Chapter 9
“Damian, you’ve forgotten–we’re already divorced. You signed the agreement.”
The color drained from his face. “Ava, you’re just saying that to hurt me, right?”
“Damian, in the past you defended Isabella at every turn. I thought you were just close friends, but what did you do? For her sake, you let me carry the blame and even wanted me to abort our child.“]
I caressed my stomach, where a child once grew.
–
I paused, my voice choked, “Your mother
My tears fell, “You know what? I couldn’t bring myself.
to abort the baby
at
ocked.
Ime in the ho
made me stand in the scorching sun. That’s how I lost my child.”
first… it was your mother, your Cole family who killed him.“[
Damian was thunderstruck, collapsing to the ground.[]
When the security guards dragged him away, he was still screaming my name.
In the days that followed, he came to the Kane family home like a madman every day.
Sometimes he knelt at the gate weeping, sometimes he tried to force his way in while drunk. Each time the guards beat him black and blue, but he stubbornly kept coming back.
Until one day, news broke that Damian’s mother had been hospitalized with a stroke. In the footage, Damian looked as if he had aged ten years overnight.[]
Later, I heard he spent his days drowning in alcohol at bars.
When Isabella found him, he smashed a bottle hard against her head. Glass fragments pierced his right eye, causing him to lose sight in that eye. Isabella was imprisoned for intentional injury, and the Cole Group declared bankruptcy.
I began taking over my father’s business.
At the company’s annual gala, I stood confidently speaking under the spotlight. In the front row, Ethan watched me intently, his eyes filled with pride.[]
After the speech, he immediately rose to drape a coat over my shoulders.
As we left the venue, I glimpsed a hunched figure standing in the shadows by the door.
The man wore sunglasses, with the left eye area sunken in. It was Damian. He opened his mouth but ultimately couldn’t bring himself to speak.
“Don’t look,” Ethan suddenly gripped my hand so tightly it hurt.[]
I smiled and reached up to smooth his furrowed brow. “We’re getting married tomorrow Are you afraid I’ll run away?”
Ethan’s expression relaxed slightly, but he still stubbornly held onto my fingers.
A few days earlier, Ethan had knelt on one knee in the garden, revealing his feelings to me for the first time.]
He said that when he learned of my marriage years ago, he had fled to Europe, experiencing unbearable pain. Only when he received my phone call did he find the will to live again.
“Ava,” he pressed my hand to his chest, where I could feel his strong heartbeat, “I will never let you go again in this lifetime.“]
I placed a kiss on his cheek.
Damian witnessed it all and was about to rush forward when security guards lifted him bodily away, his cries fading into the distance.
Ethan wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed my lips.
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