Chapter 10
It took Nolan two months to recover.
On the day he was discharged, he had a box of documents delivered to me.
Inside were genuine documents establishing the multibillion-dollar trust he had only pretended to create before, along with documents transferring every remaining asset he owned to me.
There were no conditions attached.
I accepted everything.
He owed me that much.
A year later, he asked to meet me at the coffee shop across from the hospital.
After giving it some thought, I went.
He was even thinner than he had been the year before.
There wasn’t a trace of color in his face, but when he saw me, he forced himself to smile.
“Audrey, I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
The words sounded as though he had rehearsed them a thousand times.
“I only want you to know that those three years weren’t entirely a lie. I really did fall for you.”
Then he lowered his head.
“But I had no right to love you.”
My fingers tightened slightly around my coffee cup.
During those three years, he had once filled the sky with fireworks just for me. When our lives were in danger,
he had shielded me without hesitation.
Had any of it been real?
Maybe.
But love built on lies shattered at the slightest touch.
And once it broke, I was the one left bleeding from every jagged piece.
“Nolan, I don’t hate you anymore.”
As though he had already anticipated what would come next, his smile turned bitter.
“But I will never forgive you.”
Whatever emotion remained in me faded, leaving only indifference.
“You should go.”
He nodded.
The smile stayed on his lips, though it looked more painful than tears.
“Okay.”
He stood and pushed his chair back.
After taking two steps, he stopped with his back to me.
“1
I put the two red hair ribbons at the bottom of your file box.”
Then he walked out of the coffee shop without looking back.
I never saw Nolan again.
I heard that he had gone somewhere far away.
Someone once photographed him on a solitary pilgrimage through the Rockies, dressed in plain gray
clothes. He looked nothing like the billionaire executive he used to be.
Whenever anyone asked what he was trying to atone for, he gave only one answer.
“Something that can never be forgiven.”
As for me, the Caldwell family business flourished under my control.
It doubled in size within three years.
I removed every corrupt insider and held tightly to everything my mother had once been unable to protect.
I never remarried.
I wasn’t waiting for anyone, and I wasn’t holding on to hatred.
I simply didn’t want marriage anymore.
Some things can break once and still be made whole enough to last.
Break them twice, and all that remains is shards.
I would never risk losing myself for someone else’s love again.
Sometimes, after working late into the night, I opened the bottom of my file box and looked at the two red
hair ribbons.
Twenty-five years ago, on a snowy night, I gave three peanut-butter cookies to a boy who was starving. I also gave him one of my hair ribbons and sincerely wished him a long, safe, and happy life.
Back then, I understood nothing.
I didn’t know how many years of pain those ribbons would set in motion, or that an act of kindness could sometimes become a blade.
But I didn’t regret helping him.
If I could go back, I would still give him the cookies.
I just wouldn’t lose myself in the process.
The city lights glowed beyond the window.
I closed the file box and turned off the light.
I had three meetings the next day and an overseas flight the following week to negotiate an acquisition.
My days were full-too full to leave any room to dwell on what was already behind me.
That was exactly how I wanted it.
This time, I was alive and fully awake.
I lived for myself and no one else.