After Eight Years, She Left Me at the Altar for Her First Love novel · Chapter 16 of 48

Chapter 16: Furniture

The knocking started at eight the next morning, and it was frantic.

Troy opened the door in a T-shirt, with a coffee in his hand.

Giselle Wainright stood on the landing with no makeup and her hair uncombed.

She wore yesterday's dress under a coat buttoned wrong.

"Please," she said. "Please, I need to talk to you."

Molly came up behind him with a piece of toast.

"Well," Molly said. "Look what the cat dragged in."

"Don't," Troy said, but the corner of his mouth moved.

Doors had started to open down the corridor.

The same neighbor in the same bathrobe leaned out with his phone.

Giselle looked at him, and at the phone, and her shoulders sagged.

"Everybody's seen it," she said. "My phone hasn't stopped since last night."

"Seen what?"

She held it out with a shaking hand.

On the screen was a brief news clip.

A man in a navy suit stood at a charity gala with his arm around a young actress, and the caption underneath said ENGAGED.

"That's my fiancé," Giselle said. "He told me he needed time. He didn't need time."

"I'm sorry," Troy said, and was surprised to find he meant it a little.

"My friends deleted me." She laughed, ugly and wet. "Every single one of them. They said I was toxic, and that they'd seen what I did to you in the video."

"You did it."

"I know I did."

"No." He set the coffee on the shelf by the door. "Say it."

"Say what?"

"What you did. For ten years."

Her face went blotchy.

"I called you a charity case," she said in a thin voice. "I put salt in your coffee. I told the staff you stole things. I cut up your good suit before Celia's birthday and said it was a moth."

"Go on."

"I pushed you down the back stairs when I was fourteen. You broke your wrist and told everybody you slipped."

← Chapter 15 · All chapters · Chapter 17 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend