Part 3I Saw My Boyfriend Kissing My Subordinate at a Concert

The next day, I ran into Lily in the elevator.

She was wearing the limited-edition high heels Jareth had given her, and the strawberry marks on her neck were glaring.

"Good morning, Leina. Last night, when Jareth dropped me off at home, he said..."

"The elevator’s here," I interrupted, stepping out first.

In the office, the gaze of my colleagues felt like sharp needles.

Someone deliberately turned their computer screen towards me — the financial headlines were showing Jareth’s interview, with the eye-catching title: “Model Couple About to Take the Next Step.”

During lunch break, Clara sent a message: “Lily posted about a necklace, says it’s from Jareth, ‘one-of-a-kind love.’”

In the screenshot, the necklace was one I had seen in his car. He had casually said, “A sample from a client.”

I replied, “Got it.”

In the afternoon meeting, Jareth’s eyes lingered on my face for two seconds.

“Review the financial report again,” he said.

“Okay.”

After the meeting, he stopped me. “Dinner tonight?”

“I have something to do.”

“What’s the matter?” He stepped closer, his possessiveness showing.

“Jareth, I’m tired.” I looked up at him, and for the first time, I didn’t see avoidance in his eyes.

For the next three days, I became a machine without emotions.

During the day, I marked out the gaps in the reports with precision. At night, I tied those gaps into a nose, one end around Jareth’s neck.

Clara came to bring me supper and sighed as she looked at the papers spread out on the table. “Is it worth it?”

On the fifth day, there was a crooked love heart at the end, exactly like when he was chasing me five years ago.

As I tore the letter up, I found the dual contracts.

Under the forged signature was an encryption method only we knew — he even involved me in his crimes.

When I slipped the encrypted USB drive into the envelope, my fingers paused over the recipient’s name — Jareth’s archrival.

“Are you really going to go this far?” Clara’s voice trembled.

“He deserves it.” The sound of tape tearing was especially loud in the silence.

After hanging up, I opened the chat with Jareth. Messages from the past five years flooded in like a tide:

【2019.3.15】“I’ll propose once I land the project.”

【2020.5.20】“Received the pen, I really like it.”

【2021.12.31】“New Year’s Eve meeting, sorry.”

The delete button was nearly burning as I pressed it, each message like a knife to my heart.

Lily sent a friend request: “Jareth says you’re upset, want to talk?”

Her latest Instagram post showed nine pictures: Jareth was cutting steak for her, captioned “Spoiled like a princess.”

Visible to me only.

In the cloud album, three gigabytes of five years’ worth of photos.

In one of them, at the beach, he was holding me and promising, “Once we go public, we’ll get married here.” I stared at this photo for half a minute, and no ripple stirred in my heart anymore. Then I pressed the delete button.

In the desk drawer, the wedding budget sheet had “Wedding Dress” and “Venue” highlighted in red, glaring at me. I ripped it up and found the velvet box — cufflinks I bought last year, engraved with the first letter of his name, still never given. The scissors sliced through them, and the letters were shredded.

At 3 a.m., I wrote the last line of my will: “I gambled five years for the future, lost completely. Evidence has been sent. Clara, take care.”

My phone buzzed, Jareth’s message: “See the client tomorrow night?”

I typed and deleted it, then finally sent: “The freedom you wanted, I’ve given it to you.”

Standing on the rooftop, the night wind lifted my shirt.

My phone went crazy with incoming calls — it was his. I turned it off and threw it into the trash can. From a distance, the sound of an ambulance’s siren grew louder.

How coincidental. Just like his mom “happened” to get sick, Lily “happened” to appear, and I “just happened” to end it all.

As I jumped, I remembered when we first met, he wore a white shirt and smiled, “Nice to meet you, I’m Jareth.”

Some encounters, it turns out, were wrong from the start.

As the media flashbulbs pierced the night sky, the ambulance door slammed shut, drowning out the gossip. The phone in the trash can buzzed one last time, with Jareth’s message frozen: “Where are you? Leina!”

By morning, #Jareth Out of Business# #Financial Fraud Confirmed# was trending.

His empire was crashing down, following my falling trajectory.