He Spoiled Me, Then I Stopped Loving Him By the fourth year of being the rich heir Avery Pittman's secret girlfriend and unpaid housekeeper, he still wouldn't introduce me to his friends. Once again he asked me to skip a final exam to pick up his dry cleaning. I refused, and so began a cold war between us. It lasted a month. Then he turned up at a charity gala with an heiress on his arm, looking pleased with himself, and sent me a text: "Bringing Sherry to the gala is your punishment. If you apologize now for being so willful last month, I might be persuaded to give you a few perks too." I didn't lower myself and coax him the way I always had. I put my phone on silent and dropped it back in my bag. When the crowd started jeering, calling me a scheming gold digger, he looked me straight in the eye and, to protect his fragile vanity, threw me to the wolves without a second thought. "Joey's been throwing herself at me since freshman year. I only let her do my laundry because I felt sorry for her. I've never touched her." I had cooked for him. I had hidden in closets to keep us out of sight. I had loved him with everything I had, only to find that my dignity was worth nothing to him. I didn't cry. I didn't beg. I tore the diary to shreds, flung the confetti of paper in their faces, and walked straight onto a midnight flight to Stanford. This time, I was finally going to live for myself. Chapter 1 Joey Herbert's POV: For four whole years, Avery Pittman had kept me tucked away in the dark corners of his luxury apartment. He told everyone he hated exposing his private life to the spotlight, while I cooked his meals and washed load after load of his laundry between back-to-back shifts and a punishing course load. Until tonight, he had given me the silent treatment for a solid month, all because I refused to skip a final exam to pick up his dry cleaning. And now here he was, Sherry Garner on his arm, strolling into the campus charity gala like he owned the place. He didn't even spare me a glance. Instead, with the entire graduating class watching, he casually handed his gold card to the auctioneer and bought Sherry a diamond bracelet on the spot. My phone buzzed inside my clutch. It was a text from Avery: "Bringing Sherry to the gala is your punishment. If you apologize now for being so willful last month, I might be persuaded to give you a few perks too." I stared at the screen. For the first time in four years, no suffocating panic rose in my chest. I didn't reply. I put the phone on silent, dropped it back in my bag, and lifted my eyes to the stage where Avery stood. Avery was the golden boy of this university. His father owned half the commercial real estate downtown, and the family name was carved into the marble archway of the business school. And I was just a poor student scraping by on a full scholarship. My father was serving time in federal prison. My mother had vanished without a trace when I was seven. My grandmother raised me in a drafty apartment above a bakery, working two jobs day and night until cancer took her in my sophomore year. The night she died, Avery held me. He brought me hot soup, paid for the funeral flowers, and murmured against my ear that he would protect me for the rest of my life, that he would shield me from every storm. Because of the tenderness of that one night, I let him keep me as his shameful little secret, and let him trample all over me for four whole years. "Hey, Joey. You deaf or something?" Tyler, one of Avery's fraternity brothers, squeezed past the high bar, his beer sloshing dangerously close to my shoes. "Avery wants to know if anyone's seen his lighter." The small circle of students around him turned to look at me, faces bright with the pleasure of watching someone squirm. They all knew I lived in the same apartment building as Avery, but to them I was nothing but a free errand girl he could summon and dismiss at will. A few steps away, Avery was leaning against the marble bar. Sherry nestled against him, chin tilted up in a coy laugh, her blond hair gleaming under the chandeliers. Her father sat on the board of Avery's family company. The backless emerald silk gown she was wearing probably cost more than all four years of my tuition. "Avery," Sherry pouted, tugging at his suit lapel, "you promised we'd go to the yacht club party. What are you staring at in the corner?" Avery looked down at her with a soft smile and tapped the tip of her nose with his index finger. "Whatever you say, Sherry. You know I can never deny you anything." A round of hoots and teasing whistles erupted around the bar. "See?" Tyler sneered, his gaze cutting straight at me. "Avery finally found himself a girl from his own world. Some people just don't know their free trial expired a long time ago." A girl from Sherry's sorority laughed into her champagne glass. "Honestly, watching someone hang around like a stray dog begging for scraps makes me cringe for her. Did she really think she'd get a ring out of it?" The phone on the table buzzed again. A new message from Avery lit up the screen: "I saw you ignore me." "Don't embarrass me here, Joey. You know how loose-lipped my father's business partners are. Wait by the staff entrance. We'll talk after I've seen Sherry off." I looked away from the screen and lifted my head. Across the noisy crowd, Avery's eyes crashed straight into mine. His jaw was set in that familiar hard line, the look he wore whenever he wanted me to bow my head and obey. He thought I would drop my eyes like I always did, guilty and small. He thought I would retreat to the exit in tears and shiver in the back alley in the biting wind until he decided, in his mercy, that I had been punished enough. But I didn't. I held his gaze without a flicker of expression for three full seconds, then picked up the free glass of ice water on the table and took a slow, deliberate sip. Sherry caught the silent exchange. She leaned into Avery's chest and narrowed her eyes at me, sizing me up from head to toe. "Isn't that the girl from the library?" Sherry's voice rose just enough to carry across the whole corner. "The one who always wears those washed-out sneakers? Avery, why is she looking at you like that? Does she think we're close or something?" Avery cleared his throat. A flash of irritation crossed his face, but he didn't say a word on my behalf. He never had. "She's just someone in my finance study group," Avery said airily, his voice carrying clear over the music. "She takes everything far too seriously. Thinks a lot more of herself than she should." A ripple of malicious laughter went around. "Hear that, Joey?" Tyler jeered. "Just a study group. Run along before peer evaluation drags your grade down." Four years ago, I would have swallowed the ache in my throat, hidden in the women's restroom, and cried until my eyes went down enough to be seen. Two years ago, I would have sent him long, desperate messages asking why he was always ashamed to admit I existed. Tonight, there was nothing inside me but a clear, dead calm. I reached into my bag and found the small brass key to his apartment door. I had planned to slip it back to him quietly after the gala, but this ridiculous performance had gone on long enough. I walked straight to the bar. As I approached, the chatter around Sherry faded. Sherry instinctively stepped back, her manicured hand tightening on Avery's arm. A warning flickered in Avery's eyes. "Joey. Don't." His lips barely moved; the warning came out low, through his teeth. I stopped two steps away from them. I didn't look at Sherry. I looked only at Avery's handsome, hollow face. "You left something behind last week," I said calmly, and set the brass key on the polished granite between his glass and Sherry's. Avery stared at the key. The easy confidence slid off his face; his pupils blew wide. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded under his breath. "Returning what belongs to you," I said. Sherry's eyes darted between the key and Avery's face. Her smile died where it stood. "Avery? Why does she have a key to your apartment?" "N-nothing. It's nothing." Avery stammered, his fingers scrambling for the metal, but I had already turned away. I walked past the velvet rope, past the graduates whispering behind their hands, pushed open the heavy double glass doors, and stepped out into the cold night air. The phone in my pocket buzzed. Once. Twice. Then the screen lit up with a text: "Get back here. Right now. If you walk out tonight, don't expect me to come looking for you ever again." I stopped under a streetlamp outside the hall and opened my email. There it sat in the inbox, still unread: "Dear Ms. Herbert, We are pleased to inform you that you have been admitted to the Stanford University Graduate Fellowship in Economics. The fellowship covers full tuition and a monthly living stipend. Please confirm your arrival date by Monday." I tapped reply: "I accept. I'll be in California on Monday." Then I locked the screen, turned off my mobile data, and walked on without looking back.

Joey Herbert's POV: I walked the whole way from the banquet hall to his apartment building through a damp, raw autumn wind. It took nearly an hour. I passed the twenty-four-hour diner on the corner of Elm Street. Avery used to park his Porsche in the back alley so none of his fraternity brothers would catch us eating pancakes there at two in the morning. For four years I had lied to myself that being hidden was romantic. I told myself real intimacy needed no witnesses, that with his family name, hiding in the shadows was only reasonable. Now every compromise I had ever made came flooding back over me at once. I had skipped my own department's honors dinner because he had a headache and insisted I massage his scalp until he fell asleep. When his mother showed up unannounced, I hid in the master bathroom for two hours, curled up on the hard tile, holding my breath so she wouldn't hear a sound. At last I stopped in front of the upscale apartment building. He lived on the twelfth floor. Marcus, the doorman in uniform, looked up from the front desk and gave me a tired nod. "Good evening, Miss Herbert. Mr. Pittman isn't back yet." "I know, Marcus. I'm just here to pick up some tax documents from the desk." I stepped into the elevator and watched the floor numbers climb. Outside apartment 1204, I stood in front of the electronic keypad. I entered the six-digit code I had used for four years. It was the anniversary of his grandmother's death, the one day Avery claimed he truly held in reverence. The lock beeped twice, short and sharp, and the red light flashed an error. I frowned and tried again. The red light blinked again. A small padlock icon appeared on the display: "ACCESS DENIED." I stood quietly in the silent hallway. The handle clicked from the inside. The heavy walnut door swung open, and Avery stood in the entryway. He was still wearing his tuxedo pants, but his bow tie was pulled loose and his white shirt hung open at the collar. He smelled of bourbon, with an undertone of Sherry's expensive floral perfume. When he saw me standing on the mat, his hand froze on the brass latch, and surprise flickered across his face. "The code doesn't work," I said, my voice flat. Avery shifted his weight, his gaze sliding past my shoulder into the empty hallway. "I changed it this afternoon," he said, without a trace of guilt. "Sherry came by to help me pick cufflinks for the gala. She said the old code was too long, so I just switched it to her birthday." He said it lightly, as if he were discussing the weather. I glanced down at his bare feet, then at the floor behind him. Beside the coat rack, a pair of green satin heels had been kicked off at random. "Avery?" A soft, sweet voice drifted out from the bedroom. "Did you find my silk robe? The shower water is freezing in here. I'm going to die of cold." Avery went rigid, his jaw snapping tight. He stepped forward half a pace and blocked most of the doorway with his broad frame. "She got champagne on her dress," Avery said quickly, his voice full of caution. "Tyler spilled his drink on her in the cab. She's only using the guest bathroom to rinse off." I looked past him. Apartment 1204 didn't have a guest bathroom. Apart from the master suite, there was only the half bath off the kitchen, and it didn't even have a shower. A short, dry laugh slipped out of my throat. It wasn't amusement. It was the laugh of relief, of an old account finally settled. "What are you laughing at?" Avery's brows drew together in injured pride. "Who are you pretending not to care for? Joey, you humiliated yourself at that gala tonight. Slamming a key down on the bar like some cheap soap opera actress. Haven't you caused enough of a scene?" "I came for my Social Security card and my birth certificate," I said. "They're in the study drawer." Avery stared at me hard, searching my face for the familiar signs: the tears of grievance, the trembling chin, the pleading hands. He found nothing. My face was as still as a frozen pond in winter. The alcohol and his bruised ego sent his temper flaring up all at once. "You're being utterly unreasonable!" he lashed out. "I brought Sherry to a business function for my father's company. That's how the real world works! You have no connections, no background. You have no idea how much pressure I'm under!" "The drawer, Avery." He snorted hard and retreated into the living room. "Fine. Take your things. But when you get your head smashed out there, don't come crying back to me!" He strode to the mahogany desk, yanked out the manila envelope holding my personal documents, and slapped it down on the kitchen island. Then he pushed a glossy printed brochure across the counter. "My uncle is hiring an administrative assistant at his logistics branch outside the city," Avery said, arms crossed, leaning against the marble countertop. "Forty thousand a year, decent benefits. I already put in a word for you, so you can stop carrying trays at that greasy little diner." I picked up the envelope and opened it to check the contents. The birth certificate was there. The passport was there too. The Stanford confirmation letter I had printed in the library three days ago and quietly tucked behind the documents was still folded neatly inside. Avery had never even bothered to open the envelope. He was convinced, in his own mind, that my life was supposed to run on the scraps that fell from his fingers. I left the logistics brochure lying on the counter. "I don't need the job," I said. Avery scoffed. "Right, of course. You're still holding out hope for twenty dollars an hour at some nonprofit, aren't you? Joey, wake up. You have no fallback. Your grandmother is gone. You have no family, no one. Who else is there besides me?" Every word was aimed to land where it hurt most. Whenever I hinted at renting a studio of my own, whenever I mentioned applying for an internship out of state, he trotted out the same speech. He had turned my loneliness into a cage to hold me in. "I know I have no one," I said, meeting his eyes, holding them. "Which means I can leave whenever I want." Avery opened his mouth, but before he could speak, the bedroom door opened. Sherry came down the hallway wrapped in her own cream silk robe, her damp blond hair mussed from the towel. She stopped dead when she saw me by the island. "Avery?" Her voice went shrill, tight with alarm. "What is she doing in your apartment?" Avery didn't look at her. His eyes were locked on me, his breathing short and uneven. "Joey just came to pick up some papers," Avery said, and even he didn't sound convinced. I tucked the envelope under my arm, zipped the black thrift-store coat up to my chin, and walked straight to the door. "Joey!" Avery called after me, hurrying to the entryway. "Wait." I stopped on the threshold and turned my head slightly to look at him. "Once next month's merger is settled," Avery said, his voice dropping low and urgent while Sherry watched warily from down the hall, "I'll make it up to you. We'll go to Chicago, just the two of us. I'll even post a picture of us on my private account. Be good. Go home, get some sleep, and stop letting your imagination run away with you." He truly believed he was handing me some enormous gift. He thought four years of humiliation could be wiped out with a weekend in Chicago and an Instagram story visible to twenty people. "Have a lovely evening, Avery," I said. I stepped out and pulled the heavy walnut door shut behind me. The electronic lock clicked into place with a crisp little snap.

Joey Herbert's POV: The little studio I rented three blocks from the railroad tracks suddenly looked spacious once every trace of Avery had been cleared out of it. Early Saturday morning, I packed my whole life into one suitcase and one cardboard box. In the corner of the closet sat a shoe box stuffed with four years of memories: a few movie stubs from the back row of small theaters no one we knew would ever set foot in; a silver necklace he had bought me from a kiosk in the middle of a mall corridor, which had left a green ring around my collarbone after two weeks; and a pair of matching strap watches he'd bought in our second year together. He had never once worn his in public. "People will ask questions if they see it," he'd said at the time, tucking his into the back of his sock drawer. "Safer to keep it at home." I sealed the box with packing tape, wrote his address neatly on the lid in black marker, and paid a courier to hold it until eight sharp on the Monday two weeks out, far enough ahead that by the time the box reached him, he would have stopped expecting anything from me at all. Sunday dawned gray and cold on campus. The final hurdle of my undergraduate honors thesis was a public defense in the main hall, after which the faculty review committee would vote on who received the department's annual graduate research fellowship. The fellowship came with five thousand dollars in cash, exactly the money I needed to cover the deposit on an apartment in Palo Alto. By the time I climbed the stone steps of the teaching building, the soft autumn drizzle had turned into a freezing, needle-thin rain. A black Range Rover suddenly swung toward the curb and drove straight into a wide puddle right beside the sidewalk. Cold, filthy mud sprayed over me from the waist down, soaking through my gray wool pants and the hem of my trench coat in an instant. The passenger window slid down. Sherry rested her elbow on the leather window frame. Despite the gray sky, she was wearing a pair of oversized designer sunglasses and an immaculate cream trench coat. Tyler had both hands on the wheel, laughing so hard he kept knocking his forehead into it. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Joey!" Sherry cried, her voice shrill with fake alarm. "Tyler didn't see the puddle. Do you still have your defense today? Are you going like that?" I stood on the sidewalk, dirty water dripping from the soaked hem of my coat onto my worn leather loafers. I looked at Sherry and said nothing. Sherry only laughed, mean and pleased, and told Tyler to drive. Tyler stomped the gas, and the SUV roared down the drive toward the faculty parking garage. I walked into the ground-floor restroom without a word, pulled a fistful of paper towels from the dispenser, and scrubbed at the worst of the mud on my pant legs. But the stain had already soaked into the fabric, spreading dark, ugly patches across the gray wool. I washed my hands in biting cold water, straightened my collar, lifted my chin, and walked into the lecture hall. The hall was full: more than fifty students and five faculty judges. Avery sat in the second row of the guest section in a crisp charcoal wool suit, next to his father's representative on the university's endowment board. As I walked to the podium, whispers rippled through the room. More than a few students pointed at the mud-spattered legs of my pants. Sherry sat in the front row, radiant and immaculate, a clicker turning idly between her manicured fingers. I ignored the whispers entirely. I plugged my flash drive into the podium, adjusted the microphone, and delivered a full twenty minutes with perfect composure: an econometric analysis of regional labor markets, tightly argued, airtight in its logic. I never stumbled once. I never gave Avery so much as a glance. When I finished, Dr. Martinez, the department chair, gave a slow, unmistakably admiring nod. Then it was Sherry's turn. Her topic was consumer behavior in luxury brands. Her slides were stacked with glossy high-resolution stock photos, but the underlying data was pitifully thin, stitched together almost entirely from secondhand public reports. She stumbled even over basic regression terminology, covering her mistakes with a nervous little laugh into the microphone and glancing toward the second row for reassurance. And every time she looked his way, Avery answered with a warm, encouraging nod. When both defenses were over, the chair of the review committee rose slowly to his feet. "Our two strongest candidates, Ms. Garner and Ms. Herbert, are currently tied. By the tradition of this endowed fellowship, the tie is broken by the vote of the student representative on the advisory board." The chair turned, his gaze landing on Avery. "Mr. Pittman, the floor is yours." The hall went dead silent. Avery rose from his seat and buttoned his jacket with an elegant flick of his fingers. He looked up at me. His eyes churned with tension and plea, as if he were waiting for me to hand him a way out, waiting for me to look at him with desperation, to admit that he held absolute power over my future. I stood beside the podium, hands loose at my sides, and looked back at him with perfect indifference, nothing in my eyes but flat, dead water. Avery's jaw went tight. He jerked his gaze away and cleared his throat hard. "Joey's data analysis is thorough and rigorous," Avery said, chin lifted, his clear voice carrying through the hall. "But Sherry's presentation showed a more practical understanding of how business networks actually work. The road to a successful career requires social flexibility, not locking yourself in an ivory tower with your books. I cast my vote for Sherry Garner." The block of fraternity and sorority seats erupted in thunderous applause. Sherry shrieked with delight, gathered her skirt, and flew down from the stage to throw her arms around Avery's neck in front of the entire faculty. Avery caught her waist automatically, but his eyes went right over her shoulder, searching the crowd for me, frantic and urgent. I didn't so much as raise an eyebrow. I pulled out my flash drive, dropped it into my coat pocket, turned, pushed open the side door, and walked straight into the faculty corridor. Avery caught up with me in the stairwell, his leather soles slapping loud and ragged on the linoleum. "Joey! Stop right there!" He grabbed my elbow from behind, his knuckles white with force, his voice full of panic and loss of control. I spun around and wrenched my arm free with everything I had. The force sent his whole hand crashing into the painted wall. "Don't touch me with your filthy hands," I said, cold as ice. Avery staggered back a step, chest heaving. "You pushed me to this!" he hissed, his voice echoing in the empty concrete stairwell. "Forty-eight hours. You treated me like I didn't exist. You humiliated me in front of everyone! Joey, if you'd just sent me one text, just one text saying you were sorry, I would have paid you that five thousand out of my own pocket!" "Your money makes me sick, Avery." "Then what the hell do you want?!" he shouted, breaking down, dragging both hands through his carefully styled hair. "Do you want me to destroy two families' merger for your sake? Because you grew up poor and had to work twice as hard, you think you're better than everyone? Do you have any idea how the world works? Look at what you wore to your own defense, like a homeless person off the street! I voted for Sherry to save everyone's face!" Smack. The slap cracked through the stairwell, sharp and loud. I put the last of my strength into his left cheek. Avery's head snapped to the side. A bright red handprint bloomed on his pale face, startling in its clarity. He froze where he stood, eyes wide with shock, then slowly, trembling, raised a hand to his burning cheek. In four years together, I had never once raised my voice at him. I had never said a single harsh word to him. I had folded myself small and swallowed every grievance, hidden for four whole years, just to keep his towering, self-important vanity intact. "Four years," I murmured, my voice trembling with pure disgust. "Four whole years. I cooked for you. I did your laundry. I proofread your papers and fixed your assignments. I hid in your closet like a rat in a sewer because you couldn't stand to be seen with me. And Avery, you never kept me secret because of your family. You kept me secret because you knew, better than anyone, that you're not much of a man at all, and you never deserved me." "Joey..." He forced the word out of his throat, his arrogance and pride collapsing into pure, helpless panic. "Don't say another word to me." I cut him off, flat and final. I turned without hesitation, walked down the steps one by one, pushed open the heavy metal fire door with one hand, and stepped out into the freezing rain without a backward glance, leaving him alone and rigid in the icy stairwell.