On Our Anniversary, I Watched Him Love My Sister Publicly

"Belle, if you choose to resign, then according to the confidentiality agreement, you’ll never be allowed to see Miguel again. Are you certain about this?"

"Yes."

The boss at Neville Entertainment hesitated. "You’ve been together for six years, worked as his assistant for three. The person Miguel relies on most is you..."

The person he relies on most was it really me?

A bitter smile tugged at my lips just as my phone lit up with the top headline of the day.

[Movie King Miguel’s romance exposed, seen entering a hotel with a mystery woman. How sweet.]

In the photo, Miguel Atkinson gently tucked a strand of Saoirse Pearson’s hair behind her ear, his movements tender, as if handling a fragile treasure.

Later, the paparazzi revealed he had bought ten extra-large condoms that same day.

And that very day, while trying to intercept the leaked bed photos of him and Saoirse, I was stabbed three times by crazed paparazzi. Each stab was nearly fatal.

My hand instinctively pressed to my chest, trying to soothe the dull ache beneath.

"Hmm. This is what Miguel wants, too."

Six years of secrecy turned into a cruel joke from that moment on.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t go public. He simply didn’t love me enough to want to.

After I was discharged, I didn’t seek him out.

I went straight to the company and handed in my resignation.

Seven days later, on the anniversary of our six-year relationship, I prepared my final gift to him: To disappear from his life for good.

…

The next morning, Miguel returned, the chill of the wind still clinging to his coat.

“Baby, I’m back. I even brought your favorite chocolate cake.”

He wrapped me gently in his arms, but something tightened in my throat.

That unfamiliar perfume lingering on his clothes filled the room, reminding me that he’d once held Saoirse the same way.

While I lay cold and unconscious in a hospital bed, he had spent the night wrapped in warmth with my stepsister.

The phone on the table lit up with a headline I knew too well.

His expression faltered, and then he rushed to explain.

“That post is fake. Nothing happened between me and Saoirse. She was drugged. I was just helping her out.”

The trending post was fake. The bed photos were fake. Then what, exactly, was real?

I smiled bitterly, pressing against the dull ache from my stab wound.

“Then, shall we go public?”

“No!” Miguel instinctively snapped.

Realizing how harsh it sounded, he softened his tone.

“I’m at a crucial point in my career. If we go public now, it could ruin future deals, mess with my schedule…”

“Just wait a little longer, okay?”

For six whole years, I had heard that line again and again.

When he debuted, when he filmed his first movie, when he received his very first award, I waited through every moment, day and night.

I sat there on the couch, dazed, like a wooden puppet with no life left.

The pain in my wound slowly faded, replaced by a sting in my nose and a rising urge to cry.

Trying to ease the silence, Miguel picked up a beautifully wrapped bag.

...