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“I will get engaged to her first and then find a way to cancel the engagement later. I will still marry you. You will always be my only wife.”
Looking at his confident and
condescending look, I suddenly felt relieved.
It turned out that the person I had loved for eight years was nothing more than that.
“Fine then. Let’s break up, Darrel. I won’t marry you.
He did not seem to expect that the word break up would come out of my mouth and his face was full of contempt.
“You won’t marry me? You’ve been begging me to marry you for eight years. Besides, you‘ re almost thirty years old. If you don’t marry me, what will you do?”
His words hit me like a slap, leaving me
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stunned and momentarily speechless. I never imagined that Darrel, who always carried himself with such elegance, could say something so cruel.
It was then I realized, eight years together had given him ample time to learn exactly how to wound me, how to strike at my most vulnerable points.
Noticing my silence, perhaps he realized his mistake. He sighed softly, his tone shifting to one of feigned remorse. “I’m sorry, Sylvia. I lost my temper.
“Please be patient with me. I’m just helping Ashley manage her wedding with Seth first. After that, I promise, we’ll get married in a month. I’ll give you the grandest wedding you deserve.”
But as I looked at him, all I could feel was disgust. The man before me was utterly shameless.
Ashley first and then me? Was he hoping to keep both worlds intact, his so–called
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sincere love with Ashley and the
convenience of my thoughtfulness and devotion?
The thought made me sick. Darrel’s promises, once a source of comfort, at that time felt like nothing more than empty lies meant to trap me in his selfish web.
I remembered the day when the three of us had a barbeque together.
While Darrel was helping us prepare the sauce, Ashley completely lost the coquettishness she had when facing him and looked at me provocatively.
“Sylvia, even if you are the apple of everyone’s eye, so what? Darrel only cares about me.”
After saying that, she took the coal that had been cooling aside for a long time onto her
hands.
Then she covered his hands and screamed
loudly with pain on his face. “Sister, don’t be angry, I will never see Darrel again?”
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When Darrel heard the shouting, an unprecedented panic appeared on his face.
He hurriedly helped the weak–looking Ashley into the car and headed to the hospital.
Before leaving, he did not forget to glare at me fiercely.
“Sylvia, I didn’t expect you to be so vicious that you can’t even tolerate your own sister?”
What he did not see was that my hands were also burned red by the splashing coal.
A week later, Darrel came to my house and the first thing he did was to ask my parents to agree to his engagement with Ashley.
Suddenly his question startled me.
“Sylvia, what are you daydreaming about?”
I collected my surging thoughts and looked at him coldly. “You should prepare well for your engagement party with Ashley.”
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Since I had resolved not to love him
anymore, there was no reason to prolong the inevitable.
My calm indifference and bothered attitude seemed to catch Darrel off guard, leaving him momentarily dazed.
As I walked away, his expression grew complicated, but I did not look back.
Instead, I hailed a taxi and went straight home, letting the distance between us grow both physically and emotionally.
The next day, I went to the city’s most prestigious jewelry store.
After Darrel’s proposal, I had spent hours carefully choosing a set of jewelry that perfectly suited my style and personality.
If I was not going to marry him, I decided I would at least reclaim what was mine.
But the store owner‘ s hesitant expression unsettled me.
“Ms. Lynch,” he began awkwardly,
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“your set of jewelry was picked up a few days ago by Mr. Gonzalez. I assumed he was collecting it for you.”
A sharp pang hit my chest.
It was as if not enough for him to take my love and my patience, the jewelry I had chosen with so much care, meant to symbolize the life we were supposed to build together, was gone too.
All for Ashley.
It was just an engagement, yet Darrel had given her the jewelry he knew was my favorite.
In that moment, I realized that my place in his heart was not even a fraction of hers.
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