It was the third year I’d been running my flower shop to keep my boyfriend, Leo Donovan, afloat, and he’d just declared bankruptcy. Again.
The first time, I’d sold the house my grandma left me for him, paying off 0-000,000.
The second time, I’d dug out the savings account my mom had left for my dowry, and paid off $250,000.
This third time, I stared into his lost, vacant eyes, my fingers clutching the number of my billionaire father—the man who, in my mind, had been dead to me for years. I hesitated, wondering if I should dial.
But that very night, I accidentally saw a message pop up on a private SnapChat group on his tablet:
“Hey Leo, what should we put for the contract amount this time? For the bankruptcy repayment, I mean.”
“Put 0-0.5 million. Otherwise, the little flower girl will just pay it off in one go again. So boring, right?”
“Leo always has the best games. I hear the little flower girl keeps the flowers blooming by day and keeps you ‘blooming’ by night. You never get tired of playing with her, huh?”
I slowly put down his tablet and dialed my billionaire father.
“You just want to force me to take over the family business and marry your protégé, don’t you? Fine. I’ll marry him.”
“Send someone to pick me up in three days.”
0
I hung up with Dad. Leo walked back in, a signed IOU clutched in his hand.
“Ivy, I’m so sorry. I owe another 0-0.5 million this time. I’m just useless.”
His acting was flawless. That lost look in his eyes, it used to always make me say:
“It’s okay, we’ll work through this together. We’ll pay it all back eventually.”
But now, I just stared silently at the partial glimpse of a watch peeking from under his cuff.
It looked like an ordinary watch, but I’d seen it in a magazine. It was worth $25 million.
Leo owned a $25 million watch, yet he couldn’t pay off a 0-0.5 million debt.
I had nothing, but I was ready to take out a predatory loan for him.
My genuine feelings for him had become his license to play with me, to manipulate me without a shred of remorse.
Seeing my gaze fixed on his wrist, Leo didn’t even flinch. He pulled me into his arms, his expression unchanging.
“Just a fake, Ivy. When I’m rich, I’ll buy you anything you want.”
He knew I was poor, that I wouldn’t recognize these luxury brands. He didn’t even need to think twice about lying to me.
I pulled my gaze away, only to see new messages popping up in the SnapChat group on the tablet, which was still beside me.
“Leo, what’s the little girl going to sell to pay off the debt this time? Her flowers, her house, or… herself?”
“Women Leo’s ‘played with’ must be quite something. If she’s selling herself, I’ll buy a night first!”
The messages that followed were a barrage of vulgar comments and ‘me too’s.
Three years with Leo, and I’d bailed him out of bankruptcy twice.
The first time, I sold the house my grandma left me.
Leo held me close, promising he’d give me a home.
But we lived in a dingy basement apartment, paying $400 a month for two years, and then he came back with another IOU for $300,000.
I still didn’t blame him. Instead, I pulled out the dowry my mom had saved for me and covered his debts.
He knelt before me, swearing that by accepting my dowry, he was my husband, that he’d love and cherish me for life.
But his promises? They were all lies, from start to finish.
Leo’s attention was drawn by the incessant pinging of his phone.
He glanced at me, saw I wasn’t looking, and then confidently opened his phone to scroll through the group messages.
Soon, his brow furrowed, and his lips thinned into a hard line.
He tapped a few times on the screen, and his message popped up in the group chat:
“All of you, back off! Just sit back and enjoy the show!”
Leo put his phone down. After a long silence, he pulled me into his arms again, his embrace cloying.
“Ivy, I promise this is the last time. Once this debt is paid, I’ll marry you, okay?”
I looked at his “sincere” expression and suddenly found it utterly laughable.
Who knew I was so invaluable? So much so that a rich playboy would go to such lengths to fool me.
Even stooping to talk about marriage.
If, at first, I’d wanted to confront him and ask if he found any of this amusing…
Now, I didn’t even have the energy to demand answers.
I calmly pushed him away.
“But Leo, I’m out of money.”
Leo froze, probably not expecting that reaction from me.
After all, in his mind, I should have been scrambling to find every possible way to pay off his debts.
But quickly, his face twisted into an angry scowl.
“Ivy, are you like all the others? Do you think I’m a loser? That I’ll never succeed?”
“I knew it! I misjudged you!”
With that, he stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
I watched him go, understanding he was trying to bully me into submission.
But I didn’t call after him. Instead, I pulled out my phone and blocked every single one of his contacts.
Then I picked up the IOU. No lender’s name, no borrower’s signature.
Something so obviously fake, and I’d stupidly fallen for it twice.
I let out a self-deprecating laugh and called the agent.
“Hi, can you help me find a tenant to take over my flower shop on Central Street?”
I’d only opened the flower shop to support Leo.
Now that I was done with him, there was no point in keeping it open.
Besides, I was leaving anyway.
0
The next morning, I stayed home packing my bags.
Looking around the cramped, dimly lit rental, there was surprisingly nothing worth taking with me.
Discarded birthday cards from a bakery, pretty stones I’d found on the street, rings crumpled from paper…
Leo had given me these as “surprises.”
Only, every time I’d “unboxed” one, he’d look just as surprised.
Now I realized, those “gifts” were probably just something he had someone casually throw together. He probably didn’t even know what was inside.
The only decent gift was a necklace he’d bought for 0-00 from a street vendor after his first “successful” venture.
Back then, I thought he was wasting money and was genuinely angry at him for it.
But Leo just looked at me with an amused smirk.
He called me silly, saying, “What if I actually get rich someday, and you still can’t bring yourself to spend money?”
I thought he was being sweet, worried about me back then.
Now I know. He really just thought I was stupid.
In our dense SnapChat history, there were exactly 517 messages where Leo called me stupid.
I’d run across three streets to get him his favorite late-night snacks, and he’d text, “Ivy is such an idiot.”
He had a fever, and I draped my only raincoat over him, carrying him to the emergency room. He later wrote, “She’s laughably clueless.”
Even when I was lying in his arms, dreaming about our happy future together, he’d still post in the group chat:
“Ivy’s hopelessly stupid. So broke, yet she still dreams of a future with me…”
Even from those cold words, I could picture the sneer and mockery on his face as he typed them.
But it didn’t matter anymore. From now on, there would be no Leo Donovan in Ivy Sterling’s future.
I continued packing, but by the end, my large suitcase was still empty.
The trash can, however, was overflowing.
I took one last look at the place I’d called home for two years.
Peeling paint stained with watermarks, a three-legged chair, a bed cobbled together with bricks and planks…
When things were a little better, I’d dreamed of making this place truly a home.
But Leo always refused.
He’d say, “Once we’re rich, we won’t live here anymore, so there’s no point decorating.”
I believed every one of his promises, and stupidly waited in this crumbling home for them to come true.
Thinking about all of it, I suddenly felt a profound emptiness.
I snapped my suitcase shut. The agent called.
“Ms. Sterling, I can’t finalize the transfer of the flower shop on my own. You’ll need to speak with the landlord in person.”
0
At three PM, I arrived at the designated office building to meet the agent.
Down the opulent hallway, through a slightly ajar door, I saw Leo.
He was dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, head bowed, engrossed in his phone.
Beside him, a woman, exquisitely dressed, leaned intimately against his shoulder.
I recognized her almost instantly.
Two days prior, the flower shop had received an order for nine hundred ninety-nine roses.
The customer had specifically requested the thorns *not* be removed, so I’d finished the entire arrangement with my hands covered in bleeding pricks.
When I personally delivered them by taxi, the recipient was this woman: Celeste Harding.
Tucked into the center of the roses was a small card, as requested by the customer:
“To my life’s true love, Celeste. Sincerely, LZC.”
Only at this moment did the realization hit me: LZC was Leo Donovan.
He knew perfectly well that I, desperate for money, wouldn’t turn down such a huge order.
So he deliberately made those specific requests, just to watch me run around in circles for him.
Thinking about it, I almost laughed, tears welling in my eyes.
That day, when I got home, I’d excitedly told Leo about the big money I’d made.
When he “tenderly” bandaged my wounds, was he secretly calling me stupid again? Was I just a joke to him?
As I wiped away the tears from my eyes, the agent arrived.
He saw me standing by the door and asked, puzzled,
“Ms. Sterling, the landlord is right inside. Why aren’t you going in?”
Tears still blurring my vision, I stared at the agent in shock.
“Who did you say? The landlord? Leo Donovan?”
The agent looked confused.
“Yes! Didn’t you know? That entire block of Central Street, it all belongs to Young Master Donovan.”
0
I looked at Leo’s figure in the distance, and deeply buried, painful memories surged.
After I’d paid off Leo’s second bankruptcy, I struggled financially for a long time, unable to even afford rent.
↓ ↓ Download the Novel Master app, Search 【 286496 】reads the whole book. ↓ ↓
NovelShort
