After Eight Years, She Left Me at the Altar for Her First Love novel · Chapter 3 of 48
Chapter 3: The Wrong Coffee
Celia expects Troy to crawl back, docks his pay and flies abroad, then comes home with gifts to find he has blocked her.
The morning after she walked out of her own wedding, Celia Wainright was at her desk by eight.
She had spent the night at Dane's bedside.
The doctors had put a plaster on his forehead and told him he could go home in two hours.
She had stayed all night anyway, because he asked her to.
Her head throbbed.
She pressed two fingers between her eyes and said, "Troy, coffee."
The door opened.
She did not look up.
She took the cup, drank, and her stomach turned over.
It was the wrong coffee.
Too bitter, too thin.
She set it down and looked up at the junior assistant holding the tray.
"Where's Troy?"
"Mr. Falk hasn't come in, Ms. Wainright," the assistant said carefully.
Celia checked her watch.
It was ten past ten.
Troy had walked through this door at eight every morning for six years.
He brewed her coffee himself, in a pot he kept in the corner, because her headaches were worse when she skipped breakfast.
She had never once thanked him for it.
She did not think of that now.
"Call him. Tell him to come in."
The assistant did not move.
She held out her own phone instead.
"You should watch this first."
On the screen, Troy stood in a hotel corridor in his wedding suit.
His voice was perfectly steady.
"I'm leaving this family with nothing but what I came with. And I swear I will never marry Celia Wainright. Not in this life."
Celia laughed once, through her nose.
He thought he could scare her with a speech.
The video was already everywhere.
Giselle had put it online before breakfast, with a caption about ungrateful strays.
Celia's jaw tightened.
She would deal with her sister later.
"Should you explain to him about yesterday?" the assistant asked.
"There is nothing to explain."
Celia stood.
"He missed a day of work without notice. Dock his pay for the month. Move the overseas inspection onto your desk and pack. You're flying with me."
She walked out.
Troy was being childish.
She had let him get away with too much for too long.
A week of her silence would teach him.
Her phone rang before she reached the elevator.
"He put his hands on me, Celia!" Giselle said. "Five of us saw it! He needs to be punished!"
"You posted a private clip. Take it down."
"Are you taking his side?"
"I'm telling you to take it down."
Giselle hung up without a word, and the video stayed where it was.
That evening she told her father over dinner.
He listened, cut his steak, and said, "Let him sulk. He'll be back."
"I know."
"He always comes back," her father said. "He has nowhere else."
She nodded.
She did not wonder why he sounded so sure.
On the flight out she could not finish a meal.
She blamed the cabin air and ate crackers until she landed.
Two weeks later, her plane landed at nine in the morning.
She walked out of the terminal with her laptop under her arm.
Greta Voight was waiting beside the car, and Troy was not.
Greta was her executive assistant and her bodyguard.
She had been told to bring him.
"Where is he?"
"Mr. Falk isn't answering his phone, Ms. Wainright," Greta said, and opened the door. "He hasn't been at the office either. I called him five times last night."
Celia looked at the open trunk.
Three bags sat in it.
Limited-edition sneakers, two suits cut for his shoulders, and a Richard Mille watch.
She had bought each one by herself, in three different cities, for him.
It was the first time in eight years she had bought him anything abroad.
She knew she had been wrong to cancel the wedding.
These were her apology.
He should have been standing at this curb to take them.
Celia called him herself.
It rang through to a recording.
She called again, and the same thing happened.
Her jaw ached from holding it shut.
She had run a company since she was nineteen, and she had never had to call a man twice.
"The estate," she told Greta.
At the house, she walked through the hall and the kitchen and out onto the terrace.
The butler brought tea.
"Where is Troy?"
"He came back that first day, packed a few things and left, Ms. Wainright." The butler twisted his hands. "I think this time he truly means it."
"He'll be back."
She put the cup down.
Fine.
It had been two weeks.
She would be the one to give in first.
She typed with her thumbs.
"Stop sulking. Name a date and we'll hold the wedding again."
The message hung on the screen.
Beside it was a single gray check mark.
Not delivered.
Celia read the mark twice, and her face went hot.
He had blocked her.
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