Love at the Next Stop

Chapter 138 He Was My Everything

Stella did not know where he had gone and whether or not he would agree to the breakup. She had no idea if he would believe in her words about Matthew.

When she faked her concern, she also felt very sorry for Miles and worried that she would make him sad. On the surface, she said she was worried for Matthew, but she was more worried for Miles.

After Miles went downstairs, she was still lying down on the pillow that was drenched in her tears. She looked at the side of the bed that had his bed wrinkles and his warmth.

She rolled over, resting for a while on his spot and felt as if she was hugged by him.

She knew well that they were on the verge of breaking up. Therefore, she could not go against her plan and slip up. After resting on his side of the bed for a while, she rolled back to her side. She waited for a long time, but he did not return to the room. Later, she drifted in and out of sleep, feeling anxious in his absence.

In the wee hours of the morning, she woke up and went downstairs to find him sitting on the sofa, smoking and staring at the door. There was an ashtray across from him, and it was littered with cigarette butts. His elbows rested on his crossed legs as he focused on the darkness of dawn that had slowly started to give way to a new day.

She walked past him and left a comment. “I’m going to the factory.”

He did not reply to her.

She left the house but could not hail any cab since it was too early, so she decided to walk down the hill. Her mind was very sharp and clear—she knew what she was doing, and it would be best to end their relationship swiftly than to prolong the pain.

Instead of getting tangled up in a messy and painful relationship, it would be wiser to let go of each other right away. Not only that, she had set it up to appear as if she was the cheater. From now on, he probably will not think of me or miss me.

For the next few days, she did not head back to stay at Miles’ place. Since the factory was spacious and fully under her management, she set up a temporary bedroom for herself and decorated it like her cosy room at home.

Janice sent a WhatsApp message to Stella to ask about her period and urged her to refill her prescription at the hospital.

Whenever Stella was reminded by Janice about her condition, she would be overcome by waves of sadness. Ever since her second miscarriage, she would occasionally feel chills in her stomach. She wanted to free herself from the cold that grappled her—it was a very strange and unfamiliar sensation to her.

She told Janice that she had not been to the hospital for some time. After treating her cervicitis in Murdough, she took extra care of her hygiene; Miles did too. Therefore, there was nothing out of the ordinary with her health before her second miscarriage. However, she had been feeling some discomfort lately.

“If so, you should get your prescription refilled! The medicine will help with your recovery and won’t leave you with any side effects. Oh, after Miles gets back from Switzerland, he will come in for a massage every week at my office. The appointment is for 12.00PM every Wednesday. Will you be coming too?” Janice asked Stella on the phone.

Stella had a special charm. Whenever she talked, she sounded very calm and airy. Sometimes, her tone would drip with honey. Normally, a woman with her characteristic would have trouble winning female friendships, for she would be perceived as pretentious and coy. But Stella was an anomaly—she attracted both male romantic interests and female friends. Therefore, her friendship with Audrey did not come as a surprise.

Even Janice, a woman in her forties, was especially caring toward Stella.

“I broke up with Miles. Also, I’ll head over to refill my prescription soon.” After that, Stella hurriedly ended the call, fearing that Janice would ask her questions about the breakup.

Janice paused on the other end, feeling sorry and confused at the news of the breakup. She made a note to ask Miles about it.

Miles had not finalized the breakup with her. Stella planned to follow up with more actions, not because she wanted to put salt in his wound, but because she wanted to kill off any remaining affections he had for her. God knows how difficult it is for me to hurt him.

At first, she had wanted to ask Matthew to participate in her plan but hesitated because Matthew was totally innocent in the entire drama. However, based on her previous discussion with Matthew and Miles’ budding distrust of him, she concluded that Matthew was the perfect candidate for the next step in her plan.

Therefore, on Wednesday, she had Matthew accompany her to the Traditional Medicine Hospital.

After getting her prescription, she walked out of the doctor’s office into the corridor while chatting merrily with Matthew. As expected, they bumped into Miles, who was walking toward the doctor’s office.

Feigning surprise, she stole a glance at Miles with a guilty expression, her head hanging low from shame.

When they passed by Miles, she almost thought he would beat Matthew up, and she silently worried for Matthew’s safety.

However, Miles acted as if he could not see them and walked past them coolly without a word.

His attitude made Stella feel embarrassed for her exaggerated feelings of self-importance. Isn’t it good that he’s ignoring me, though?

Miles entered Janice’s office and lay on his stomach on the massage bed with his eyes closed. Just now, he clearly saw Stella’s expression, which was a mix of fear, worry and anxiety for Matthew. He had wanted to beat Matthew to pulp, but he decided against it.

“Miles, I had a call with Stella that day. She said that you guys broke up. Is that true?” Janice started massaging him while asking.

Face-down on the bed, he fell into a long pause before answering, “No!”

Stella did not tell Janice about her visit to the hospital, and she did not greet Janice just now, so Janice was in the dark about their situation.

After the massage, Miles sent Stella a message. ‘Do you want to come back to me?’

When she read the message, she could not stop her tears from rolling down her cheeks. Even after knowing that she was cheating on him with another man, he still lowered himself and pleaded with her to return to him. She could sense his desperation.

But what could she do? She had no choice.

As the daughter of a rapist, she felt that her past was a ticking time bomb, waiting to go off at any time when the news was leaked. On top of that, she was diagnosed as infertile. The pressure piled up, and she decided that she could not become a burden to Miles even though she was obsessed with him. Hence, she had no choice but to make a rational decision.

‘President Grant, why would you keep a woman who has cheated on you? I’m sorry.’ She expressed her apology once again through a trite message.

She wanted to end his feelings for her and kill his hopes to get her back.

For this, she had invited Audrey and Matthew over to the factory to discuss her plan.

If Miles was in pain, Stella was experiencing double his torment. She was in greater agony because she had to lie to him about her feelings and suffer from the consequences despite being deeply in love with him. The bigger the backlash, the more pain she felt.

When she was still with Miles, she did not realize her deep feelings for him. Since the miscarriage, their relationship soured, and a lot of conflicts that weren’t there before started to surface. The change in their relationship made her understand the depth of her feelings and reliance on Miles.

She had carried his child twice but lost both of them. In this regard, she felt very sorry toward him.

“The only way for you to kill off Miles’ hope is to marry Matthew.” Audrey stared intently at Stella and Matthew.

Stella was dying to kill off Miles’ lingering affection for her, so she was not against the idea of marriage. However, she knew about Jane’s feelings for Matthew, and it would be awkward, even selfish, for her to fake a marriage to Matthew in order to get Miles off her back.

Matthew objected to Audrey’s idea because he finally viewed Stella in a new light. Now, she was a no go for him because he had understood the extent of her love for Miles, a love that was insurmountable and petrifying, forcing him to give up. As long as Miles existed, Matthew stood no chance with her at all.

“What do you mean you don’t want to marry Stella? Are you reluctant to part way with the girls who are chasing after you?” Audrey questioned him.

To Audrey, the proposed marriage between Stella and Matthew was a rare opportunity for Matthew because she could sense his feelings toward Stella.

But none of these mattered to Stella, who had decided to not marry again for the rest of her life. As an infertile woman, she did not want to become a burden to her spouse. She could foresee how her life would end, and she didn’t care about the things that would happen between.

Of course, Stella did not want to be an obstacle to Jane’s happiness.

After racking their brains out, they decided that a fake marriage would be the best plan at the moment. Now, the final decision lay in the hands of Matthew.

Right then, Matthew received a call from the phone of Zachariah’s nanny. It was Zachariah who had made the call. “Daddy, I want Miss Stella to play with me tonight!”

Zachariah’s request was the deciding factor for Matthew to agree to Audrey’s suggestion.

Since Stella and Audrey thought the fake marriage was a good idea, and he didn’t want to give false hopes to Jane, he decided to go ahead with the marriage. He had no feelings for Jane, but he genuinely thought she was a lovely woman. Therefore, he hoped that she would meet a better man.

After all, I am a divorcee with a son. I will never be good enough for her.

Matthew finally agreed to the marriage with conditions: He would only hold a wedding without registering their marriage, and they would live separately just in case there was a change in plans.

Matthew’s conservative decision and self-restraint came as a shock to Audrey, for she knew his affection toward Stella. It took me a lot of effort to get Stella and him together. How could he dismiss the rare opportunity?

Stella did not speak.

She had once experienced a love so powerful and shaking with a man she loved. They expressed their love to each other physically and aggressively every day. To her, Miles was the only man she would accept in her life. She would never open her heart or surrender her body to another.

Without much emotion, she agreed to Matthew’s conditions. At that moment, she felt as if she had reached her autumn years and that she was a withered leaf that was carried away aimlessly in the winds.

After they reached an agreement, they also settled on a date for their wedding. It would be on the 20th of March, exactly a month away. Although Matthew and Stella had known each other forever, their decision to marry was perceived as sudden.

On the same day, Stella went over to Matthew’s place to visit Zachariah, per the boy’s request. She felt ridiculous because after a rollercoaster ride in life, she finally came full circle and moved back into Matthew’s mansion, which was hers to begin with.

Even though Matthew had renovated the place and wiped off the marks of its previous state, the mansion was still a familiar place to Stella. What used to be her room was now Zachariah’s room.

She had discussed with Matthew about their post-wedding arrangement. He said that she could live upstairs while he and Zachariah would take up the rooms on the first floor.

Stella agreed to that. Since she did not own or rent any property in Hollowcrest City, Matthew’s arrangement would solve her housing problem.

One day, she was in Zachariah’s room to oversee him doing his homework when out of the blue, she was reminded of her old days in this mansion with Miles.

Zachariah’s bed was new; her previous bed was no longer around.

When she was still with Miles, she recalled one morning when she woke up and started putting on makeup at the dressing table. She could see him staring at her through the mirror.

That was one year ago, but the memory somehow felt like ages ago.

Sinking into a reverie, she felt a little wistful at the impermanence in life.