Love Settled, No Debts Owed

On my first day inside this tragic novel, the system handed me a job: win the true heart of Reuben Simmons, the original heroine's boyfriend, or earn a full hundred million.

But before I could even make a choice, Reuben's first love sent him a message.

Reuben, I've given up on him and left. Does your promise still stand that you'd marry me at thirty?

I stared at him, thinking: when the author writes a devoted second male lead, do they never spare a thought for what happens to the current girlfriend?

Sure enough, that same night he laid it all out.

"Bianca Whitfield, I'm sorry. I still can't let her go."

The original heroine's memories and feelings crashed into me all at once, and my eyes burned, my whole body trembling and I couldn't stop it.

But then I remembered how she tried to keep him with five years of love, only for him to drive her to public ruin, to depression, to jumping off a building.

I quickly set the key card on the table myself.

"It's okay. Five years with you is more than enough for me. As long as she can love you the way I do, that's all that matters!"

He froze, his mouth opening and closing, all the soothing words he'd prepared stuck in his throat.

After a long moment, he pushed a bank card across to me. "Don't say any more. This apartment is yours. There's five million on the card. Take it."

I shook my head through my tears. "That's not what I care about."

He clenched his jaw and transferred over another five million. "Don't sell yourself short. I owe you this."

The door closed, and I slid down against it until I was sitting on the floor.

I let this body cry as hard as it wanted, until even I could feel the heartbreak in it.

I told myself, "He isn't coming back. I'll take you away another way."

??

I pulled out my phone right away and messaged the agent. "The Uptown Court penthouse, urgent sale, drop another five hundred thousand for a full cash offer. I'm in a hurry."

At two in the morning, Reuben pushed open the door to the apartment.

"You're that short on money? Slashing the price overnight to sell the place is this you throwing a tantrum at me?"

He tossed a screenshot of the agent's post onto the coffee table, his tie half loosened, lounging back against the sofa as he studied me.

He'd decided this was just me playing hard to get, a stunt to force him to hold on.

I kept my head down, looking at the words on the screen, tears hitting the back of my hand.

This time I didn't stop them.

"I'm not throwing a tantrum."

I bit my lower lip, my voice shaking.

"This whole apartment is nothing but five years of our memories. The second I close my eyes, I see you here, cooking with me, ringing in the New Year with me."

I lifted my head and looked at him.

"Reuben, I don't dare keep it. I'm afraid if I look at all this every day, I won't be able to hold on."

Every word was true.

That was the most ironic part of it. I didn't need to act. I only needed to take out the original heroine's heart and lay it in front of him.

The mockery Reuben had ready caught in his throat.

He looked at my pale face, his brow furrowing, a flicker of irritation in his eyes.

I lowered my gaze.

The original heroine's memories kept surfacing. Reuben had been good to her as long as no one touched his first love.

Two years ago, to go to the airport and pick up Jasmine Swanson, freshly back in the country, he'd left the original heroine alone on a street in a downpour.

She'd broken down crying, asking him why.

What she got in return was half a month of icing her out.

He'd even laughed lazily over drinks with his buddies. "Women are nothing but trouble. Give them an inch and they climb all over you."

For those two weeks, she became the laughingstock of the whole city's elite circle.

And what hurt me most wasn't the memory itself.

It was that, all through those two weeks, she scrolled his call logs until dawn every night, telling herself the whole time, "He's probably just too busy." That small, groveling hope was still running in my veins right now.

Reuben was quiet for a long time before he finally sighed.

He leaned in and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear with his fingers.

On reflex I wanted to press into his palm.

I clenched my jaw, turned my face away, and dodged him.

His hand paused for a beat, but his tone stayed exactly as entitled as ever.

"Be good. Don't make this hard for me."

He drew his hand back, took a black card from his suit pocket, and set it in front of me.

"That trip to Iceland next week to see the northern lights I had my assistant cancel it. Jasmine just got back, she's emotionally unstable, and I need to stay in the country to be with her."

Our fifth-anniversary trip. He'd spent a full six months planning it, and now he'd wiped it out in a single sentence.

For that trip the original heroine had studied Icelandic for three months. Her notebook was still tucked in the nightstand drawer, and on the last page she'd written, "I want to see the northern lights with him, just once."

I looked at the black card and didn't reach for it. I only nodded.

"All right. Spend more time with her. The northern lights will always be there another time."

As I finished, I heard something give way somewhere in my chest, faint, as if something had snapped.

My refusal to fight, to cling, only deepened the irritation in Reuben's eyes.

He was used to me clinging to him, and now that I was letting him go on my own, he didn't know what to do with it.

"The PIN is your birthday. Buy whatever you want. Don't sell yourself short."

"I'm going back to the old estate to sleep tonight. Tomorrow I'll have my assistant send you another sum."

The moment the door shut, I stood where I was for a long time before I wiped every trace of expression off my face, bit by bit.

This body was still shaking.

I picked up the black card and linked it to my account.

"Ding. Black card successfully linked, estimated available limit ten million. Current progress twenty percent."

I watched the numbers flickering on the panel and told myself: the money is mine, the tears are hers.

I was going to collect this debt for her, down to the last cent.

The next morning, I went to the high-end equestrian club that was in my name.

It was the business the original Bianca had poured two years of her life into.

From the site permits to the first round of top-tier members, she had spent almost half her life on this place.

I sat in the office going over the books, my finger tracing a scratch along the edge of the desk without thinking.

She'd made it herself the first day she moved in, banging the desk together, tightening the screws by hand.

She'd been so happy then. She'd thought she finally had something to prove she deserved him.

The door opened.

Jasmine Swanson walked in wearing a custom riding outfit, Reuben Simmons's chief executive assistant trailing behind her.

"Miss Whitfield, the light in here doesn't seem very good, does it."

She looked around the room, her tone picking at everything.

"Reuben said now that I'm back, I need somewhere to pass the time. I think this club would suit me nicely."

She was smiling, but her eyes were like needles dipped in poison.

"The dcor is too dated, though. And those horses in the stable, none of them have clean enough bloodlines. Have someone swap them all out tomorrow."

For the first time, my hand stopped on the books.

At the very back of the stable lived an old horse named Toffee, lame in one leg, no good for the track. The original Bianca had bought him back from a slaughterhouse two years ago.

She'd brushed his coat for an entire winter.

The assistant stood off to the side, looking awkward.

Another memory surfaced: to lock down the site permits, the original Bianca had drunk with a client until her stomach bled. Lying in the hospital past midnight on an IV drip, all Reuben Simmons had said over the phone, in that cold voice, was, "If you can't handle it, don't do it. It's not like I can't afford to keep you."

Killing herself to prove she was worthy of him. Looking at it now, it was simply a joke.

I stood, took the company seal and the change-of-ownership paperwork out of the drawer, and pushed them across to Jasmine Swanson.

"I've marked everywhere that needs a signature. Your assistant's efficient, so you can finish the whole process this afternoon."

Jasmine Swanson froze. She clearly hadn't expected me to give in this easily, and the whole belly of insults she'd prepared landed on cotton.

"You" She eyed me with suspicion. "You're really willing to let it go?"

Of course I wasn't willing.

Every bone in this body was screaming that it couldn't bear it.

It wanted to lunge across the desk and snatch that seal back, the way the original Bianca had snatched him back every single time.

I pressed down the trembling in my fingertips, smiled, and handed over the spare key too.

"Since Mr. Simmons has spoken, of course I'll oblige. Just one condition. That lame old horse at the back of the stable, I'm taking him."

"You want a useless horse too?" She laughed.

"He's no use," I said. "But he knows me."

Just then the phone on the desk rang. It was Reuben Simmons. I put it on speaker.

"Bianca, Jasmine went to the club, right?"

There was a matter-of-course favoritism in his voice.

"She just got back, she needs something to do. Think of the club as somewhere for her to get her hands dirty. Don't hold it against her."

He paused, then added another line.

"I just had my assistant order the newest McLaren, put straight in your name. Consider it compensation."

Jasmine Swanson's face turned ugly in an instant.

Watching her stiff expression, I said softly, "All right. Thank you, Mr. Simmons."

I hung up, picked up my bag, and headed for the door. I paused as I passed Jasmine Swanson.

"Miss Swanson, I hope the business runs smoothly for you. The members here have bad tempers. You'll have to bear with them."

The elevator doors slid shut, and I looked up at myself in the mirror. My eyes were red.

"Ding. Limited-edition supercar cash value estimated at fifteen million. Current progress, thirty-five percent."

The club was a money pit. Trading an empty shell for a limited-edition supercar was a deal that couldn't lose.

I had the numbers figured cleanly. But this body didn't accept the accounting.

All it knew was that I had just sold off her life.

I pressed the button for the lower level. I was going straight down to pick up the car.

A week later, one of the city's top charity auctions.

My financial advisor had just finished going over the hidden assets under my name. "Miss Whitfield, your liquidity is excellent. You can pull out anytime."

I stood on the second-floor terrace with a glass of champagne, looking down over the whole hall.

Tonight the spotlight belonged to Reuben Simmons and Jasmine Swanson.

They walked in arm in arm, and the entire circle crowded around them. The same socialites who used to call me "Mrs. Simmons" at every turn were now fawning over Jasmine.

The final lot of the night was a pink-diamond bracelet called Starfield.

A month ago, Reuben had flipped through the auction catalog and told her, "This one suits you. Think of it as our fifth-anniversary gift."

That night she'd secretly folded down the corner of that page and tucked it under her pillow, touching it three times before she fell asleep.

The auctioneer called the opening price. Reuben raised his paddle without hesitation.

The bidding climbed and climbed, and he took it for thirty million. The room burst into applause.

He lifted the bracelet from its silk box, turned, and fastened it onto Jasmine's wrist himself.

Jasmine's eyes went red with emotion. She rose onto her toes and kissed the side of his face.

I thought I'd be calm.

But this body's knees went soft first, and I had to grip the railing to stay standing. My chest felt like something was pounding it, blow after blunt blow.

At the dinner, Jasmine crossed the crowd with a glass in hand and stopped in front of me with the posture of a winner.

"Miss Whitfield, I didn't get the chance to say hello earlier. These five years, thank you for taking such good care of Reuben."

The area went silent at once. Everyone waited for me to lose it, to break down screaming.

Reuben stopped his conversation too, brows knit as he looked over.

He seemed to want to come stop this.

But his feet didn't move.

I raised my glass and lightly tapped the rim of hers.

"No need for thanks. Mr. Simmons is generous. These five years, I lived very well."

I drained the glass in one go. The liquor was strong, just enough to hold down the sob rising in my throat.

"A long and happy marriage, Mr. Simmons. Thank you for the hospitality."

No thrown drink, no tears, not one extra word of accusation.

Reuben's face darkened in an instant. My unruffled eyes had cut him.

Jasmine still wanted to chase it with another jab or two, but he seized her wrist.

"That's enough," he said, his voice cold.

Less than an hour after I got back to the apartment, the doorbell rang. It was Reuben's driver.

He held out an enormous velvet box. "This is an antique tiara Mr. Simmons bid on privately backstage. He says the fifth-anniversary gift he owes you, he's making up for it with this."

"Ding. Antique tiara valued at fifty million. Current progress, eighty-five percent."

I sat in the entryway holding the box for a long time.

What she wanted was never the crown. What she wanted was that folded-down page in the catalog.

I took a photo of the outer packaging and sent it to the auction house I worked with.

"Rush the appraisal. As fast as possible."

Jasmine found out about the tiara soon enough.

Three days later, at a top-tier equestrian ground on the edge of the city. It was a gathering thrown by one of the second-generation crowd. Reuben had been held up by an elder and would arrive late.

I hadn't wanted to come, but there were a few asset-transfer contracts that had to be signed here in person.

I'd barely finished signing when Jasmine came over with a group behind her, dressed in fiery red riding gear, a crop in her hand.

"I hear Bianca used to train specially in riding, just so she could keep Reuben company."

She raised her voice and pointed toward the fiercest, blackest stallion in the ring.

"Do you dare try Blackwind? Or is it that, without Reuben, you don't even have that much nerve left?"

The second-gen crowd started egging me on. I'd fallen out of favor, so of course I'd become the little amusement they used to please her.

I took the helmet. This body was shaking.

It remembered why the original had learned to ride at all. Because he'd once said, "You look beautiful on a horse."

The swing up into the saddle was clean and sure. Blackwind was steady enough at first.

But as I passed the edge of the stands, a blinding light suddenly struck the horse in the eyes.

The light came from the direction behind Jasmine.

Blackwind screamed, front hooves rearing up, and bolted straight for the railing.

Wind roared past my ears. I hauled on the reins with everything I had, but my center of gravity was gone.

Just then, Reuben's car pulled into the grounds.

"Bianca!" he shouted, his eyes splitting wide.

In that instant, I heard this body calling his name inside.

Once, then again. Everything the original had hoped for over five years was crushed into that single cry.

But just as he was about to rush over, Jasmine screamed on the stands, clutched her chest, and collapsed.

"Reuben... I can't breathe..."

Her panic attack had struck.

Reuben's steps stopped dead.

He looked at me swaying on the horse's back, then looked at her lying on the ground.

He hesitated less than a second.

Then he turned and ran for the stands, pulling Jasmine tight against him.

"Jasmine! Deep breaths, don't be scared, I'm here!"

I watched that back, and the heart that had been aching in my chest all this time suddenly went quiet.

The answer the original had waited five years for was given in full in that one second.

To keep from being trampled by the hooves, I let go of the reins and threw myself off the horse's back.

My body slammed into the sand, and there was a crisp snap of bone from my arm.

I lay there covered in mud and blood, even my breath tasting of it.

Only after the medics lifted me onto the stretcher, once Reuben had made sure Jasmine was fine, did he turn his head.

He rushed over, his face bloodless.

"Bianca..." His hand hung in the air, not daring to touch me.

I didn't cry, and I didn't ask him why he'd saved someone else first.

I only looked at him, utterly calm.

"Reuben, we're square now. From now on, don't come looking for me again."

As I said it, a single tear slid from the corner of my eye into my hair.

That was the original's last one.

From this second on, there was nothing left in this body that loved him.