

Ethan didn’t answer.

Late that night, he sat alone in the empty office. He couldn’t stop seeing me walk away with blood soaking through my sleeve. The memory left him inexplicably restless.

He picked up his phone, opened our conversation, and sent me a message.

[Did you get home safely?]

He waited for a long time, but the screen never lit up.