Three years of loving him, three days to erase myself from his world novel Chapter 60

But none of it mattered anymore.

She was vanishing from his life today. Soon enough, he would discover everything.

Or maybe even sooner. The moment she and Isabella Gates returned tonight, the entire truth would detonate right in his face.

"Alright," she murmured.

Julian noticed her brief hesitation. Assuming she was still nursing a grudge over his missed phone call that morning, a flash of guilt hit him.

Pressing his lips together, he reached out, gently tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. His voice dropped to a low, incredibly seductive register, fully attempting to coax her. "Where are you heading? I'll drive you."

This kind of tender intimacy.

It was exactly what Clara used to crave like a drug. Just the brush of his fingertips would have set her heart racing.

But now...

Her heart was as cold and dead as a graveyard.

Her face utterly blank, she took a deliberate step backward to dodge his touch. She opened her mouth to shoot him down.

When suddenly, a highly customized, obnoxiously upbeat ringtone sliced through the air.

Seraphina.

Julian instantly yanked his hand back, reacting with the panicked urgency of a man terrified he was cheating on the caller. Ripping his phone from his pocket, his brow pulled into a tight, anxious knot as he stared at the screen.

Watching his frantic reaction, a violent surge of betrayal coursed through Clara's veins.

She was just so incredibly thankful that she had finally killed off every last shred of hope for this man.

Otherwise, the whiplash of being offered a scrap of affection only to have it violently ripped away seconds later would have destroyed her all over again.

It was utterly humiliating.

"Sounds like she needs you. I'm leaving," she stated flatly, turning on her heel.

Julian quickly fired off a text, then lunged forward, his large hand wrapping around her wrist in an inescapable, vice-like grip. "I said I'm taking you."

Clara froze, genuinely shocked he was pushing the issue.

But before she could speak, that exact same grating ringtone blared again.

This time, as he glanced at the notification, absolute panic flooded his features. His grip loosened slightly as his torn gaze darted back to Clara.

Clara blinked slowly, a hollow numbness settling deep in her bones.

After three years in his bed, she could read him like a book.

He was going to run to Seraphina.

He was abandoning her. Again.

It was the exact same script, every single time.

Summoning every ounce of her willpower to anchor herself, she violently wrenched her wrist out of his grasp. Forcing a perfectly calm, polite smile, she said, "It's fine. Go to her. I can manage on my own."

Julian was genuinely frantic to leave.

But seeing her smiling so casually, practically shoving him out the door toward Seraphina...

An inexplicable, terrifying void violently ripped open in his chest. It felt like something vital was being surgically removed from his soul. In the past, she would have begged him to stay.

It must be guilt, he rationalized. Just guilt.

Her heart felt as though it were being shredded through a meat grinder, the agony violently bleeding into every cell in her body.

Right now, she hated herself more than anything. She hated how deeply she had loved him, hated that she couldn't just switch off her emotions like a machine, hated that she was forced to pretend she was bulletproof when she was bleeding out.

Clara wrapped her arms tight around her trembling body, collapsing inward under the sheer weight of the devastation.

It was pathetic.

Three years of burning herself alive to keep him warm, and at the bitter end... she didn't even get a goodbye.

Not even a single, pitying hug.

A broken, hysterical laugh ripped from her throat as a massive tear finally spilled over her lashes.

She aggressively scrubbed it away.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps echoed from the corridor ahead, and her head snapped up in a desperate, pathetic flare of hope.

But it wasn't him.

Julian's towering silhouette was completely gone. He was a ghost.

Clara swallowed the acidic burn of humiliation, completely unable to swallow the violent, suffocating sobs clawing their way up her throat.

"Julian Lowell... don't you realize... you're losing me forever?" she choked out to the empty hallway.

"Don't you realize..."

Dead silence was her only answer.

Clara buried her face in her hands, dropping to the floor as she shattered completely, sobbing uncontrollably for the very last time.