Boyfriend Sent Me to Entertain Executives, So I Left

Everyone says Ezra Gilbert loves me more than life itself. He would travel thousands of miles to another country to buy me the cake I once casually mentioned wanting from the shop outside my school when I studied abroad. He would also drop all his work and show up before me, weary from the road, just to give me a hug whenever I was upset. Even his decision to start his company in the first place was to give me a better life. I always thought that meeting Ezra was the happiest thing in my life. Until he sent me to entertain the executives of another company over drinks, just to help Bailey Winters land an internship. Someone made me down a whole bottle of high-proof hard liquor, and I broke two ribs while fighting back. And at that very moment, Ezra was with Bailey, watching the fireworks she loved. That was when I finally woke up. The love I had been so sure of was only his masterful performance. I decided to walk away and let the two lovers have their happy ending. ...... I had just come out of surgery, and the moment I woke up, I saw Ezra standing beside my hospital bed with guilt written all over his face. I hadn't expected him to still have the nerve to show up in front of me. Ezra looked at my ashen face and spoke. "Camila, I'm sorry. I didn't know things would turn out like this." I hadn't expected it either. Ezra, who before this had been so meticulously attentive and had granted my every wish, had actually cheated on me. His eyes were heavy with regret. "Camila, I'll take good care of you. From now on I'll never let anything dangerous happen to you again." "Everything that happened today is my fault. Blame me however you want." His voice trembled, and he looked at me almost pleading. "Ezra." I said calmly. "Let's break up." The glass of water in Ezra's hand smashed to the floor, shattering into pieces. He frantically bent to pick up the broken glass, but really he was avoiding what I'd told him. "Camila, are you not feeling well? I'll go get the doctor. Wait here for me." "Are you hungry? I'll go buy you your favorite food." "Once you're discharged, we'll get married, and I'll take care of you for the rest of my life." He was babbling incoherently, not even noticing that the broken glass had cut his hand and drawn blood. He just kept apologizing and making promises to me over and over. "Camila, believe me, I won't contact Bailey Winters again." "Let's be good to each other from now on, okay?" Bailey Winters is Ezra's junior from university. She hadn't finished her master's degree yet and wanted to find an internship. But Bailey had no family background, no credentials, and no work experience, so her résumés were rejected again and again. Just when she was losing heart, an executive from one of the top companies in the industry suddenly called her out of the blue and sent her the address of a private room at a hotel, telling her to come. Bailey was a little afraid, but she wasn't willing to give up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. After weighing it all, she called Ezra. And so Ezra came to me. He said, "The company has a client who might need you to have dinner with him. If it works out, we'll land a huge order." I believed him. For his sake, I went. But once I got to the private room, I learned the whole story, and I wanted to leave. Instead someone made me drink an entire bottle of hard liquor. Then someone forced himself on me, and when I fought back with everything I had, someone shoved me. I fell straight into a fracture. It was only then that I found out. Ezra and Bailey had been together all along.

When Ezra Gilbert first started his company, Bailey Winters was still a poor student. Yet she gave Ezra the scholarship money she'd worked a whole year to earn, plus every dollar she'd saved from her part-time jobs. She was wearing a white T-shirt long since washed pale, and jeans. She handed the bank card to Ezra. She said, "Ezra, you're going to make it. I support you." "You don't need to thank me. I'm just investing. I believe in you." Ezra was moved. He said with feeling, "Girls these days are all so materialistic and money-hungry. I've never met a girl this pure and kind. Even just for her sake, I have to succeed." Around that time, Bailey was applying to a graduate program at a school. But the advisor she'd set her heart on didn't really want her. I was the one who went to the advisor and got him to take her. She came to thank me. I told her. "You helped Ezra, and I'm willing to help you too—consider it a return for the kindness you showed back then." Bailey sat across from me, her eyes flickering. "I know who I should really be thanking." After Ezra's company took off. He told me Bailey came from a poor family, and he wanted to support her financially—consider it repaying her for the trust she'd placed in him back then. After that, they stayed in touch all the time. Bailey would share her school updates with Ezra now and then, and talk to him about the things she felt lost about. Ezra always answered her patiently. He often went to visit her at school and took her to concerts by her favorite singers. He spent her birthdays with her and surprised her. I sat on the hospital bed, looking through the files these private investigators had dug up for me. My mind couldn't help drifting back to little anomalies from the past. Like how Ezra often came home late at night carrying an unfamiliar citrus scent. Like how he suddenly took a liking to a Chanel blue perfume, saying the scent felt very refined. It was only now that I understood. Bailey liked to wear citrus-scented perfume. Her first perfume, her first luxury handbag, her first haute couture dress... They were all given to her by Ezra. And that perfume Ezra wore was a gift from Bailey. She said she hoped that every time she saw him, she could smell the scent of the gift she'd given him. So he kept the perfume in his car and would spritz it on whenever he had a moment. I looked through their long chat history. Ezra said, "I like you, but I have to carry my responsibilities. I can't let Camila down. We really did meet too late." Bailey said, "It's okay. Every time I hug you, I feel completely satisfied, like someone who's been cold for a long time suddenly moving close to a fire—it feels so safe. Happy times are short, but every second I spend with you makes life feel worth it."

The longer I read, the more I smiled—and then, without warning, the tears came pouring down. The pain in my body and the ache in my heart made it almost impossible to sit still. Ezra Gilbert wanted more time to spend with Bailey Winters. He lied to me and made me leave the company. That day happened to be our third anniversary, and he gave me a precious gift. In that warm, tender moment, he suddenly spoke as if it pained him. "My mother is sick, but the caregiver mistreats her whenever I'm not around." I couldn't stand to see him so troubled, and after hesitating for a long time, I offered to go take care of her myself. Ezra held me then, his voice full of emotion. "Camila, I'll always remember how good you've been to me." But as time passed, his mother grew more and more dependent on me. My working hours kept getting cut back, until at last I had no choice but to resign. I spent almost all my time at the hospital. There wasn't even time to sit down and share a proper meal with Ezra. But while I was so busy and worn out, he was with Bailey Winters. Looking back now, I can see just how ruthlessly he schemed against me. I gave my whole heart, and this was how it was betrayed. I confronted Ezra like a woman gone mad. "We've been together so long—why would you treat me like this?" Ezra didn't dodge the water glass I threw at him. He didn't even mind the blood seeping from his forehead. His eyes, looking at me, still held guilt. "Camila, there's nothing between Bailey and me. You have to believe me." "I just feel like I'll never meet another girl as pure and kind and good to me as she is. She's different from you. She likes me—she really just likes me, she's not after my money." He paused, and there was disbelief and suspicion in his eyes. "Camila, you got together with me in the first place because you thought I was impressive, didn't you? If I weren't smart and impressive and successful, would you still like me?" I gave a helpless little laugh. He thought being with me was an investment—that I didn't love him as a person, that all I valued were the so-called impressive labels attached to him. Bailey wasn't after his money. I was. My body started to ache again. Faced with my silence, Ezra left the hospital room. He used my injury to smoothly get Bailey the job offer from that company. He even secured five million dollars in compensation for her and helped her buy a small apartment in Capital City to stand on her own. And he was still lying to me. "Camila, rest and heal up. I'll get justice for you in this matter." "From now on, I'll never let anything involving Bailey bother you again. She'll never appear in front of you again." "Let the past stay in the past." "From now on, let's be together, the two of us." I said nothing, and I didn't look at him. What Ezra didn't know was that the past would not be past, and there would be no "from now on." I had originally planned to give him a surprise. I was going to propose to him and tell him we'd soon have a child of our own. But because of what happened that day, after the surgery the doctor told me the baby had miscarried.

I recovered quietly from my injuries in the hospital. Unlike before, my attitude toward Ezra turned polite, courteous, and distant. I no longer asked about his whereabouts, and I no longer lost my temper with him. As time went on, Ezra seemed to gradually breathe easier. He started treating me even better, taking meticulous care of my daily needs. His gentle, attentive manner felt like a return to our best days, before Bailey ever appeared. For the sake of my recovery, Ezra began teaching himself a lot of medical knowledge. He was afraid I'd be left with lasting complications. He consulted countless doctors and made countless efforts. I never turned down his kindness. I even played along with his fantasies about the grand wedding we'd throw after I was discharged, the guest list he'd invite, the names of our future children. But only I knew that every time he brought up these topics, a mocking, venomous voice echoed in my mind. Ezra went out to buy me the durian I'd wanted. He forgot his phone. The chat screen showed Bailey's reply to his message. "Work's going well, everything's fine." Above it were Ezra's instructions to her, one line after another. He told her what to watch out for at her new job. He taught her how to get along with coworkers and how to handle her bosses. He said, "If anything comes up, you have to reach me right away, you have to tell me. I don't want what happened to Camila to happen to you all over again." He worried so much about her, thought of everything for her. No wonder he'd pushed me out of the way for her back then, without caring whether I lived or died. A friend came to visit me. In just half a month I'd already lost twenty pounds. She tried to console me. "After something like this, Ezra will treat you well from now on. He'll spend the rest of his life making up for the harm he caused you." "Camila, if you break up with him now, it's the same as handing him over to that Bailey. Are you really willing to do that?" "You should have a clear head by now. Feelings are empty and fleeting. While you still can, ask Ezra for money. He'll definitely give it to you. You can maximize your own interests." I didn't take my friend's words to heart. Of course I wasn't willing to accept this. So when Bailey showed up in front of me, I wasn't surprised in the least. She said she was pregnant with Ezra's child. Her eyes were full of provocation as she looked at me. "Right after your accident, he came to me and said we shouldn't see each other again unless it was absolutely necessary, that he wasn't going to leave you." "I told him I wanted to keep something to remember him by. You'd never know anyway, so he agreed." "This child came at just the right time. Heaven means for us to be together. There's really nothing to be done about it." "So be smart and step aside on your own." I'd known all along it would end like this. Over all this time, my feelings for Ezra had long since turned into hatred. I'd realized the person I loved most was still myself. So I spoke calmly. "Congratulations." After sending Bailey off, I contacted a lawyer and Ezra's competitors. While Ezra was trying to convince Bailey to abort the child, I sold the fifteen percent stake he'd given me when we started the company. I calmly signed the contract. Ezra's name kept flashing on the phone screen beside me. Bailey refused to abort the child. Ezra called me again and again, his heart filled with nothing but endless panic. He didn't dare face me. Yet he wanted to promise me he would handle the whole thing. He wanted to explain that this really was the last time. He would definitely make Bailey abort the child and give me an accounting. He wanted to say he'd even set a wedding date, that he'd secretly designed an exquisite wedding dress and had the designer working overtime to make it, but he hadn't had a chance to tell me yet. But for some reason he couldn't understand. Ezra felt as though the distance between him and Camila had grown as vast as mountains and seas. She seemed to be turning faint and unreachable. Something could never go back to the way it was. The phone buzzed over and over, only to be hung up on, all in vain. His mind in turmoil, he issued Bailey a final ultimatum. "Even if you insist on having this child, I won't acknowledge it." With that, he stopped paying Bailey any mind, grabbed his car keys, and rushed to the hospital. But what he found was an empty hospital room. He got a call from his assistant. "Mr. Gilbert, Ms. Fox has sold her shares. The rival company has already sent people to the office."