Chapter 441: This Makes You the Third Party (Part 1)

His cool gaze swept across the crowd, and a flicker of surprise flashed through his icy eyes when he saw Nancy Hughes.

He quickly averted his gaze from her face and turned to speak to the man walking beside him.

Nancy Hughes stood rooted to the spot, staring blankly at Dylan Heston as he pretended not to see her. ‘Our eyes clearly met for a second. Why did he look away? Why is he pretending he doesn’t know me?’

The cracks in the wall of trust she had built began to spread wider and wider, and an indescribable pain welled up from deep within her.

It hurt so, so much—enough to make her want to cry.

Dylan Heston and the other man walked straight ahead, leaving without a single glance back.

Her gaze followed him until his car disappeared from sight.

Dejectedly, she looked away and lowered her head.

She returned home in the evening. The sun had been unusually harsh, beating down on her head and making her feel dizzy.

At the entrance to her apartment building, she stopped in her tracks, staring at the man standing out front.

Nancy Hughes didn’t know how long he had been waiting. He rarely smoked in front of her.

She approached slowly, wanting to pretend she hadn’t seen him, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Dylan Heston.

Finally, she stopped about three feet away from him. “Hi.”

She glanced at him quickly and nervously looked down, noticing the large number of cigarette butts at his feet.

‘This is so awkward. Just a short while ago, we were so close.’

Suddenly, a cigarette butt dropped into her line of sight. She looked up just as the man in front of her rushed forward and pulled her into his arms.

“I missed you!”

Those three simple words completely shattered her.

Her body went rigid, but she let Dylan Heston hold her.

“Why are you so cold?” he asked in a low voice.

“I’m fine.” She instinctively pulled away from him. “By the way, what have you been up to lately?”

“Just some work stuff.”

“Have you been busy?”

“A little.”

“Oh.”

“It’s getting late,” she said. “You should go home. You have work tomorrow.”

“Nancy,” he called her name softly. “I’ll watch you go up. Go on.”

“Okay, bye!”

She answered hurriedly and quickly turned her head away, pretending not to see the look in Dylan Heston’s eyes.

She understood the emotion in his eyes perfectly, but in that moment, she didn’t want to deal with it.

She hurried upstairs and back to her apartment.

Once inside, not caring whether Dylan Heston was still outside, she buried herself under the covers. ‘I wish I could just stay like this.’

After hiding away for who knows how long, she suddenly threw off the covers, remembering something she still had to return to him.

She took the watch out of her bag and stared at it quietly for a long time before putting it back.

‘I’ll just give it back to him next time.’

「On the weekend.」 Nancy Hughes called a moving company to move all her belongings. She also returned the key to her landlord.

Her new apartment was small. Seven or eight boxes were piled in the room, making it feel cramped and crowded.

It took her the entire afternoon of unpacking to make the apartment look a little more presentable.

Even though the room was small, she could finally settle down.

「On the day of Zane Lennox’s funeral,」 she attended to pay her respects, identifying herself as his former classmate.

At the funeral, she saw Dylan Heston, and by his side, Rose Everett.

‘She had to admit, the two of them looked like a perfect match.’

The gray, rainy day was thick with an atmosphere of sorrow.

After the funeral ended, Georgia Thorne ran over. “By the way, how have things been with you and Dylan Heston lately?”

Georgia Thorne had probably seen Dylan Heston with Rose Everett. Nancy shrugged. “What do you think? You saw for yourself, didn’t you?”

‘It’s probably really over this time.’

“So, are you…”

“Georgia, there’s nothing left to say, and I don’t want to talk about it,” Nancy Hughes cut her off. She was exhausted.

Zane Lennox had been young and promising, his career just taking off, and now he was suddenly gone. Everyone felt it was a terrible loss.

His parents, especially, who had been so proud of him, were utterly grief-stricken to have suddenly lost their son.

She bowed before Zane Lennox’s memorial photo and said to his mother, “My condolences.”

After another solemn bow, she left.

A few days after Zane Lennox’s funeral, a piece of news reached her.

Although it wasn’t reported in the media, Rose Everett’s blissful demeanor at the office seemed to confirm it.

The news was that Dylan Heston and Rose Everett were secretly engaged and would be holding their wedding in the near future.