Chapter 6

Scarlett's POV

Vivian officially moved in.

The villa filled with her laughter, her perfume scent, every trace of her.

I became the superfluous person in this home.

I witnessed firsthand Adrian's meticulous care for Vivian.

When she casually mentioned wanting cake, Adrian would immediately drive across half the city to buy it.

When she frowned and said she was bored, Adrian would cancel multimillion-dollar contracts to spend the entire day watching mindless TV shows with her.

These were treatments I hadn't dared imagine in three years.

So he did know how to be tender-his tenderness just never belonged to me.

My heart had gone numb.

I spent each day in my room, reading, researching, planning my life after leaving.

Until that afternoon.

I went downstairs for water and inadvertently saw Vivian in Adrian's study.

In her hands, she was playing with a bracelet.

It was a diamond bracelet-a relic from Adrian's late grandmother and his most treasured possession.

For three years, he'd hardly been separated from it.

Without thinking, I rushed in.

"Put it down!"

Seeing my alarm, a flash of malicious light crossed Vivian's eyes.

Not only did she not put it down, she deliberately tossed it in her hands.

"Adrian said as long as I like something, he'll give me anything. It's just a bracelet. Look how nervous you are."

With that, she flicked her wrist, pretending to lose her grip.

The bracelet fell heavily to the floor.

The expensive diamonds immediately scattered.

One of them even cracked from the impact, a clear fissure visible.

Adrian arrived at the sound.

When he saw the mess on the floor and that cracked diamond, his face instantly turned iron-gray.

Vivian immediately changed her expression, pointing at me accusingly first.

"Adrian, it's not my fault! Scarlett rushed in and insisted on grabbing the bracelet from me. That's why I accidentally broke it!"

I watched her clumsy performance and said only one sentence.

"The study has surveillance cameras."

Vivian's face went pale. She immediately adopted a pitiful look, admitting it was her carelessness and offering to compensate with money.

Adrian's anger vanished the moment Vivian admitted fault.

He didn't even glance at the diamonds on the floor. Instead, he quickly walked to Vivian's side, nervously lifting her wrist.

"Are you hurt?"

I stood aside, watching this scene, feeling my heart hollowed out by an invisible hand.

I crouched down and began picking up the scattered diamonds one by one.

The cold diamonds rolled across my fingertips. I found the cracked one.

I remembered.

Three years ago, Adrian's mother accidentally lost this bracelet.

Adrian, with his still-unhealed body, went mad searching for it in the pouring rain that night, sitting in his wheelchair in the garden for half the night.

In the end, it was I who accompanied him, drenched in torrential rain, hands frozen red, finally finding this treasure in the muddy soil.

Back then, he'd clutched the recovered bracelet in his palm, the treasure in his eyes as if it were his entire world.

And now.

His most precious possession had been deliberately broken by Vivian, yet he didn't care-only concerned whether she'd hurt her hand.

I picked up the last diamond, along with the cracked one, and held them in my palm.

I stood and walked before Adrian, opening my hand.

"Your things."

My voice held no ripple.

Adrian frowned, seemingly impatient that I was interrupting his comforting of Vivian.

He casually took the diamonds without even looking and put them straight into his pocket.

Then he placed his hand on Vivian's shoulder, saying gently.

"It's fine now. Don't be scared. If it's broken, we'll just buy another."

I looked at him, finally giving up completely.

Adrian, I truly won't love you anymore.