She Begged for Me Back After I Left novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Toast
At the Winterbourne gala, Dalton collapses and the sisters order Nolan to give him his whole score; he says yes and walks out.
Dalton went down in the middle of the toast, with a champagne flute still in his hand.
It was the empty one he had carried around all night.
It hit the marble and broke, and two hundred guests at the Winterbourne Shipping gala stopped talking at once.
Camille was across the stage from him, the microphone still raised.
She dropped it and ran.
Her younger sister ran from the front table, heels in her hand.
I was standing by the east doors, where I had stood for three years as their head of security.
I got there third.
Dalton lay on his side with his lips gone gray.
"His heart," the younger one said. "Nolan, it's his heart, he's stopped breathing right."
"The ambulance is four minutes out," I said. "I called it when he swayed."
Camille, my fiancée of two years, took his face in both hands.
She did not look at me.
"Four minutes is too long," she said. "Nolan, give him your score."
I thought I had heard it wrong.
Three months ago, drunk on how close I was to the end of my mission, I had told them what I was.
A man who died in another world, and was given this one for a single job.
Win the love of the Winterbourne sisters.
They had laughed, and then Camille had gone quiet and asked me how it worked.
I told her the number was how much they felt for me.
I did not tell her what happens at zero, because the System does not let a host say it while the mission is open.
I had tried that night.
My mouth would not make the words.
"Camille," I said. "Not that."
"Dalton told us," Alana said, crying now. "He said you can hand it over. He said it would save him."
"He told you this when?"
"Tonight. At the table. Please."
The System's voice came up inside my head, flat and polite, the way it always was.
"Host, you are about to transfer your full 99 percent affection score to Dalton Reeve."
"Once the score reaches zero, the mission fails and the host is erased."
"A floor of one percent will be left to you. Do you confirm?"
Nobody around me could hear it.
I looked at the sisters.
Camille had Dalton's head in her lap and her whole body bent over him.
Alana was holding his hand with both of hers.
Neither of them had room left in them to look up.
An hour before, Alana had come to my post to find me.
She had stood close and said, "You're the one person here I'm not performing for."
Ten minutes later I had walked past the kitchen and heard Camille talking to her in the service hall.
"Nolan will be fine," Camille said. "He always is. Dalton isn't like him."
I had stood in that hall with my hand on the wall.
I had told myself it was a thing people say.
Now Dalton's chest barely moved.
"If I do this," I said to Camille, "you'll owe me."
She finally looked up.
Her green eyes were furious and frightened, and not one bit sorry.
"Just do it, Nolan. Do it now."
My throat was dry.
I answered the System out loud, because it was easier than thinking.
"Yes."
"Transfer complete," the System said. "Host affection score: 1 percent."
Something I had carried for three years went out of my chest in one long pull.
I stood there and felt it go.
My knees held.
Dalton's color came back before the paramedics reached the stage.
It rose up his throat and into his face, pink and then fully healthy.
He opened his eyes.
He blinked at the lights and asked, in a small voice, what had happened.
Alana burst into tears.
Camille laid her forehead against his shoulder and said his name over and over.
The room clapped, a few people at first and then all of them.
Dalton sat up and smiled at the crowd.
He let both sisters help him to his feet.
He did not look at me either.
Somebody handed him a fresh glass.
He took it in his left hand and did not drink from it.
Camille's engagement ring was still on my finger.
I had paid for it out of three years of savings, and she had picked it herself.
I pulled it off.
The donation table stood by the east doors, with a sign for the shipping museum fund and a silver bowl.
I put the ring in the bowl.
It made a small sound against the silver, and the woman running the table stared at me.
"Mr. Culligan?" she said.
"Keep it with the donations," I told her.
Then I took my radio off my belt and set it on the table beside the bowl.
I walked out through the east doors, past the doormen, into the cold.
Nobody had noticed.
On the sidewalk, my hands were steady.
The panel the System keeps in the corner of my vision showed a single line.
Affection score: 1.0%.
Behind me the doors opened and Camille's voice came across the gala hall, sharp and carrying.
"Nolan. Where do you think you're going?"
I did not turn.
The number in the corner of my eye flickered.
0.8%.
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