Chapter 20 Do You Love Me?
Vincent didn't respond.
His gaze remained fixed on the screen for several seconds before he locked the phone and slipped it into his pocket.
Less than three minutes later, he pulled it back out again.
Still nothing.
The waiting continued.
As one hour became two, his patience gradually disappeared.
At first he checked the phone every fifteen minutes.
Then every five.
Then every few seconds.
The longer Juliet remained silent, the darker his expression became.
What started as confidence slowly turned into irritation.
Irritation became frustration.
And frustration eventually transformed into pure anger.
The fact that she wasn't calling bothered him far more than he cared to admit.
Every passing minute felt like a rejection.
Every unanswered moment felt like she was deliberately ignoring him.
His leg bounced restlessly beneath the table.
His fingers drummed against his thigh.
His jaw remained clenched so tightly that the muscle beneath his skin continuously twitched.
Several times he unlocked his phone, opened their chat, and stared at the screen before locking it again.
By the third hour, even Griffin stopped trying to reassure him.
The entire room could feel the growing storm around him.
Finally, something inside Vincent snapped.
He abruptly rose from his chair.
The sudden movement was so sharp that everyone instinctively looked up.
The chair scraped loudly against the floor as he shoved it backward.
His chest rose and fell with a slow, controlled breath, but the fury in his eyes was impossible to miss.
Nobody dared stop him.
With a dark expression on his face, Vincent grabbed his keys from the table and strode toward the door. The anger radiating from him was so obvious that people instinctively moved aside to clear his path.
He yanked the door open. A moment later, it slammed shut behind him with enough force to make the walls vibrate.
Outside, Vincent headed straight toward his car.
He jerked open the driver's side door, climbed inside, and slammed it shut behind him. His hands closed around the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
For several seconds, he simply sat there, breathing heavily through his nose.
Then he started the engine.
The roar of the car shattered the silence of the night.
Without a second of hesitation, he pulled out and sped away.
A few moments later, Griffin rushed outside, climbed into his own vehicle, and followed close behind.
Vincent’s car rolled to a stop in front of Juliet's apartment building.
Before the engine had fully died, Vincent was already reaching for the door handle.
He pushed the door open and stepped out, heading straight for the building without waiting for Griffin.
His long strides were quick and purposeful, and the tight set of his jaw made it obvious that his patience had long since run out.
Griffin hurried after him.
Neither of them spoke as they entered the building and made their way up the stairs. The stairwell echoed with the sound of their footsteps, but Vincent barely noticed it. His thoughts were moving too fast, each one colliding with the next until they became impossible to separate.
Juliet had seen the video by now.
She had to have seen it.
Maybe she was furious and refusing to answer his calls. Maybe she was embarrassed and didn't know how to face him. Maybe she was upstairs right now waiting for an explanation. Whatever the reason, he needed to see her.
By the time he reached her floor, his heartbeat was thundering in his ears.
Then he stopped.
The apartment door stood wide open.
Vincent's steps faltered as his gaze fixed on the doorway. Something immediately felt wrong. The uneasy feeling that had been lingering in the back of his mind suddenly tightened around his chest, making it difficult to breathe.
Without realizing it, he slowed to a halt.
Griffin stopped beside him and followed his line of sight.
Neither man spoke.
For a long moment, Vincent simply stared at the open door before forcing himself forward. His hand reached out and pushed it wider, the hinges creaking softly in the silence.
The second he stepped inside, he froze.
The apartment was empty.
Not messy.
Not abandoned in a hurry.
Empty.
Every piece of furniture was gone. The decorations that had once made the place feel warm and lived-in had disappeared. The framed photographs Juliet loved, the plants she carefully looked after, the little decorations she used to scatter around every available surface—everything was gone.
The apartment looked cold and unfamiliar, stripped of every trace of the woman who had once filled it with life.
Vincent stood motionless in the middle of the living room, staring blankly ahead as his mind struggled to make sense of what he was seeing.
This couldn't be right.
Just days ago, Juliet had been living here.
Now it looked as though she had never existed.
His gaze slowly swept across the room until it landed on several cardboard boxes stacked neatly in the corner.
Something inside him sank.
A cold feeling spread through his chest as he found himself walking toward them.
The movement felt automatic, as though his body had already figured out something his mind was still refusing to accept.
When he finally reached the boxes and looked inside, his breath caught.
Every item belonged to him.
Or rather, every item belonged to them.
The watch he had given her years ago.
The stuffed toy she used to sleep with.
The bracelet she had worn so often that he sometimes forgot she ever took it off.
Even the clothes he had accidentally left behind during his visits had been carelessly tossed inside.
Everything connected to him was there.
Every gift.
Every keepsake.
Every memory.
For several long seconds, Vincent simply stared.
His fingers slowly curled at his sides while a strange pressure built in his chest. Because Vincent knew better than anyone how much those things had meant to her.
Juliet had always been sentimental.
She treasured every gift he gave her, no matter how small or insignificant it seemed. He couldn't count how many times he had teased her about it.
Whenever he told her to throw something away, she would immediately hug it to her chest and glare at him.
"No," she would say stubbornly. Then she would smile. "Every gift has a memory."
To Juliet, memories were precious.
That was why she never threw anything away. No matter how old an item became, she kept it. Sometimes he would even catch her taking out old gifts just to look at them. She would sit there smiling to herself, completely content while revisiting moments that had happened years ago.
Back then, Vincent had laughed and called her dramatic.
Now all of those treasured memories were sitting inside a few cardboard boxes.
Discarded.
As though they had never meant anything at all.
The sight made Vincent's throat tighten.
His eyes remained fixed on the boxes while every muscle in his body gradually stiffened.
It felt unreal.
Because if there was one thing he had always believed without question, it was that Juliet would never willingly let go of anything connected to him.
Yet here it was.
Proof that she had.
Not only had she packed everything away, but she had left it behind without hesitation.
For the first time since arriving, genuine panic flickered across Vincent's face.
His breathing became uneven.
A faint tremor ran through his hands.
The pressure in his chest continued to grow until it felt almost unbearable.
Standing in that empty apartment, surrounded by the remains of a relationship he had never thought could end, Vincent suddenly realized that Juliet had removed all the items connected to him because she no longer wanted them.
And if she no longer wanted these memories, what did that say about him?
The thought struck with such force that he felt physically ill.
Behind him, Griffin quietly took in the scene.
"Don't worry," he said after a moment, forcing a reassuring smile as he glanced around the apartment. "Maybe she just moved somewhere else and didn't have enough room to take everything with her. She could've left these behind temporarily and plans to come back for them later."
The reassurance sounded weak even to his own ears.
Because the apartment didn't look like someone planning to come back.
It looked like someone closing a chapter of their life.
"Vincent?"
Griffin gave his shoulder a light squeeze.
No response.
Vincent remained completely still, his eyes locked on the boxes as though he couldn't look away.
"Hey," Griffin said more firmly. "Talk to me."
Still nothing.
Vincent barely seemed aware that anyone else was in the room.
“Are you all right? You don’t look well.”
Griffin’s voice carried a low, steady concern as he studied Vincent’s face.
The color had drained from him so completely it was unsettling—like something had been extinguished inside him without warning.
Instinctively, Griffin reached out, placing a hand on Vincent’s shoulder as if to anchor him back to reality.
The effect was immediate.
Vincent flinched violently at the contact, as though it had scorched him. In one sharp motion, he shoved Griffin’s hand away and turned his face aside. His jaw locked hard, the muscle along it tightening and jumping as if he were grinding down something far too heavy to speak.
Without a word, he spun on his heel and strode toward the exit.
“Vincent!?”
Griffin called after him, quickening his pace immediately, but Vincent didn’t slow.
The distance between them grew with every step until Griffin’s voice and footsteps faded behind him, swallowed by the building’s cold silence.
***
At Han Industries, the executive floor was locked in the kind of silence that came only during high-stakes meetings.