With anger flashing across his face, Raymond snapped, “This is nonsense! What kind of nonsense is this? Copied? How? How is that even possible? Forged?” His voice climbed with every word. “This was my idea mine! I sat down for three straight weeks working on that blueprint. I have everything with me every draft, every detail, every file and now they’re saying it was copied? That it was forged? How is that even possible? What the hell is going on?” He began pacing the office, one hand gripping his forehead, the other clenched at his side. “This has to be a mistake,” he muttered sharply. “There’s a misunderstanding somewhere, and it needs to be cleared up immediately.” Immediately the secretary nodded, her expression anxious. “Yes, sir. It does sound like a mistake, but they… they sounded very serious on the phone. What are we going to do now?” Her voice trembled on the last few words. Raymond stopped pacing and lifted his head. “Then I’ll contact a lawyer,” he said decisively.

Megan continued, her tone firm and unwavering. “According to the calculations and projections, everyone is going to make more money this way. Simon already assured me that they’ll use premium, high‑quality materials for the vehicles. That alone will increase the overall value and profit margin.” She lifted her chin slightly. “I discussed it with my family. We sat down and looked at everything carefully. And we all agreed that giving the contract to Simon was the smartest decision.” She gave a small shrug. “So yes, I did it. And instead of standing there acting proud like your pride alone is going to take you somewhere greater you should be grateful.” At that moment, Simon adjusted himself in his seat, sitting upright with quiet confidence. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. The faint smile on his face said enough. It was a smile of victory, of ownership, of someone who knew he had already won. Megan’s parents remained silent, watching Raymond as though his outrage was not

Simon didn’t stop there. As if his words alone weren’t cruel enough, he slid his hand around Megan’s shoulder and pulled her a little closer to his side. The gesture was deliberate calculated, intimate, impossible to misunderstand. He made sure Raymond saw it. Every second of it. Then he looked up and smirked. “Tell me, Raymond,” he said, his voice laced with mockery, “if not for love, what would Megan be doing with a poor orphan like you? A man so lost he doesn’t even know his left from his right.” His smile widened. “You should be grateful. In fact, you should be thanking your stars that Megan has already divorced you.” For a moment, Raymond thought he had misheard him. The words rang in his ears, sharp and unreal, yet Simon’s face showed no trace of humor. He wasn’t joking. Not even a little. And that was what made it worse. Raymond stood frozen, staring at them as disbelief settled heavily in his chest. All this time, he had believed Megan loved him. Truly loved

However Raymond didn't let her finish. “Say no more.”The words came out sharp and final, cutting through everything like a blade through silence. His voice was low, but there was nothing quiet about it. It carried the weight of a man who had just watched the last thing he believed in crumble to dust. He looked at Megan really looked at her as though seeing her clearly for the very first time. “Since you don't see me as a person,” he began, his voice tight with barely contained fury, “since you never believed in what I was capable of, since you never trusted me enough to fight beside me when things got hard—”He stepped back, as though the distance between them was already inevitable. “You want me to hand everything over? To bow my head and surrender what I built with my own hands and give it all to him? You want me to strip myself of every ounce of dignity I have left and crawl into Simon's company like a defeated man?”His jaw tightened. “Never. I will never work for this

Raymond walked toward his car alone.Each step felt heavier than the last, as though the ground itself were resisting him, trying to pull him back into the wreckage he had just left behind. The noise from the building faded, the voices dissolved, and all that remained was the sound of his own breathing and his thoughts.“I never knew,” he murmured to himself, staring at the cracked pavement beneath his feet. “I really thought starting afresh would be better. I thought relying on my own potential earning everything genuinely would finally set me free.”He let out a slow, bitter laugh.“I thought walking away from the shadows of my past would bring relief. I thought finding true love would be enough. I thought keeping my past separate from my present would be a blessing.”At that moment he stopped beside his car, resting a hand on the door without opening it.“But I was wrong.”His eyes darkened.“The past doesn’t disappear. It waits. And no matter how far you run, it always finds a way