They Fought Over Everything, but They Agreed on One Thing—Not Me Chapter 08

They Fought Over Everything, but They Agreed on One Thing—Not Me Chapter 08

I hadn’t seen either of them in three months, and neither looked like they had been doing well.

After Alexandra recovered the money Grant had taken from me, footage of his disastrous proposal to Vivian

on the New York City waterfront ended up online.

Grant’s reputation took a serious hit, and his company fired him over the scandal.

Vivian hadn’t fared much better. The man she had grabbed and kissed in the video happened to be engaged.

When his fiancée saw the footage, she immediately called off the engagement and vowed to get Vivian

blacklisted from finance for good.

Within a month, the careers and professional networks Grant and Vivian had spent years building were gone.

I lifted my eyes and looked them over.

Vivian’s eyes were red-rimmed. “Natalie, I’m sorry. There were reasons for what happened between Grant and

me.”

Grant clenched his fists nervously. “Natalie, Vivian and I were only doing what seemed necessary at the time.

There was never anything between us!”

Was that so?

Their thoughts told a very different story.

Vivian was thinking, [This is so annoying. If it weren’t for Natalie, I never would’ve been blacklisted from

finance. If it weren’t for Grant, I wouldn’t even have bothered coming today.]

[Still, all I have to do is cry. Knowing Natalie, she’ll definitely forgive me. I heard she’s latched onto some

powerful man lately. It doesn’t matter if I can’t work in finance anymore. She can pull some strings and get

me a job as an assistant to some powerful executive. Maybe I could even…]

Grant was thinking, [Natalie saw me and didn’t tell me to get out. She definitely still has feelings for me. I knew she could never really be that heartless.]

Over the past three months, I had put myself back together.

Before, I had been foolish enough to let their betrayal destroy me. I had fallen apart and seen myself as

nothing more than their victim

Now, watching them make fools of themselves while listening to the melodrama inside their heads was almost entertaining

Julian had been the one to teach me to look at it that way a few days earlier.

Over the past few days, the bond between Julian and me had deepened. I finally understood what he had been going through all those years, and he finally understood the misunderstanding between us.

Neither of us said whether we still had feelings for the other.

We didn’t have to

Love between adults was no longer as fierce or as openly honest as it had been when I was nineteen.

Now, as I looked at the hope in Grant’s eyes, I smiled.

“Grant. Vivian. You keep claiming you never betrayed me. Do you really think I don’t know?”

“I worried about both of you, and all the while, you were putting on an act, sleeping together in the condo we were supposed to move into after the wedding, and still acting like lovers even after you knew about my

hand and back injuries.”

“You stood there telling me you loved me while all you could think about was getting into bed with each

other.”

“I never realized the two of you could be this disgusting or this good at lying.”

Every word landed exactly where it hurt.

Grant’s face turned deathly pale. He looked at me as though I were a stranger, his eyes filled with pain.

“Natalie, don’t be like this. I know you don’t really mean any of it!”

At that moment, Grant suddenly heard my voice inside his head.

[Seriously? I’ve already made myself clear. What the hell does he still want?]

[Does he actually think I’m still hung up on him? What a joke. If he’s really that devoted, why doesn’t he just

drop dead?]

Grant went rigid as though he had seen a ghost. His entire body began to shake.

“Natalie ”

I frowned

[Why does he keep saying my name like that? He can sound this affectionate with me, but wasn’t he exactly the same with Vivian?]

[Guys who treat every woman like she’s special are the worst.]

Grant stood there, completely stunned.

Shaking his head, he stumbled out of the room.

Vivian had no idea what had just happened to him. She still had the nerve to keep begging me.

My expression hardened as I met Julian’s gaze. He was standing in the doorway, watching the scene unfold.

“Julian,” I called in a deliberately sweet voice.

“Got it.”

A second later, Julian grabbed Vivian by the arm and hauled her out of the hospital room.

Vivian dropped to her knees outside the door and began sobbing in disbelief.

“Natalie, are you really abandoning me? We’ve been friends for so many years. You can’t just throw all of that

away!”

“Natalie, you can’t really be this heartless!”

So she did understand how much our friendship mattered.

If she knew that, why had she chosen to get involved with my fiancé?

Over the next few days, Grant and Vivian kept coming back to see me. Julian threw them out every time.

Then, one day, they suddenly disappeared.

The next time I heard anything about them was fifty years later.

Julian and I had spent most of the rest of our lives together.

During a trip to Australia, we came across two homeless people on the street.

When I looked more closely, I realized they were Grant and Vivian.

Grant was blind in one eye, and Vivian walked with a limp.

They despised each other and could barely stand to be together.

Vivian swung a battered high heel at Grant.

Grant couldn’t see her Furious, he covered his head and didn’t fight back.

I turned to Julian.

“Well, look at that. Their rivals-to-lovers story ended right back where it started.”

Julian pulled me into his arms with a dismissive scoff.

“Rivals should stay rivals. They were never meant to marry.”