Part 2The Stable Lover

I was the one who pursued Damon.

I first saw him at the opening of a new bar he’d invested in. The table in front of him was crowded with bottles, and he was surrounded by beautiful women laughing at his jokes. His face captured the attention of every girl in the room.

I remember a lot of them asked for his number that night.

So did I.

Many women wanted Damon, but I was the most persistent. For a year, I was at his beck and call. One word from him, and I would drop everything and appear, no matter how far. Damon’s reputation as a player was well-known. He was never without a woman on his arm.

Even if he’d just spent the night with someone else, if he called, I’d go pick him up. I never asked questions. I never said a word. I’d just go home and make him a pot of tea to sober him up.

Everyone thought I was desperately in love with him. They said my family was a disgrace—first bankruptcy, and now their only daughter was acting like a doormat for the young master of the Harrison family.

We finally got together after a night we both drank too much and ended up in the same bed. I only remember that he was rough, and that I cried a lot, clinging to him the whole time.

The next morning, Damon looked at the marks on my body and my swollen eyes, and for a rare moment, he seemed to soften. He lit a cigarette and asked casually, “Do you want to be with me?”

“But let’s get one thing straight,” he added, the cigarette dangling from his lips. “Don’t try to control me. I hate that.”

I stared at the comforter for a long moment. “Okay,” I said.

Damon always thought those were tears of joy.

He never knew that day was my first love’s birthday.

His profile looked so much like my ex’s. I’d noticed it the first time I saw him, across a crowded room. That night, in the dim light, for just a fleeting second, it felt like he was back with me.

…

I was with Valet Conn from the time I was seventeen until I was twenty-five. We were together for eight years.

He was the only scholarship student at our elite private high school. I heard his family used to be wealthy, but his father was betrayed by a business partner, went bankrupt, and couldn’t handle the blow. He took his own life. Valet’s mother, who was already in poor health, died soon after.

Overnight, he went from being a golden boy to an orphan with nothing.

But Valet bounced back quickly. He was never arrogant or self-pitying. He held the top rank in a school full of rich kids and was even elected student body president.

Who wouldn’t fall for a guy like that?

I asked him out many times, and he always turned me down. But I never gave up. Plenty of girls liked him, but they all eventually moved on after being rejected. I was the only one who persisted.

Finally, just before graduation, on my sixth attempt, he asked me with a weary sigh, “What is it you even like about me?”

My face was flushed, my eyes welling up with tears of frustration. I just knew that I loved him. Sometimes, there’s no reason for it.

“I just like you! I like everything about you!”

His expression was complicated. After a long pause, he said softly, “But I have nothing. I can’t give you anything. Do you still like me, even like this?”

“Yes!” I shouted. “Valet, I have my limits too! If you say no this time, I swear I’ll never ask you again!”

He looked at me for a long time, then let out a deep breath, a sound of resignation and surrender. He gently pulled me into a hug.

“You’re an idiot.”

My eyes went wide. My heart, which had stopped for a beat, began to pound furiously. It was the first time I ever truly understood what it felt like to be ecstatic. It was true—when you’re that happy, it really does feel like fireworks are going off in your chest.

We were together after that. He was a brilliant student; I wasn’t. To be with me, he intentionally missed a couple of big questions on his college entrance exams so we could get into the same university. When I found out, I cried my eyes out. He just held me and laughed.

“Silly girl, what are you crying for? It doesn’t matter where I go to school. Don’t worry. I won’t let you suffer.”

It wasn't an empty promise. By his sophomore year, he’d started his own company with some friends and made his first real money. The year we graduated, he bought a huge penthouse apartment in the city center and had it decorated exactly to my taste. It was going to be our home.

Everything was perfect. Our future plans only included each other. Neither of us ever doubted we would end up together.

Until the day I took him home to meet my parents.

I saw the color drain from my father’s face.

Valet swayed on his feet, his own face turning ghost-white.

That was when I learned that my father was the business partner who had betrayed Valet’s father, the man who had destroyed his family.

Life can be so cruel. Because my father was always away on business, Valet had never met him. We never could have imagined it.

That day, my father told my mother and me to leave the room. He wanted to talk to Valet alone.

Not long after, Valet left the country. He didn’t leave a note. He didn’t say a word.

The man who would cross half the country just because I said I missed him, the man who promised to love me forever, who got down on one knee with tears in his eyes and asked me to marry him, saying that with me, he finally had a home… he just abandoned me.

And I couldn’t even hate him for it. It was my father who had ruined his life. Who wouldn’t feel that hatred? If I were in his shoes, I would have hated me too.

Maybe it was karma. Not long after, my father’s investments failed, and he took his own life. My family went bankrupt.

Meanwhile, Valet thrived abroad. He had a brilliant eye for investment, and in just a few years, his company went public on the Nasdaq. He became a famous tech mogul.

Our situations had completely reversed. We had no reason to ever cross paths again. It was impossible.

So when I saw Damon, for the first time in years, my dead heart seemed to flicker back to life.

For me, who I was with didn’t matter anymore. Damon looked so much like Valet. That alone felt like a gift from heaven.

For the sake of that face, I was at his beck and call for years. Whenever he needed me, I was there. No matter how late he was out, no matter which woman he was with, one call and I would get out of bed to bring him home. My birthday, our anniversaries—he remembered none of them. On my actual birthday, he was out with some new girl he’d met.

Damon had always been a playboy. Being with me didn’t change him. A few times, other women even came to confront me directly. I could tell he wanted to break up, that he was trying to provoke a fight. But I never got jealous. I never made a scene.

Over time, he got used to me. He and his friends all thought I was pathetically, hopelessly in love with him.

The truth was, I just didn't care.

All I wanted was to see that face in the middle of the night, to pretend, just for a moment, that Valet was still with me. That fantasy was the only thing that kept me going.