Pranked at Birthday Banquet, I Married a Tycoon

On the other end of the line, Kieran was clearly caught off guard for a moment.

“Kieran... I’m so sleepy,” Nadia murmured, her voice lazy and worn with fatigue. At once, Kieran’s breathing turned tense.

“Hmph. It’s fine if you don’t come back. That just means there’s an extra spot for Nadia. She hasn’t been resting well these past few days, and now she can finally get a good night’s sleep.”

With that, Kieran hung up in a hurry.

Even though I kept telling myself I had already let go, the way he rushed to make room for Nadia still left a dull ache in my chest.

That night, I lay in bed tossing and turning, unable to sleep, so I scrolled through my phone to distract myself.

Then Facebook suddenly notified me that someone had tagged me.

When I opened it, I saw it was Nadia.

She had posted a nine-photo collage of Kieran cooking for her. In one of the pictures, the two of them were leaning against each other, looking perfectly matched.

A few of Kieran’s close friends quickly flooded the comments.

“So Kieran can cook after all. He just only cooks for Nadia.”

“Congrats. After all the twists and turns, you two still ended up together.”

...

Buried in the long comment thread, Kieran had replied to one of them.

“I’m going to protect Nadia for the rest of my life.”

That one reply had ninety-nine likes.

That kind of blatant favoritism was something I had never once received from him.

I remembered the last time Kieran celebrated his birthday at home. One of his buddies had called me his girlfriend, only to be corrected immediately—he said we weren’t in that kind of relationship.

So that was how obvious the difference was between being loved and not being loved.

Casually, I tapped like and left a comment.

“Congratulations to both of you. Wishing you happiness.”

After posting it, I deleted every last one of them.

From now on, Kieran and I would be nothing but strangers.

But just a few minutes later, my phone rang again.

It was Kieran.

At this hour, shouldn’t he have been by Nadia’s side, telling her stories and coaxing her to sleep? How did he still have time to call me?

I had meant to hang up, but somehow my finger slid across the screen and answered instead.

The moment the call connected, Kieran’s furious voice exploded through the phone.

“Yara Hollister, who the hell told you to comment on Nadia’s post? Because of you, people are mistaking her for a mistress! Nadia’s crying and falling apart right now. Do you have any idea how much damage your recklessness and impulsiveness have caused her?”

Listening to Kieran fire off accusation after accusation like a machine gun, I found it almost laughable.

“Kieran, Nadia tagged me on purpose so I would see it. Wasn’t she just fishing for blessings? If everyone else can congratulate her, why the hell can’t I?”

“You—”

Kieran paused for a second before snapping, “She’s still young. She doesn’t know any better—she was just fooling around. Don’t tell me you don’t know better either. You’d better call her right now and apologize!”

Nadia was only two years younger than me.

And yet Kieran used her age as an excuse to shield her. That kind of indulgence, that kind of bias, was something he had never once given me.

It hurt to think about, but at the same time, I felt lucky.

At least now, I could finally see exactly where I stood in Kieran’s heart.

“Kieran, let’s end this.”

The moment I said it, I felt an immense sense of relief.

When you love someone, your whole heart, your whole world, is filled with them. Every little thing they do can pull at your emotions.

But once you let go, you no longer have to live in fear of losing them.

Kieran, however, flew into a rage.

“Yara Hollister, don’t you dare use a breakup to threaten me! This time, I won’t hold it against you. But next time, don’t hurt Nadia again. She’s innocent.”

Then he hung up in a rush.

He never even heard the last thing I said.

“We’re over. There won’t be a next time.”