He forced a crooked smile, doing his best to sound calm—maybe even casual, with a hint of what he thought was playful sarcasm.
“Gwyneth. Or—wait…”
He paused, as if only just now remembering what to call her.
“Should I say Nimbus these days? What a surprise. All that time together, and I never guessed you had such a side to you.”
Gwyneth picked up her glass of water and took a delicate sip, not even bothering to look at him. Her voice was flat and unmoved.
“Right back at you. I didn’t know you had a hidden talent for adultery, either.”
Julian’s hand, halfway through pushing his glasses up his nose, froze for a split second.
But just as quickly, a thought blazed across his mind.
Gwyneth is Nimbus?
That actually… makes things so much easier.
She’d been crazy about him before—utterly devoted, hanging onto his every word, the textbook definition of a love-struck puppy. All this drama, the secret identity, the performance—she was clearly going out of her way to embarrass him. But at the heart of it, wasn’t it all just to get his attention? To make him regret, to win him back?
Yes. That had to be it.
Women—especially women like Gwyneth, who had once been head over heels for him—don’t just move on that easily. This was all classic “can’t have you, can’t let go.” She was probably just nursing a broken heart, hoping he’d come crawling back.
Feeling like he’d cracked the code, Julian straightened in his chair, leaning forward with a magnanimous air and a suddenly sincere tone.
“Gwyneth,”
He deliberately used her old name, hoping to close the distance between them.
“I know… there were a lot of misunderstandings between us. Honestly, ever since we split up, I’ve been wanting to talk things through.”
He paused, watching for any flicker of emotion in her face. But Gwyneth didn’t even blink, so he pressed on, following the script he’d written in his head—this time with a touch of generosity.
“You lied to me, kept your real identity hidden, let me make a fool of myself in public… But you know what? I’m willing to let that go.”
He said it as though he were offering some extraordinary olive branch.
Let it go? The nerve.
Where did he get this much audacity?
She was almost curious to see what else he’d come up with.
Julian, undeterred by her indifference, poured on the earnestness, his voice taking on an almost pleading, repentant quality.
“Gwyneth, you know you’ve always been the one I cared about. Really. The only one.”
He tried to make his gaze look soulful.

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