My Lover Didn't Put a Ring on Me

For ten years, I have stayed by Maren Hale's side without her formally acknowledging me as her boyfriend. Thus, I become the oldest kept man in Harborfield. After I turn 30, I have asked her to marry me more than 30 times. Each time, she smiles and kisses me. "Reid, I'll marry you when I'm ready," she says. When I'm 31, a car accident nearly kills me. Still shaken, I propose to Maren. She tells me to wait a little longer. By the time I'm 33, a doctor warns me that my kidney function is declining. I wave the diagnosis report in front of her and press for marriage. Yet, she still tells me to wait. While I wait for her, the sun rises and sets over Mount Carlisle more than 3,600 times. Finally, I think she is ready. Holding back tears, I promise my seriously ill father that he will live to see me get married. What I don't know is that Maren is not opposed to marriage. It's just that the ten years she spends fooling around with me are nothing more than an act of rebellion against her mother, who has driven away her former fiancé. Before the banquet, I see the ring I give Maren inside her handbag. I think she is finally going to accept my proposal. Nervous and hopeful, I wait the entire evening. But just moments ago, during a game of dare, she casually tosses the ring to a male model she has just met. "The kid is turning 20. A pink diamond suits him perfectly. Next time, I'll have an emerald one made for us." The entire room bursts into laughter. I laugh along with them. "Don't bother," I said. "Someone else already has a rock waiting for me, and I said yes." Chapter 1 Reid's POV Nobody expected me to end things with Maren Hale on my 35th birthday. The room went quiet at first, but the silence only lasted until someone caught the look of flat impatience on Maren's face. Then the laughter hit like a wave. "A rock waiting for him? People really do start hallucinating after 35. Aging is a hell of a thing." "He is just playing hard to get because she turned him down again, right? It's textbook manipulation." Every pair of eyes in the room swung toward me, including the male model Maren had just slipped her ring to, who covered his mouth and shook with barely contained laughter. "All right, bets in! I give him three minutes before he takes it back!" "One minute. A million on it." "I'll match half!" The betting pool on how quickly I'd fold was an annual tradition at these birthday parties by now. Plenty of people resented me for costing them money over the years, and the ones who won never thought any higher of me for it. I let out a bitter laugh under my breath, cursing myself for being this pathetic. Ten years I'd spent with this woman, and only now was I finally working up the nerve to walk away. I pulled the resignation letter from my jacket and held it out to her. "Sign it, Ms. Hale. Ten years is long enough." That single Ms. Hale put a thousand miles between us. Maren leaned forward in the VIP booth, studying me with an expression I couldn't read. "How many more times are we going to do this routine? "Last year, you told me you were leaving. I signed off on it. And then you called me from the airport in the pouring rain, barely able to get a word out through the crying. "The year before that, you said we were done. You hadn't even made it out the front door before you were begging me to forget you'd said it. "Reid, that's enough. You're not 25 anymore. Don't push your luck just because I've always been soft on you." She yanked her silk scarf loose in irritation, and the open collar of her blouse exposed hickeys scattered across her collarbone, overlapping and unmistakable. She didn't even bother trying to hide them. That was Maren all right. She would tell me she loved me in one breath and make sure I suffered in the next. I'd had my suspicions about someone else for roughly a month. Maren, who never lowered herself for anyone, had gotten into a full-blown fistfight at a nightclub over some aging nightclub host. When I confronted her afterward, she told me, "He reminded me of you. I couldn't just stand there and watch him get pushed around." I thought about it for a long time, but apart from us both being in our 30s, I couldn't find a single resemblance. Then today happened. I was standing behind a curtain when I heard Maren's best friend say, "Roman Callister came back this down on his luck? He's actually working as a paid host? He used to be everyone's dream guy back in the day, Maren. Yours included. "If your mother hadn't put her foot down, you two would probably have kids old enough to run errands by now. If you're thinking about going back to him, what happens to Reid? That man has given you ten years of his life." A long pause followed. Then Maren's voice came through, so faint I almost missed it. "Roman was the one that got away. Once I've worked through what I still feel, I'll settle down with Reid. I'll be good to him. We'll make it work." She sounded so gentle saying it, nothing like the ruthless woman everyone in business knew her as. I stood there in the shadows and watched everything unfold. I watched Maren position herself just three steps from Roman, her gaze going soft and lingering in a way she had never once looked at me. I watched her toss the ring I had spent ten years hoping for to some random bystander so Roman wouldn't get the wrong idea. I watched her place an anonymous million-dollar bottle order for Roman, who couldn't move a single drink on his own, and praise him for being resilient and self-made. And when my name finally came up, all she had to say was this. "Reid is obsessed with me. He'd never leave. Besides, he's 35, with no money, no car, and no house. Nobody in Harborfield would touch a washed-up kept man like that." Ten years and more than 3,600 days and nights, and all I amounted to in her eyes was a washed-up kept man. Maren took a long drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke directly into my face. "Apologize," she said. "Tell me you're sorry, and I'll pretend none of this happened." The faint fruit-flavored smoke curled around me. I used to love that smell, but now it made my stomach turn. She had smoked the same cheap brand for ten years. I only found out a few days ago that their tagline was "One Love for a Lifetime". Maren Hale's one love for a lifetime was Roman Callister. My eyes burned and I blinked hard, holding her gaze. "Maren, I told you ten years ago that I would wait for you until I turned 35. You never said yes. So I'll find someone who will." Chapter 2 Reid's POV "I'll wait for you until I'm 35." That was the promise a 25-year-old Reid Harding made to Maren Hale. That year, to get back at her mother for using an arranged match to drive Roman away, Maren transformed overnight from Harborfield's most promising heiress into a woman who burned through lovers like cigarettes. When I met her, I had two dollars to my name and was busking on a street corner. Something about me must have touched whatever softness was left in her, because she leaned against the wall and listened to me sing all night. Her eyes were glassy when she finally spoke. "Come with me. I'll give you a hundred thousand a year." I found out later that her family had cut off all her cards to bring her back in line. That hundred thousand was every cent 25-year-old Maren had to her name. To keep affording me, she stubbed out her cigarette and went back to Hale Industries. Her family beat her bloody for it, and she still smiled through the bruises just to keep me from worrying. I knelt beside her, barely able to keep it together. "Maren, I'll wait ten years for you. But you have to marry me, or I'll find someone else." Ten years later, I was still her dirty little secret, and my salary for playing both arm candy and personal assistant hadn't changed from that original hundred thousand. The birthday party ended on a sour note. Maren didn't so much as glance at the resignation letter before she slammed the door on her way out. The next morning at work, before I could bring up the resignation again, Greg Langford from HR pulled me into the break room. "Reid, what's going on between you and Ms. Hale? You two actually broke up?" he asked. Before I could reply, he continued, "Listen to me, man. A woman like her, top of the food chain in every way, and she stayed loyal to just you for ten years. That's practically unheard of. Does it really matter if you two never make it official? Don't throw this away over something like that. "And by the way, she brought some new guy in today for an internship and he went straight to the 23rd floor. You need to be paying attention." That was how I found out Maren had brought Roman into the company. He walked in on day one and landed the position it took me ten years to reach, and Maren called a special executive meeting just for him. "This is Roman Callister. Starting today, he'll be my personal assistant. I expect everyone's full cooperation." Then she turned to me. "Reid, hand your multimillion-dollar account over to Roman. It'll be good practice for him." She held out a latte to me, and my eyes stung the second I saw it. Last fall, I'd been sentimental enough to ask Maren for a pumpkin spice latte, the kind every couple seemed to be posting about when the weather turned. She barely looked up from her desk and said, "Reid, you're almost 35. Stop acting like some lovesick college kid. It's embarrassing." But now she'd gone out and bought me a coffee, all because of Roman. I shook my head and set the latte down in front of Roman instead. "This is really for you, Mr. Callister." Maren didn't know that I'd quit sugar a long time ago, all because of a passing comment she once made about me putting on weight in my old age. Roman smiled, shy and boyish in a way that didn't match his years. "Maren sent me over a dozen drinks this morning, every flavor she could think of, because she wasn't sure what I liked. "This one's a red velvet latte. She said only older people order this kind of thing, so it's not really my thing, but Maren said you'd like it." It felt like a needle being dragged slowly across my heart, so thin and precise that the pain didn't even register right away. Every gift I thought Maren had chosen for me was just whatever Roman didn't want. Before Maren could say a word, I handed the account file over to Roman. "It's all yours, Mr. Callister." Then I pulled out my phone and texted Greg. "I know the company's putting together a layoff list. Add my name to it." Chapter 3 Reid's POV Greg wanted to talk me out of it, but I shut him down with a single sentence. "Greg, I'm 35. I want to get married." The screen of my phone was still lit up with a message from my mother. "Everyone back home is talking. They're saying you threw yourself at some woman who doesn't even want you, and the stress of it put your father in the hospital again. "Please, I'm begging you, how much longer are you going to drag this out? It's been ten years. Does it have to be her?" I tilted my head back, forcing down the sting behind my eyes. Then, I opened the chat and typed back a reply. "Mom, I'm done waiting. Phoebe Mercer asked me to marry her. I said yes." Phoebe was a former student of my mother's, and just as I had spent ten years chasing Maren, Phoebe had spent ten years waiting for me. Greg sighed and added my name to the top of the layoff list. "Fine. I put you on there, but if Ms. Hale doesn't approve it, that's not on me." I thanked him and went home to start packing. Phoebe was coming to pick me up in three days, and when I looked at the date, something tightened in my chest. March 14th was the ten-year anniversary of the day Maren and I got together. My phone chimed, and a cheerful automated voice filled the room. "Mr. Reid Harding, in just three days it'll be your ten-year anniversary with Ms. Maren Hale! You two must be happily married by now, right? How's the view from Mount Carlisle? I wonder what your loving Maren has planned for you this time. Let me guess—" I blinked hard and turned off the reminder, and a text from Maren floated up on the screen. "Working overtime for the next three days. Don't wait up." She had forgotten our anniversary entirely, and she wasn't even trying to make the lie convincing. Half an hour earlier, Roman had already posted on social media. "Ten years ago, you took on the whole world for me. Ten years later, I'll protect yours. That multimillion-dollar deal? I'm going to close it for you." His black Maybach was parked outside the client's building, waiting. But just a month ago, I had drunk myself into a stomach hemorrhage trying to close that same deal, and when I called Maren to take me to the hospital, she said, "Reid, you're 35. You can't get yourself to a hospital?" She was three miles away, and she couldn't be bothered. The difference between being loved and not being loved was obvious to anyone with eyes. I was the only one still foolish enough to cover mine and pretend otherwise. I figured I probably wouldn't see Maren again before I left. But the very next morning, she kicked my bedroom door open and dragged me out into the snow in nothing but a thin pair of pajamas. "Reid, I've been too easy on you for too long. You actually used that multimillion-dollar account as bait to set Roman up? Where is he? Tell me where you're hiding him." Her eyes were cold and dark, and without any warning at all, she slapped me hard across the face. My ears rang and I stood there trying to make sense of what she was saying, because none of it made sense. My voice came out raw. "Maren, I've never done anything to hurt him." She pressed the lit end of her cigarette into the back of my hand, and I screamed before I could stop myself. Maren smiled, and there was nothing warm in it. "Reid, you've been very bad." She snapped her fingers and one of her bodyguards stepped forward with a tablet, pulling up a security feed. On the screen, my father, who was in the late stages of lung cancer, had been disconnected from his oxygen. His scarred lungs couldn't pull air on their own, and within seconds his face started turning purple as his whole body seized with convulsions. "That's my father! Don't hurt him!" I threw myself at her feet and grabbed onto her legs, barely able to get a word out. "Please believe me. I didn't set anyone up. I don't know where Roman went." "Oh, Reid." Maren let out a soft sigh and wiped the tears from my face. "You shouldn't have touched him. That was the one thing you should never have done." She continued nonchalantly, "They say a late-stage lung cancer patient can last about three minutes off a ventilator. You've got 60 seconds left." The countdown nearly drove me out of my mind. I begged her over and over again, slamming my forehead against the rough stone pavement until blood pooled beneath me, but Maren didn't flinch. "Still nothing to say, Reid? Your father doesn't have much time. Ten, nine, eight…" Every number she counted drained another shade of color from my face. I didn't understand how we had ended up here. I always believed that even if Maren and I couldn't grow old together, we would never become enemies. Mom's voice came shrieking through the phone. "Reid! You ungrateful child! Are you trying to kill your father? Say something!" My nails cracked against the stone as I clawed at the ground, blood dripping from where I had bitten through my own lip. "Five, four, three, two…" Just as she was about to reach one, something clicked in my head. "I know where he is!" Chapter 4 Reid's POV They found Roman at the estate in the western suburbs in under half an hour. That estate was private property belonging to Maren's mother. During my early years with Maren, I had been locked inside it more times than I could count, though Maren never knew about any of it. Maren threw me into the basement. "Stay down here and think about what you did." The storm outside was brutal that night, and the noise coming from upstairs, where Maren was comforting Roman, was just as loud. I sat there and listened for a long time, and at some point a fever started burning through me without my noticing. Somewhere in the haze, a group of men were shoved into the room with me. Maren stood on the other side of the door, looking at me through the bars. "I promised Roman that everything he went through today, I would make you pay for in kind. "Don't worry, I won't think less of you for it. Seven days from now, I'm going to propose to you in front of the whole city." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I threw myself against the door and pounded on it with everything I had. "It was my fault. I'm sorry. I'll give up my place at your side and let Roman have it. Just please let me go." Maren's brow knotted, and then something violent rolled through her eyes like a wave. She said through clenched teeth, "Reid, you beg for it when it suits you and toss it aside when it doesn't. Does being my husband mean that little to you?" I was on my knees, eyes red, and I couldn't find a single word to say. She let out a cold laugh. "You're really something, you know that." She turned to the men. "Reid here needs to learn his lesson. Make sure he remembers this." She had said it so casually, but it landed on me like a hammer. Every ounce of strength left my body, and all I could do was stare at the woman in front of me, someone who looked exactly like the woman I loved but was a complete stranger. The men rushed in all at once, and through the chaos and the flickering light, I saw 25-year-old Maren standing by the doorway with tears pooling in her eyes. "Reid, stop loving her. Walk forward and don't look back." It felt like a nightmare I would never wake up from, and then a phone ringing somewhere yanked me back to consciousness. "Son, get here now. Your father's not going to make it. We're at Mercy General. Hurry!" I slammed my fists against the door until the walls shook. Maren came downstairs in her bathrobe. I dropped to my knees and reached through the iron bars to grab the hem of her robe. "My dad is dying. Please, will you take me to the hospital?" Something flickered in her eyes when she saw the state I was in, something that almost looked like sympathy, but a single sentence from Roman wiped it off her face. "Reid, your dad was perfectly fine this morning. He was lucid enough to call me a homewrecker. How could he suddenly be dying? Or is this just another scheme to get out and come after me again?" Maren's gaze turned to ice. "Reid, you're really sinking to lies like this now? Even if your mother and father both dropped dead tonight, you are not leaving this basement." That one sentence shattered the last shred of hope I had left. Maren padlocked the bars and left. I broke both of my arms forcing myself through a gap in the grating. At 3:00 am, I ran through the empty streets like something already dead, leaving a winding trail of blood behind me. That was until a car horn beeped twice and a Maybach pulled up beside me. "Reid, get in." Three hours later, I staggered into the hospital room. Dad's body was already covered with a white sheet. Mom had fainted twice from crying. I held her upright as we followed Dad's stretcher down a long, dark corridor, and by the end of it, everything he had been was reduced to a small box. My phone buzzed with a message from Maren, a photo attached. "That country estate you always wanted? It's yours. Consider it a wedding gift for the proposal in seven days." If she had scrolled even one page further, she would have seen the layoff list with my name on it. Her promises were as hollow as her love had always been, not worth the breath it took to make them. I never replied. I just lifted my unconscious mother onto my back and got into Phoebe's car. … By the next day, all of Harborfield was buzzing with the news that the city's most infamous kept man had finally pressured his way into a proposal, and the Hale family heiress was going to marry him. The proposal ceremony was lavish beyond anything the city had seen, and the crowds were packed shoulder to shoulder, every last one of them there to watch the spectacle. But when the appointed hour came and went and I still hadn't shown up, Maren stood there clutching her bouquet as her expression darkened. "Call Reid. Find out what the hell he thinks he's doing," she ordered her bodyguard. "Mr. Harding's phone has been off this entire time," he replied. A wave of panic hit Maren out of nowhere. She snatched the phone and called the hospital directly. "Dr. Calloway, you tell Reid that if he's not at this ceremony in 30 minutes, I'm pulling his father's treatment at Mercy General. All of it." Dr. Calloway paused on the other end, then answered almost reflexively. "Ms. Hale, Mr. Harding's father passed away several days ago. They had him cremated that same night. Did you not know? "Before he left, Mr. Harding asked me to pass along a message. He said he was going home to get married, and that he wouldn't be able to make it to your engagement. He wished you and Mr. Callister a lifetime of happiness."