As Sloane finally lets her boyfriend see her luxurious penthouse, he proposes the next day. However, when a sudden “disaster” strikes, his loyalty crumbles. What he doesn’t know?
It’s all a test… and she’s been watching closely. I don’t usually play games, especially with people.Cozy couples retreats
Yet, something about Ryan’s timing felt too polished, too sudden… like he’d skipped a few pages in our story and jumped to the part where I say “yes” with stars in my eyes.
Spoiler: I did say yes.
Just not for the reason he thought.
Ryan and I met eight months ago at a dive bar downtown, one of those dimly lit places where the cocktails are all whiskey-based and the bartenders wear suspenders like it’s a religion. We talked about everything that night, late 20s burnout, startup dreams, childhood regrets. He was smart.
Charismatic. Ambitious in a restless, surface-level kind of way. And as he kissed me outside under a busted neon sign that blinked like it couldn’t decide what mood it was in, I thought that maybe this could be something.
And it was. For a while. But here’s the thing about charm, it can start to sound like a script.
By our third month together, I noticed the patterns. We always went to his apartment. A cramped one-bedroom in a building that smelled faintly of incense and despair.
He called it “charming.” I called it “no hot water after 10.”
Ryan always paid for dinner but only if we ate somewhere cheap. He talked about “materialistic women” and “tired gold-diggers” like it was a rehearsed speech he knew well. I started realizing that he spent a lot of time talking about what he didn’t want in a partner and very little time asking me what I wanted.
What Ryan didn’t know?
2 years ago, I sold my AI-powered wellness startup to a tech giant for seven figures. I’d spent my early 20s living on instant ramen and building backend code between shifts at a co-writing space that smelled like ambition and burnt coffee. The acquisition was clean, and I reinvested most of it.
Between that, advisory roles, and a few early crypto plays I cashed out of just in time, I was more than fine. Now, I worked at another tech company, helping build them up and keep myself busy. But I never dressed the part.
I wore clothes that weren’t name brands but fit well on my body. I drove my old car because it had been my father’s and he had passed it down to me. And I hadn’t brought Ryan home because I needed to know who he was before he saw what I had.
The story doesn’t end here – it continues on the next page.
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