Dumped the Liar, Claimed by My Genius Boss

The door slammed hard behind him as he left. I dragged my exhausted body to the window and brought in the rain-soaked clothes. Rainwater dripped onto my feet, drop by drop. Yet I didn't feel the slightest chill. Then came the middle of the night. I was lying on the couch when I heard a faint rustling beside me. A headache I hadn't felt in a long time swept over me, and my eyelids were too heavy to lift even a little. "You're sick." Ethan's voice sank into my heart, along with the cold on my forehead. Without thinking, I reached up to pull the towel off my forehead. Everything in me resisted. I didn't want his charity. But Ethan beat me to it. He pressed my hand down firmly and sighed. "Wren, you have a fever... Even if you're mad at me, you can't play games with your own health." "Just listen to me, okay?" The fever left me in a daze. Tears spilled from the corners of my eyes. "Why are you crying?" Ethan sounded a little at a loss. Then he picked up a tissue from the table and wiped my eyes. A faint warmth touched my hand. "Why are your hands so cold?" His palm covered the back of my hand. At that same moment, the black phone on the table started buzzing. Ethan glanced at the screen, then got up and went out to the balcony. "I got it. I'll be right there." "Don't worry." Cold air crept into the living room through the gap in the glass door he hadn't closed all the way. When Ethan came back, he stroked my hair. "We don't have any fever medicine at home. I'll go buy you some." "Get some more sleep." I didn't make a sound. I just kept my eyes fixed on his back as he walked away. Until he shut the front door behind him. A scoff slipped out of me before I could stop it. With effort, I crawled off the couch to the TV stand. I dug out the fever medicine. And swallowed it down with cold water. The clock in the living room ticked on, its hour hand moving from one to three, then to six. The man who'd gone out to buy medicine never came back that night. Only when the sky began to lighten did the front door lock give a faint click. Ethan pushed the door open, a plastic bag in his hand. When our eyes met, something faintly awkward flickered in his. "You're awake? Is your fever down?" He reached out to feel my forehead. I swatted his hand away hard. Knowing he was in the wrong, he said, "I got the medicine." I looked him straight in the eye. "Don't bother. Your medicine is too precious... I can't afford to take it." "Wren, why are you always like this?" Irritation crept into Ethan's voice. I gave a small smile. "It took you all night to buy one box of fever medicine. That call last night... it was Natalie again, wasn't it?" He paused in the middle of handing me a glass of water. "Don't blame her. After I left, I got a message from work." "By the time I finished working overtime, it was already morning." Excuses like that. I'd heard them more times than I could count. "That's enough." I pushed through the headache. "Let's break up." "That way you won't have to keep telling these ridiculous lies just to take care of Natalie." I shoved away the glass he held out, and it fell to the floor. "I told you, this has nothing to do with Natalie. I forgot." He frowned, his voice impatient. "Wren, can't you try to understand me for once?" "Can you stop getting so hung up on everything?" "Natalie and I are just friends!" Friends who had crossed the line. I laughed at myself and didn't say another word. The fight drained out of him. He bent down, picked up the glass that had rolled across the floor, and walked straight out the door.

The room was silent. It felt like a dull blade was lodged inside my skull, and the pain made it hard to breathe. Then the doorbell rang. I assumed it was my DoorDash order. I opened the door. Natalie stood there holding a food container, as if she'd been waiting for a while. She didn't give me a chance to react. She walked straight into the apartment. She openly looked over everything in the place, then smiled and spoke. "Ethan said you were sick, so I came to check on the patient." With that, she pulled a dark blue tie out of her bag. She set it on the table. "He left in a rush this morning, so I dropped this off for him on my way." Six years of feelings don't vanish overnight. Natalie's voice was soft, but it still stirred up more than a few ripples inside me. "Actually, I came today to apologize." "If Ethan hadn't kept begging me to play one more round yesterday afternoon, you wouldn't have gotten caught in the rain and gotten sick." "And you wouldn't have broken up with him in a fit of anger." Her gaze swept lightly over my face. "But then again, it's good when a person knows her place. Breaking up sooner is the right call." "After all, you two have been together all these years, and Ethan never once took you home to meet his parents." "Yesterday Mrs. Caldwell was chatting with my mom, and they were joking about how Ethan and I were childhood sweethearts who grew up together." "They said if I don't mind him, we could set a wedding date in a little while. After all, our families know each other inside and out." Natalie's lips were a frightening shade of red. Her eyes were like a venomous snake flicking its tongue. Ready to kill me at any moment. "Wren, you're a smart woman." "Better to leave on your own than wait for us to drive you out. Look. Ethan doesn't really love you that much anyway." Natalie handed me her phone. The illness had left me dazed and wound tight. I reached out without thinking. What filled my vision next was a group chat. The name was blunt: [Did Ethan and Wren Break Up Today?] Natalie had created the group. Ethan was an admin. The blood in my body seemed to surge out of control as my eyes stopped on messages from six months ago. [Fam, Wren dumped Ethan AGAIN today. Place your bets!] [Bet on how many days till they make up.] [I'm going with five days.] [Five days is way too long. Someone as shameless as Wren won't last three before she's texting Ethan like a lost puppy.] Plenty of people had joined the betting. My fingertip scrolled down, message by message. Natalie: [I bet seven days!] Natalie: [Ethan, what do you think?] Ethan, the man at the center of it all, didn't say much. He just quoted Natalie's first message and added [+1]. [When have I ever let you lose?] Ethan had never let Natalie lose. But he let me lose everything. My eyes stayed locked on his message, and I couldn't help thinking back to six months ago. I'd been so happy when I brought up with Ethan whether our relationship could take the next step. He smiled. "Of course. You set it up." I set everything up. But the day before our parents were supposed to meet, he disappeared. When I finally got him on the phone, he brushed me off carelessly. "Wren, I forgot to tell my parents about the meeting. They're overseas right now." Were they really overseas? At ten o'clock that night, I saw a photo on Natalie's Instagram of six people at dinner. Ethan and Natalie stood behind both sets of parents. The truth was, I had never won. His friends were right. I was the one who chased after this relationship. "Done looking?" Half a yard away, Natalie's eyes were full of mockery. She took her phone back, and the motion pulled me out of my memories. "So what?" I raised my eyes to meet hers. "You came here today because you're afraid things between me and Ethan aren't over for good, right?" Seeing her thoughts exposed, she stiffened her back. "I underestimated you." "But you're not that smart." She tossed out the words, a flicker of amusement in her eyes. "Guess who Ethan will believe, me or you?" It happened in an instant. The glass of cold water Ethan had left on the table was in her grip. Before I could react, Natalie threw the water in her own face. The glass fell. It hit the floor with a dull thud. At that same moment, the closed front door was pushed open from outside. I looked up. My eyes met Ethan's, then moved past him. When I saw clearly who was standing behind him, I froze.

"Godmother." Natalie's eyes went red in an instant, her voice heavy with hurt. The face I had only ever seen on Instagram grew clearer and clearer. Finally, she stopped in front of Natalie and shielded her. Ethan's mother gave a cold huff: "Looks like your girlfriend has quite a temper, Eth. The very first time we meet, and she's already trying to put me in my place." "What happens if she actually marries into the Caldwell family someday?" I didn't answer. My gaze settled on Mrs. Caldwell's eyes, arrogant and imperious. At some point, Ethan had come to stand beside me. He gripped my wrist and kept it short: "Apologize!" I snapped back to myself and stared into his eyes: "Why should I?" "Wren!" He frowned, his eyes full of disapproval: "Apologize to Natalie." Ethan's voice was flat. But his grip on my wrist kept tightening. "She threw that water on herself. Why should I apologize?" Pain shot through my hand, and my eyes reddened instantly. "Isn't there a security camera in the living room?" "The video's right there on your phone, and you didn't even open it... You just want me to apologize?" He frowned. Before he could say anything, Natalie spoke up, her voice soft and frail, choked with hurt: "It's all my fault. I shouldn't have come over and bothered Wren while she was sick..." "Wren, I'm sorry." She stood and bowed slightly. "Please stop giving Ethan a hard time. Last night he ran to several pharmacies in the middle of the night just to buy you medicine." "He's exhausted enough already. It's all my fault." Just two light, airy sentences from Natalie, and Mrs. Caldwell's face darkened at once: "Ethan, I have never interfered in your love life... but don't you dare bring a woman of such poor character home." "The Caldwell family can't afford that kind of disgrace." In a corner where no one else could see, Natalie curled her lips at me. She parted them and mouthed silently: Loser. Then she spoke up again, carefully: "Godmother, don't blame Ethan. I meant well today and just made things worse." "I'm so cold... Take me home." Mrs. Caldwell patted the back of her hand, shot me a cutting glare, and left with Natalie. But at the door, she turned around again and scolded Ethan sharply: "Aren't you coming? Running after her to wait on her hand and foot. Haven't you had enough yet?" … In the car. As Ethan drove his mother and Natalie home, Mrs. Caldwell frowned and muttered derisively: "Since when did your taste get this bad?" "Six years with a girl who has no manners at all." He was about to explain. Wren was just sick. But the words rolled around on the tip of his tongue, again and again, and never came out. Not until the car came to a smooth stop at the Caldwell family's front gate. After Mrs. Caldwell got out with Natalie, the man in the driver's seat rubbed his fingertips together. The heat from Wren's wrist still burned against them. His gaze fell on the fever medicine in the center console and stayed there. Wren's bloodshot eyes kept returning to his mind. In an instant, Ethan made his decision once again. He turned the car around and drove back the way he had come. But when he opened the door to the home he had shared with Wren for six years, the emptiness that hit him threw him into an instant panic.