Marrying Without My Eight-Year Boyfriend Knowing novel Chapter 3

Nathan's questioning tone died in his throat at my cool response. I ended the call just as the Uber pulled up to my building.

After getting out, I noticed a flood of notifications from Nathan's company Slack channel. When I opened it, there were 99+ unread messages. Pinned at the top was a photo Sophia had posted of Nathan setting up her smart home system.

[Who else has such an amazing boss?] she wrote. [I'd sign a lifetime contract with Blackwood Tech in a heartbeat! #BestBossEver]

Below her post, other employees had chimed in with their comments.

[Never seen the boss like this before. Didn't Janet from Facilities say he's a total neat freak? Not looking so OCD now!]

[OMG, he looks so hot in casual clothes! Officially crushing on Mr. Blackwood! Back off ladies! ?]

[Posted by the future Mrs. Blackwood herself. Give up those CEO dreams, girls – stick to your KPIs!]

Before Sophia joined, I used to help Nathan with all these tasks without expecting anything in return. But after she took over my unofficial role, I'd forgotten to leave the channel. After reading through the thread, I cleared my notification history and left the workspace.

Now that I'd made my decision to move on, seeing this preview of their life together didn't sting as much as I'd expected.

I remembered my early days at Blackwood Tech after graduation. Nathan used to share snippets of my work in the company channels all the time, sneaking photos of me making his morning cold brew or updating the dev team's sprint board.

Everyone in the office could see how much he liked me.

His attention made even the mundane workday special, and his affection brought life to the usually dry company chat.

Taking the album down to a quiet corner of the building's courtyard, I lit a match and set it ablaze. I watched as each photo caught fire, turning slowly to ash, cremating the last eight years of my life with it.

Nathan arrived to find me standing over the flames, his face ashen.

He rushed forward, pushing me aside to try and salvage what he could. But the fire was too intense for him to reach in.

Within seconds, his hands were red from the heat. Furious, he stomped on the burning album, trying to snuff out the flames as they devoured each photo.

"What the hell are you doing? Have you lost your mind? All our memories – gone because of you!" he shouted.