He Ditched Our Engagement for His Unforgettable Love

After hitting rock bottom and ending up homeless, he watched with envy as others from his social circle thrived. Once again, he drank heavily at the bar, breaking down and confiding in me.

During his darkest times, with my companionship, he gradually pulled himself back up. Finally, he agreed to let me be his girlfriend.

I knew he dreamed of joining Prospera Holdings, one of the top 500 companies in the country and had even submitted his resume, only to be swiftly rejected. But that company was a part of my family’s conglomerate. So I secretly asked my influential grandfather, Grandpa Duke, to pull some strings and pave the way for him.

Three years passed and he rose from an entry-level employee to general manager with rocket-like speed.

On the day he received the promotion notice, I proposed to him in the office.

He agreed. I knew he was in high spirits.

I thought that finally, we had reached our happy ending.

Who would have thought that all of this was nothing more than a fleeting illusion? I was merely his toy to pass the time in his lonely, empty hours—love had nothing to do with it.

Rufus was so focused on simmering chicken soup that he didn’t even notice when I turned and left.

Not long after, I saw a post from Aileen on her social media. [Someone was so busy making chicken soup for me that he missed our appointment to pick up the marriage license—so spoiled!]

Attached was a selfie of Rufus and Aileen on a giant swing ride.

I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly. Who goes on intense amusement park rides when they’re supposedly bedridden with a fever?

That night, Rufus came home very late. He didn’t care about leaving me behind halfway through our day, nor did he show any concern for our plans to register our marriage.

After he fell asleep, I used his fingerprint to unlock his phone. I had never looked through his phone before, but I noticed he’d never posted a single picture of us together.

In that moment, I realized he did post frequently on social media and he did share photos—but he’d just hidden them from me.

Soon enough, I came across a photo he’d posted with Aileen. Around her neck was the “Starlight” necklace—a piercing sight.

Just a few days earlier, I had seen that necklace in his desk drawer.

I thought it was a surprise he’d meant for me, to gift me personally after we registered our marriage.

But he’d given it to someone else.

It turned out he wasn’t lacking in romantic gestures; it just depended on the person.

Exhausted and emotionally drained, my cold worsened.

Rufus hadn’t noticed, nor did he seem to care. I was about to head to the hospital when my phone suddenly rang.

“Emilia, get over here quickly—Rufus is in serious trouble; he’s at the police station.”

On the other end, I could faintly hear Rufus’s furious voice in the background.

“You old fools, you owe my girlfriend an apology!”

My heart jolted hard.

I wasn’t there, so the girlfriend he was defending so fiercely… definitely wasn’t me.

I skipped going to the hospital, driven by a need to understand what could make him lose his composure like this.

As I tossed the painkiller box aside, I noticed the brown prayer beads I had once begged for at the temple a year ago, praying for his safety. They lay broken and discarded under the edge of the coffee table.

I gave a bitter smile—those beads had taken nearly everything from me, a prayer I had nearly sacrificed myself for.

Yet he didn’t care for them in the slightest.

I stooped down, picked up the worn-out prayer beads and without a word, threw them into the trash.

Then I stepped outside and hailed a cab to the police station.

The moment I stepped into the police station, I spotted a woman softly coaxing him, her eyes full of tenderness.

Around her neck was that extravagant "Starlight" necklace.

Part 2

“It started when someone from our company’s HR team, under the guise of a work discussion, started harassing Rufus’s friend—and even threw dishes at them. Furious, Rufus couldn’t hold back and got into a fight with them.”

“To make things worse, everyone had been drinking a bit and after Rufus ate that exotic wild mushroom, he started acting strange. No one could restrain him—I was afraid something serious might happen.”