Falling for the Poor Student

My fiancée fell for the underprivileged student I was sponsoring.
To prove her devotion, she defied her family and marched into my home to break off our engagement.
My father was furious. My mother nearly fainted.
Overnight, I became the laughingstock of our social circle.
What no one knew was that we held a family meeting that very night.
Everyone was unnervingly calm, analyzing the situation from every angle.
My father took a sip of his tea. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Go abroad for a few years. It’s a strategic retreat.”
My mother’s expression was placid. “Reinvent yourself. He’s playing the part of the tragic, sensitive soul. You become the one that got away.”
I smiled. “In that case, I think I’ll start with a bout of depression.”

1
On the day I returned, my friends threw me a welcome-home party.
The private room was filled with laughter and the clinking of glasses. Then, the door opened, and the jovial atmosphere froze.
It was my ex-fiancée, Amelia, and her new boyfriend.
I turned my head and met a pair of familiar, cool eyes.
Amelia’s gaze lingered on me a moment too long, and the man behind her, a man named Ethan, began to look increasingly uncomfortable.
Everyone exchanged nervous glances, some discreetly watching my reaction.
After a brief, stunned silence, I casually gestured for them to join us.
“You’re here. Have a seat.”
I acted as if the ugly fallout from three years ago had never happened.
A complex emotion flickered across Amelia’s face. She seemed to want to say something but ultimately just gave a quiet acknowledgment.
Ethan sat beside her, his smile strained, a desperate attempt at nonchalance that failed to hide his stiffness.
The unspoken tension was thick. The glances thrown his way were laced with scorn.
I had pulled this man out of poverty, paid for his education, and in return, he had stolen my fiancée.
Who could respect a backstabber like that?
In the years I had been away, my family’s business had skyrocketed, quietly beginning to eclipse even Amelia’s powerful family, the Suttons.
The social climbers in the room, whether out of a desire to defend my honor or for their own strategic reasons, collectively ostracized Ethan. He was treated like a ghost at the table.
He looked to Amelia for support, but she, uncharacteristically, remained silent.
I could feel her eyes on me, a mixture of curiosity and assessment.
Even in the dim light of the room, Ethan’s face was a pale, tight mask of anxiety.
I savored the moment before raising my glass, ostensibly to rescue him.
“You two are late. Three shots as a penalty, no objections, right?” I said smoothly. “Don’t even think about skipping out. It’s the rule.”
The others, after a moment of surprise, quickly played along.
“That’s right! Liam’s back today. Don’t be a buzzkill!”
Amelia said nothing, just downed the three shots with a clean, decisive motion. She turned the glass upside down, not a single drop remaining. Our eyes met, and in that moment, it felt like an apology for what had happened three years ago.
I smiled faintly and turned to Ethan.
He picked up his glass, his lips twitching into a forced smile, but he couldn’t meet my gaze.
When I tried to clink my glass with his, he flinched as if I were a monster, the glass slipping from his trembling hand and shattering on the floor.
That was the last straw for some of the others.
“Seriously, Amelia, what’s with your boyfriend?” one of them snapped. “Liam is being a bigger man about this, and he’s the one acting all offended? Did he come here just to ruin the mood?”
Amelia shot him a look, her lips tightening with annoyance, but she still defended him. “Ethan didn’t mean it. Just drop it.”
Ethan mumbled an apology, his head bowed, his face a grim shade of grey, looking as if he were the one who had been wronged.
One of my friends, whose family had no business ties with the Suttons, was about to lose it.
“Oh, that does it—”
I stopped him with a calm, friendly smile. “We’re all friends here. It’s not a big deal.”
“What happened in the past is in the past. Let’s not bring it up again.”
I looked at Amelia and Ethan, then downed my own drink, my eyes conveying a sense of peace and forgiveness.
Amelia’s tense expression softened, and a hint of a smile touched her lips.
Everyone understood. The hatchet was buried.
The atmosphere in the room warmed up again.

2
Later, I stepped out onto the balcony for some fresh air.
Behind me, I heard Amelia’s slightly hoarse voice.
“How have you been, these past three years?”
The wind rustled through my hair, creating an almost cinematic sense of a long-awaited reunion.
I turned and caught the flash of surprise and something more complex in her eyes.
“You drank a lot. Is your stomach holding up?” I asked, sidestepping her question to show concern for her.
Amelia subconsciously touched her stomach, a flicker of a daze in her expression.
She had always had stomach problems and was an incredibly picky eater. It had taken me a year to learn her preferences and create a personalized nutrition plan for her. I used to watch over her meals, my pockets always stocked with her medication and healthy snacks.
And yet, I had lost her to the boy who would take her to eat street food.
She masked the flicker of emotion, her gaze on me now unreadable. “You don’t hate me?”
I shook my head. “It’s all in the past. There was never any irreparable damage between us. Besides, what’s that saying? Even if the deal falls through, the goodwill remains.”
Amelia let out a small laugh, and the tension between us eased. “You’ve certainly become more magnanimous,” she teased.
I smiled back. “We just weren’t right as a couple. That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, right?”
The truth was, after we broke off the engagement, the relationship between our families had become dangerously strained. The past three years had been a cold war of corporate sabotage and bitter rivalry.
Now, everyone in our circle knew how fiercely protective my parents were of me and how unstoppable my family’s business had become. The word on the street was: get on Liam’s good side if you can, but whatever you do, don’t get on his bad side.
Since my return, my social calendar had been packed with invitations from people I barely knew.
What was one more friend?
Besides, there was no reason for our families to remain at odds. I suspected Amelia’s presence at my party was a calculated move by her family to smooth things over. The Sutton empire was vast but showing signs of wear. They didn’t need another powerful enemy.
Recognizing the olive branch in my words, Amelia’s brow relaxed. She joined me at the railing, and we stood there, one facing the city, the other facing the party, talking about the changes and experiences of the last three years.
The dynamic between us, two equals, was surprisingly comfortable.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of a white shirt disappear around a corner.
A slow smile spread across my face.
The next few months, I thought, were going to be very interesting.

3
After that night, Amelia started contacting me more frequently.
She asked for the old nutrition plan, and I gave her all the details, reminding her to take care of herself.
On the surface, she feigned annoyance at my fussing, but the warmth in her voice was unmistakable.
I didn’t rush into the family business. Instead, I used my free time to revisit old haunts. My social media was filled with pictures of old friends, old places, old memories.
Of course, having known Amelia since we were teenagers, a great number of those memories involved her.
I’m pretty sure she was stalking my feed. She was always the first to like and comment.
The principal really did go bald, didn’t he?
Is that the same orange cat we used to feed? He still hasn’t graduated?
I remember we tied a red ribbon on that old tree and made a wish. You never would tell me what you wished for.
I would reply to the harmless comments and ignore the ones that crossed the line.
One day, a new pop star went on a live stream and started trashing classic songs. He called one of my favorites “creepy.”
That night, I posted the song on my feed.
Minutes later, Amelia called, her voice tight with anger. She wasn’t a fangirl, but she had never missed a concert by this particular singer. That’s how much she loved his music.
I listened quietly as she ranted, offering soothing words and agreeing with her. We ended up talking for over an hour.
Until I heard Ethan’s voice in the background.
“Amelia, are you still working?”
She paused but didn’t hang up. Her tone was sharp. “What are you doing in here?”
Ethan’s voice rose, laced with accusation. “You’re on the phone with him again, aren’t you?”
At that point, I hung up. What came next was their private business. It wasn’t my place to interfere.
I hummed the song softly, my eyes on the clock, my fingers tapping a rhythm on the table.
Three minutes later, she called back.
Her voice was tinged with exhaustion. “I’m sorry, Liam. You got dragged into this.”
“It’s fine,” I said calmly. “I know Ethan. He’s a sensitive guy. Just spend more time with him, give him the reassurance he needs.”
I paused, then added, “Our past is… complicated. It’s natural for him to be wary of me. Maybe we should keep some distance from now on.”
There was a moment of silence, and I caught the flicker of impatience she tried to hide.
“Haven’t I given him enough reassurance? He’s the one who’s never satisfied.”
After we hung up, I raised an eyebrow. I may have been abroad, but I had kept a close eye on things back home.
After the engagement was broken, Amelia had gone on a hunger strike to force her family to accept Ethan. Ethan, in turn, had knelt outside the Sutton mansion for days, begging to see her.
The rebellious heiress and the resilient, sensitive soul, fighting for their love.
The Suttons finally relented. It was a real-life fairytale, the talk of the town. People would get misty-eyed recounting the story.
“Such a moving, epic love!”
“Better check if your fiancée has a true love on the side! Make way, make way!”
But fairytales end, and real life begins. The business partnership between our families collapsed. The Suttons couldn’t blame their precious daughter, so someone had to take the fall.
They started looking at Ethan with contempt, finding fault in everything he did.
If he wanted to marry into their family, he had to learn their ways, play the part of the dutiful husband.
A career? Not a chance. The pittance he would earn would be an embarrassment.
Social events? Don’t even think about it. They wouldn’t have people laughing at them for letting a backstabbing homewrecker marry into the family.
Ethan, fresh out of college, had his career ambitions crushed before they could even begin.
But Amelia promised to love him forever, so he willingly became the man behind the woman. What was a career compared to being a Sutton in-law?
He clung to her, his possessiveness growing. He would get angry at the sight of any other man near her.
Once or twice, it might have been cute. But it quickly became suffocating.
A love born of hormones and rebellion rarely stands the test of time.
I sighed and turned to the other student I sponsored, Nicole. She was now my assistant.
“Can you understand his actions?”
Nicole’s face was impassive, but a flicker of disgust crossed her features. “I will never understand it. He had a bright future, and he threw it all away for the empty promise of a woman’s love.”
“Have Ethan and his family been out of touch for a while?” I asked thoughtfully.
Nicole nodded.
“I’ll take care of it.”

4
After that phone call, the tentative friendship Amelia and I had rebuilt seemed to crumble.
I started ignoring her messages and calls. I deliberately avoided the parties she invited me to.
The sudden distance sent Amelia into a panic.
She went to Nicole, trying to arrange a meeting with me.
Nicole sighed. “You haven’t heard? Someone’s been spreading vicious rumors about Mr. Green online.”
“His depression has flared up again. His mother had to have him committed to a private clinic.”
Amelia froze, her voice a dry rasp. “What depression?”

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