My Fiance Claimed to Be from a Parallel Universe to Sleep with My Bestie Chapter 02

My Fiance Claimed to Be from a Parallel Universe to Sleep with My Bestie Chapter 02

I emptied the glass and left.

At last, someone realized something was wrong.

“Marcus, did you take this too far?”

“Nora looks serious this time. Shouldn’t you go after her and smooth things over?”

Before Marcus could take a step, Celeste grabbed his arm.

Her voice turned soft and pouty.

“My engagement party is already ruined. Are you going to leave too and make me even more upset?”

Marcus’s voice softened at once.

“I’m not leaving. Don’t get yourself worked up.”

“Stress will make you sick.”

Then he called after my retreating back, “Don’t worry about her. She’s just throwing a tantrum. She’ll get over it on her own.”

I suddenly laughed.

I thought of the stress-related health problems my last checkup had uncovered.

So he did know stress could make a person sick.

He just never cared when I was the one getting sick from it.

For the first time, I felt sorry for the damage I had let stress do to my own body.

At least from now on, I would never let him make me sick like that again.

I went straight back to our home and started packing my things.

Since I had decided to leave, the first step was obviously to take my belongings with me.

The first thing I saw in the closet was a little boy’s white jacket.

It had yellowed slightly with age, but the neat, carefully preserved edges still showed how well it had been kept.

It was the jacket Marcus had draped over me when I met him for the first time as a child.

After that, we grew up together and went to college together.

After graduation, we started a company together and spent five years building it.

I once believed that a love carved so deeply into both our bones had to be flawless and unbreakable, until a year ago, when Celeste came in for an interview at our company.

She could not answer a single one of the three technical questions.

But when she said through teary eyes that she desperately needed a job opportunity, I saw her damsel-in-distress act for exactly what it was.

At work, people were supposed to prove their value through ability.

I was about to tell her to go back and prepare better when Marcus insisted on keeping her.

He even created an assistant position just for her.

He said, “I’m keeping her only because I see a shadow of who you used to be in her.”

That only made me feel more threatened.

“What is this, then, a replacement-lover trope?”

Marcus said I was being too sensitive and blamed me for being heartless.

That was the first real conflict between us.

It was also the first time that when it came down to me and Celeste, he chose her.

Later, Celeste’s fragile office-martyr routine only made the friction between us worse.

Without exception, Marcus always took her side.

In the end, he even removed me from my position as general manager.

He dressed it up as concern, saying he did not want to see me working so hard anymore and that he could support me.

But I knew the truth.

For Celeste, he was willing to push me out of the company I had helped build.

Still, for the future I thought we had, I willingly moved my world from the company into our home.

But when I looked around, I realized that at some point, our home had become filled with things Celeste liked.

I liked white.

Celeste said blue was her good-luck color.

So Marcus replaced all his ties, shirts, and everything else with shades of blue.

Even the things that were supposed to belong only to us as a couple were not spared.

She had to insert herself into those too, making Marcus use the versions she picked out.

Again and again, I protested and reminded him, “Don’t forget who your girlfriend is.”

But Marcus said, “Celeste is sensitive, like a skittish little rabbit. I can’t say no to her. It would hurt her feelings.”

“And you keep picking on a younger woman and making things difficult for her. What’s the point?”

During our worst fight, he snapped at me with open impatience.

“What, do you want me to get another condo just to store everything she picks out?”

I froze.

I understood the subtext.

But I pretended I did not.

Because I was afraid that once her things moved in, she would follow right behind them.

So again and again, I chose to give in.

Then came this time, when even my engagement party was taken from me.