Chapter 403

Chapter 403:

Hadley exhaled.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Elissa smirked.

“See ya.”

Hadley jogged over to Eric, slightly breathless, wasting no time on pleasantries.

“How much do I owe you?”

Eric’s brows drew together, his tone firm.

“Hadley… I didn’t come here to collect money from you.”

She blinked, caught off guard. If that wasn’t why he was here, then what was this about?

A beat passed before realization struck.

“I get it—you bought it on a whim. To you, this hair tie might be nothing. But to me, it’s different… it’s too valuable.”

“Wait…”

Eric’s expression darkened instantly.

“Hold on—you think I bought it on a whim?”

Hadley hesitated.

“Wasn’t it?”

A dry, bitter laugh escaped his lips.

“Yeah, sure. A whim.”

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But inside, something twisted painfully. What had he been expecting? When she first insisted on paying him back, he had feared the worst—that she wanted to draw a line between them, that she was rejecting him outright.

But this? This was even worse.

She hadn’t even considered the possibility that he had chosen it just for her. That he had held her old, worn hair tie in his hands, searching for something that could resemble it.

How utterly ridiculous he must have looked—chasing after a detail so small, putting thought into something she dismissed as a meaningless trinket.

And what was more pathetic than rejection?

Realizing she never even saw his feelings to begin with.

Hadley frowned, watching the way his expression shifted—anger, frustration, something deeper beneath it all.

“Eric?”

Eric snapped out of his thoughts, but the flicker of pain in his eyes didn’t disappear fast enough.

Hadley hesitated, but then reminded him,

“You still haven’t told me how much it costs.”

He didn’t answer right away.

“Did you ever think about…”

That he had searched for a hair tie just like hers, not because it was convenient, but because it was hers?

Unfortunately, the words hovered on the tip of his tongue.

.

.

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