Sleeping With The CEO
Chapter 283: No Dignity

Chapter 283: No Dignity

Emily and Derek were no longer an item. Pretty soon, he would be somebody’s husband. Knowing that had nearly destroyed Emily, but the world had kept on moving. So Emily had no choice but to keep on moving too.

No job, no man, but she still had her mother, and that was what Emily was clinging to, to get her through the days.

Every morning after a night spent embroidering. Emily faked waking up around the time that her mother did. When her mom got out of the shower, she made sure to have breakfast ready.

The two of them actually having time to eat together before her mom was out the door going to work.

With her mom gone, Emily mostly stayed home. Either cleaning, and cooking, or working on her embroidering. Being very careful to ignore a particular finished piece...the heart that she had made for Derek.

The last time that Emily had touched it. It had been to put it, and the unfinished puzzle away.

Now she was scared that if she were to get her hands on it, she would either destroy it or hold it close and cry. Neither option was very appealing to her.

So she had just decided to let it be for the time being.

Spending most of her days cooped up. Her world revolving around her mother, and her embroidery, was no way to live. But Emily had made it her personal mission to avoid the outside world. Even going as far as to make sure that she was not online, as often as she could have been now that she had the time for it.

The outside world just had way too many things that reminded her of Derek. She was not ready to face them yet. But just because she was not yet facing the world. It did not mean that she was not still struggling.

Emily had once heard somebody saying that when you broke up with somebody, you did not really miss that person. But rather you missed the experiences that you had while with them. Which was why couples that had been together a long time. Or those who had fallen in too hard, too deep, too fast, often struggled.

Emily understood it now. For in her case, she missed both Derek and the experiences that they had shared.

Clearly she had latched on to that relationship with everything she had.While Derek had merely just been loosely attached to her.

Because she had failed to guard her heart against him. Which was really rule number one of dating.

...Until you were a hundred percent sure on somebody. Never ever go into a relationship with everything you had...

But Emily had been so gone for Derek that all of the red flags had seemed like hearts.

Even after leaving him, she still could not tell where the red flags had been exactly.

But that did not matter. What mattered was that she still missed him. She missed his company, and she also missed the experiences that she’d had with him. He had done her wrong, but before that, Emily had thought things were going well. She’d had so many good times with him.

From the stargazing to the blueberry picking. Especially that wonderful first date where they had spent the majority of it at war with an old woman. Emily missed just being alone with Derek at his penthouse. The two of them cuddling, or her watching him swim, while she sat by the poolside, either reading something on her phone or embroidering.

Little things, domestic things.

But it was not just the things that they had done together.

Emily also found herself missing the little things about him. She missed the way his cheeks dimpled,when he smiled at her. She missed the way that his eyes lit up whenever he found something amusing. She missed being the one to wake up first in the morning, and just being able to watch him sleep. His face relaxed, his mouth slightly parted.

She even missed the things that some people would find weird. Like how he..., Emily shook her head, cutting off the train of thought before it could continue, she was getting caught up. She could not let that happen, losing herself in a vortex of memories would do nothing but leave her feeling depressed.

She would not allow herself to live in the past. Reliving things as she had experienced them. Back then, she had not known the whole truth. So of course, everything from back then would seem golden. But the reality was that it was not.

Derek had been lying to her even then. Every smile, every laugh, every kiss, even when they had been together in bed, he had been lying. He had used her. For her part, Emily had been serious about them. But it was clear that from Derek’s point of view, what they’d had, had simply been something fleeting.

Something to pass the time with, a distraction.

That was all that Emily had been for him. And it hurt. How could she not be hurting? She had given Derek her all.Only to discover that to him she had been nothing more than an option.

Someone that he could use and then discard as he chose. That made Emily feel all types of low about herself. But more than feeling low because of how Derek had viewed her.

Emily felt bad because sometimes in the middle of the night.

When the nightmares were keeping her from getting any sleep, Emily would begin thinking. Her thoughts honest in a way that only thoughts that were had in the middle of the night could be. The exhaustion of the day having stripped away all pretenses and lies.

In those quiet hours of the night, Emily had come to a sad realization. If she were to go back in time and be given a choice, to have Derek’s mother reveal to her what was going on. Or to carry on as things had been.

With her being blissfully ignorant, and thinking that everything was going well. Then Emily was ashamed to say that she would have picked option B, to keep being in the dark. To have Derek continue on with Penelope without her knowing that the two of them were together.

That made Emily feel unbearably sad for herself.

Had she really given a man so much power over her? Had she really let herself stoop so low? For the sake of Derek Haven,she would have gladly chosen to become an ignorant mistress rather than face reality?

Choosing to live with her head buried in the sand, rather than make the difficult choices that needed to be done. Sure, she had already found out about Derek’s engagement, and had decided to end things with him.

But still, the fact that there was a part of her that loved Derek to the point that she would have been willing to do something that went against her beliefs.

To be a mistress. That made her feel all types of messed up. So much for dignity and self-respect.

Clearly those took a back seat when it came to Derek Haven.