His Substitute Bride I'm Done Being Her Shadow

Millie clung to the last shred of strength she had and went back to Clint's apartment first.

She needed to take her things.

But when she pushed the door open, everything she owned was gone. The place looked as though she'd never lived there at all.

Clint called. His voice carried that particular brand of smug certainty she knew too well.

"Still saying you're not throwing a tantrum? You came back on your own, didn't you?"

"While you were overseas these past few months, Lucy came by to help clean up. Some of your old stuff had gone bad sitting around, so she tossed it for you."

By then, Millie had already found the storage room.

The floor was littered with what had been labeled "junk."

Their matching slippers were soaked in grease stains. The framed photos of them together lay shattered across the tile. The pearl necklace Clint had once bid on at auction and given to her was reduced to loose pearls scattered everywhere.

The color drained from her face. She ran back to the bedroom and tore it apart, searching every drawer, every shelf, every corner. When she came up empty, her skin went white as paper.

Her grandmother's only keepsake was gone.

"Clint." Her voice shook. "Where's my grandmother's heirloom?"

"What heirloom? Lucy probably cleared that out too." His tone was clipped with impatience. "Don't go making a big deal out of nothing just to give her a hard time."

Her mind went blank.

Without a second thought, she turned and rushed straight to Gilbert Group headquarters.

Lucille spotted her coming and clapped a hand over her mouth in exaggerated alarm, spinning on her heel toward the conference room. "Boss, help—"

The conference room door swung open. The senior executive meeting ground to an abrupt halt.

Clint was about to snap, but the moment he saw Lucille, his expression softened instantly. There was even a trace of indulgent exasperation in his voice.

"Didn't I tell you not to barge in during meetings?"

"I forgot!" Lucille stuck out her tongue and smiled, all wide-eyed innocence. "But Miss Sullivan seems really mad at me still... She followed me all the way here."

From the doorway, Millie saw everything with perfect clarity. She'd thought her heart had already gone cold and hard, but the pain still found a way through, numbing her from the inside out.

Clint lifted his gaze toward the door. The warmth vanished from his face in an instant.

"Millie."

His voice was flat with irritation. "I already told you—that stuff was junk. It's gone."

"Was it really necessary to make a scene at the office?"

Millie pressed her lips together in a bitter, self-mocking line.

All this time, she'd been naive enough to believe those things were shared memories, pieces of a life they'd built together. To Clint, they were nothing more than disposable clutter.

But that wasn't why she'd come.

Her gaze locked onto Lucille's wrist and refused to move.

There it was. Her grandmother's heirloom jade bracelet, sitting quietly against Lucille's skin.

Millie's breathing fractured.

"That's mine. Take it off."

Lucille's eyes darted sideways. "I—I didn't know..."

"Take it off!" Millie's voice cracked through the room like a whip.

When Lucille still didn't move, Millie grabbed her wrist and wrenched the bracelet free.

"Ah!"

Lucille shrieked and threw herself into Clint's arms.

"What the hell are you doing?" Clint's face darkened. He lunged forward to intervene.

Two forces pulled in opposite directions—

Crack.

The sound split the silence of the conference room wide open.

The bracelet slipped from between them and hit the floor hard.

It shattered into pieces, scattering across the polished surface.

Millie froze where she stood.

A piercing ring flooded her ears, drowning out everything else.

"Millie..." Clint's expression seized for a moment. He reached for her, but she flinched away.

Her fingers trembled as she knelt, picking up the fragments one by one.

A jagged edge sliced into the pad of her finger. Blood seeped out, slow and red. She didn't seem to feel it.

Clint's voice was heavy with displeasure and blame.

"Would it have killed you to talk it out like an adult? Did you have to get physical? Now look what happened."

"Talk it out?" Millie lifted her head. Her eyes were shot through with red. "You're protecting a thief this much?"

"I didn't do it on purpose!" Lucille fired back, eyes brimming.

Clint's face hardened. He shot Lucille a suspicious glance.

Lucille panicked immediately, shaking her head over and over, tears falling faster now.

"Mr. Gilbert, I really didn't know this belonged to Miss Sullivan..."

"I thought—I thought it was the gift you said you were going to give me. That's the only reason I wore it!"

Millie pulled out her phone and opened her photo album.

"And what about these?"

She swiped through the pictures one by one.

Slippers stomped to ruin. Frames smashed to pieces. A necklace ripped apart.

Every single item bore the unmistakable marks of deliberate destruction.

The conference room went deathly still.

Clint's jaw tightened. The color in his face shifted through several shades of livid.

Then he reached over and rapped Lucille lightly on the top of her head.

"You."

The word sounded like a scolding, but there wasn't an ounce of real anger behind it.

Lucille ducked her head between her shoulders.

Clint turned back to Millie. When he spoke again, his voice had already reset to something cool and measured.

"Lucy was out of line. I'll give you that."

"She's young. She doesn't know better. I'll apologize on her behalf."

"Whatever's broken, I'll replace it. None of it was that expensive anyway."

"As for the bracelet—" He glanced at the shards in her hands. "I'll reimburse you at market value."

"Can you just be the bigger person here and stop keeping score?"

The executives around the table chimed in one after another.

"Director Sullivan, she's just a kid who doesn't know any better. No need to stoop to her level..."

"We're all colleagues here. There's no reason to let things get this ugly..."

These were the same people who used to smile and call her "Mrs. Gilbert." Now every last one of them had sided with Lucille.

Something inside Millie collapsed, quietly, piece by piece.

She raised her head again. Her voice was calm, but hollowed out with exhaustion.

"Clint, aside from this bracelet, I don't want any of it. And you—I don't want you either."

Those words cost Millie every last drop of strength she had.

The sleepless nights spent grinding herself down. The thousand-mile rush to get back. The weight of everything that had just shattered in front of her. It all crashed into her at once, and her body simply gave out. She crumpled to the floor.

The room erupted into chaos.

In the last flickering moment before consciousness left her, she thought she saw Clint's face, stricken with panic, racing toward her.