Walk Away, Darling: Leaving The Billionaire Behind

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.