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Yes | 2024-12-12 19:18 | active | 1997 | 0 |
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Grand Opening in AMARILLO! ๐ฅฉ Get 20 Ribeyes for Only $39, premium meat gift boxes ๐, wild-caught seafood & MORE! ๐ WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 11 starting at 9:00 AM & we're open ALL WEEKEND! ๐ LOCATION: Tractor Supply Co 8511 Canyon Expy Amarillo, TX 79110 Look for our big truck and outdoor tent in the parking lot! Why you'll love Backyard Butchers: โ๏ธ Quick & Easy Drive-Thru Meat Market โ๏ธ Vacuum-Sealed & Freezer-Ready ๐บ๐ธ USDA Certified 100% American Beef ๐ Our Boxes Make Great Gifts! ๐ฅฉ ๐ฅฉ We're giving away $1,000 worth of meat to bless a family this holiday season! To enter the giveaway, LIKE and SHARE this post, then TAG 3 friends in comments! โจ We accept credit, debit, cash and EBT to better serve you! ๐ Give the fit of steak! Hurry out to take advantage of our Holiday Gift Specials before we SELL OUT! โจ๐ฅฉ ๐ฌ Questions? Comment on this post & our team of live agents will reply! | Backyard Butchers | https://www.facebook.com/thebackyardbutchers/ | 71,144 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | IMAGE | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/469906061_3816770821967463_1729742112283429193_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=cBugzKaNDEkQ7kNvgF5APkY&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&_nc_gid=Ab4sA-vLaBMcFzkXnZbQYtT&oh=00_AYAmjM9ZZv11YCFHVOAHpNXA0UM7HpDYbn1dtadfELb1aA&oe=676140E9 | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Backyard Butchers | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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No | 2024-12-12 18:12 | active | 1994 | 0 |
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VIEW_INSTAGRAM_PROFILE | https://www.instagram.com/_u/birminghammomcollecti | Birmingham Mom Collective | https://www.facebook.com/BirminghamMomCollective/ | 13,131 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Visit Instagram Profile | 0 | instagram.com | CAROUSEL | https://www.instagram.com/_u/birminghammomcollective | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-lga3-3.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/470129691_1118732706292473_5513717881229858819_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=kRJIQKuM0KMQ7kNvgHsy5Zq&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-3.xx&_nc_gid=A-rrEj4VIzeiq9iHeifdoa_&oh=00_AYBXHRc0x_pw5pd4Hwdes6h-vcIcn0a00CRT-V14-obz8Q&oe=67613B66 | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Birmingham Mom Collective | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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No | 2024-12-12 19:18 | active | 1997 | 0 |
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๐Attention! Do not read in public๏ผ๐ | It had been three years of marriage. Justine Thorpe finally found her husband, Ash Vanderbilt, in the OB-GYN clinic of a hospital. He hadn't shown up for three months. However, he was not alone. Another womanโhis mistressโwas with him. She bore more than a passing resemblance to Justine. Her name was Jenny Thorpe, and she had been living as Justine's replacement in the Thorpe family for 16 years. Justine had suspected her husband of having an affair for at least six months, but she never imagined it would be with Jenny. Not that the revelation was entirely surprising, now that she thought about it. Everyone in Sol's upper class knew that Ash's true love had always been his childhood friend. Justine was the devil who had gotten in the way. Seeing Ash and Jenny together somehow relieved Justine. The mystery was finally solved. She watched them enter the elevator. Ash's delicate eyelashes were lowered as he spoke softly to his companion. Justine had never seen him this gentle before. Jenny was grazing her slightly protruding belly, nodding bashfully. Justine and Jenny closely resembled each other, yet Justine could never mimic the seductive femininity that Jenny exuded. Suddenly, Jenny lifted her head and met Justine's gaze before ducking into Ash's arms as if frightened. "Ashie!" she mumbled. Just as always, Jenny was putting on a show again. Ash looked up with a glare. His eyes met Justine's, and the gentleness on his face dissipated, replaced by that all-too-familiar apathy and annoyance. Justine and Ash were married only because their parents had wanted them to be. She had lost her parents when she was three, though, and while she had been missing, Jenny had come out of nowhere and stolen Justine's identity. By the time Justine was finally found. Ash's mind had already been setโhe only cared for his "childhood friend". The seniors in the family had had to force him to take Justine's hand. Justine did not mind. The only thing she loved about Ash was his looks, but even that was beginning to wear thin. He seemed more and more like a stranger to her. - The elevator door shut. Justine thought their encounter was dramatic. Just imagine how much of a soap opera episode it would be like if she ran at Ash, slapped him, and then confronted Jenny! "Jean! When did you get here? I was just about to grab this medicine for you!" Justine turned to meet Iris Carr, her manager. She smiled and signed, "An expecting mother needed help." Iris studied her heart-stopping beauty and felt a pang in her heart. Justine was so gorgeous, kind, gentle, and an extraordinary dancer. She was a mute who outshone so many people Iris had known. She had even been the prima ballerina of a well-known ballet company, untilโฆ "Here. Your painkillers," Iris said, her eyes reddening slightly as she choked back a sob. "How could you justโฆ injure your spine? You finally managed to become the prima ballerina of the Academie Royale! If you could just finish this tour, you could have..." Becoming the prima ballerina of the Academie Royale ballet company was the dream of countless dancers worldwide. And Justine had been considered after just one interviewโit was incredible! The tragedy weighed heavily on Iris. Justine had always been silent about her family matters, leading Iris to list her as orphaned on her resume, stating she had grown up in an orphanage. Over time, Iris had even come to believe it herself. The more she thought about it, the sadder she became. Justine smiled faintly, seemingly unaware of the sympathy in Iris' face, as she received the painkillers. A year ago, Ash's uncle had hired a hitman on his life. Justine's attempt to save him resulted in her spinal injury. Ash had found the best doctors money could buy and purchased expensive medical equipment for her. The medical team later concluded that her treatment was complete. Unfortunately, two months later, her old injury was aggravated while she was preparing for the tour. After another examination, Justine's career was essentially over. While the spinal injury wouldn't affect her daily life, she could no longer dance. Justine had informed Ash immediately, but he had yet to respond. Maybe he never cared. She had cried her heart out after returning from the hospital, but ultimately, she accepted her fate. This was not the end of the world. After some reflection, Justine decided to continue her tour. She would get treatment alongside it, determined to end her career as a ballet dancer on a high note. This evening's performance would be her last. However, that morning, she woke up to find her painkiller supply depleted. Justine squeezed the paper bag, her eyes feeling dry. It was as if she were a character in a soap opera. Meeting Ash and Jenny felt like a cruel joke. The pain in her spine flared slightly. Regret washed over her. If only she had never tried to save Ash. Instead, he survived long enough to become a villain, insulting the handsome face Justine once adored. She tucked the painkillers into her pocket and took out her phone. Her long lashes veiled the coldness in her eyes as she looked down at the screen. She then selected Ash's number, typed a message, and sent it immediately. - "Why was she in the OB-GYN, Ashie?" At the basement parking lot, Jenny subconsciously shielded her belly and added, "Could she be, you knowโฆ" "That's impossible," Ash replied firmly. Jenny looked away to hide her surprised glee. So Justine had never managed to sleep with him in all three years of marriage? Well, it wasn't that surprising. Everyone in Sol knew that, as a boy, Ash had almost been strangled to death by his mute and mentally ill mother. Traumatized, Ash harbored hatred for his birth motherโand for people who were mute like her. Thus, when his maternal grandparents forced him to marry Justine, it felt like a cruel joke aimed at Ash. There was no way he would ever sleep with her. Poor Justine! A laughingstock, was she not? So what if she was beautiful? What if she could perform some snobby, pretentious dance? Ash had still abandoned her. How could she ever compete with Jenny for Ash's heart? Jenny suppressed her glee and pretended to look sad. "Oh, Ashieโฆ I bet the one person Justine hates the most is me. You are aware of what transpired. She nearly took my life when she returned to the Thorpes. And now she saw us at the OB-GYN," she said. "I should explain myself to her once I get back. I don't want her to throw another fitโ" "She won't," Ash interjected. Justine was his simp, always obeying his wishes. For years, there had been fabricated scandals circulating online about celebrities sleeping with him, yet Justine had never questioned him about any of it. She trusted himโlike a machine programmed to smile and serve him. "Don't overthink it, Jenny. She won't hurt you," he added. "I'll have someone escort you home safely." Jenny still looked like she was about to cry. She was on the verge of getting into Ash's car when she suddenly caught sight of Justine in the parking lot. Ash had assured her that everything would be fine, but what made him so certain? Jenny could never forget the day Justine chased her with a kitchen knife like a rabid dog. It was a true display of Justine's character. Did she really believe she could charm Ash into loving her by hiding her true nature? Did she think she could be Mrs. Vanderbilt forever? It was almost laughable. "Juju!" Jenny called out cheerfully. Justine had always hated that nickname and would go ballistic over it. What if she reacted that way again this time? Ash's expression darkened as he shot a brief glance at Justine, immediately noticing how thin she had become. Justine turned to them and nodded politely as if she had no idea who they were. She signed to the woman beside her, entered her ballet company's car, and drove away. Jenny gritted her teeth. She did not take the bait! She squeezed out some crocodile tears and grabbed Ash's sleeve. "Ashie, Ashie! Did you see that? She didn't even acknowledge us! This is all my fault! I shouldn't have come to you for help even if I have no one else to turn toโฆ Because we were engaged before, so this had to look really badโฆ "Oh no, I'm the one who ruined your marriage! I should have just stayed with those guys!" she sobbed. Ash ignored her. He was fixated on what Justine had signed: "I don't know them. They mistook me for someone else." "Ashie, you gotta chase after her!" Jenny cried out as though she cared about preserving Ash and Justine's relationship. Ash was unfazed. He absent-mindedly glanced at the sleeve Jenny was grabbing and realized that Justine had bought this coat for him. She had won a ballet competition that day and used the prize money to purchase it, presenting it almost like a tribute. Ash yanked the sleeve away from Jenny. "I've told you. She won't mind." At that moment, his phone vibrated. Ash scanned the screen, and his eyes suddenly grew bitterly cold as the words leaped into view: [I want a divorce.] Chapter 2 At the Grand Theater of Sol. A towering man stood in the darkness where the audience gathered. He felt as cold as winter. His eyes were fixed on the stage as the Black Swan darted across it, agile and mesmerizing. The Black Swan's movements were fluid and firm, sensual and tempting. The man almost wished he could possess her right now. The performance was nearing its end, so the man turned away and strode toward the backstage. - The performance ended. Justine felt a quiet pain in her waist, but she gritted her teeth through the production. The crowd erupted in ovation. She took one last yearning glance at the stage and her adoring audience before returning backstage. Iris had been watching her every move with concern. "Is it hurting? I can cancel the fan meeting and photo session if you need it. You can rest in the breakroom, and once the rest of the performance is over, I'll come for you," Iris suggested. Justine waved reassuringly. Many of these fans had traveled all the way to Sol to see her performanceโto meet her. How could she let them down? Soon, the photo session concluded. After checking in with Justine, Iris left to direct the stage. Suddenly, Justine found herself alone. She looked around as memories flooded back. Ballet had been a part of her for as long as she could remember. Concerned that Justine's disability might hinder her job prospects, the orphanage's director had signed her up for ballet classes after discovering her talent, despite the lack of funding from the orphanage. All that hard work and dedication was gone like the wind because of her career-ending injury. How could anyone not feel regret? Justine removed her makeup and pressed her hand against her waist, trying to support it as she tiredly headed to the prima ballerina's room. It was dark inside. She reached for the light switch. Suddenly, from the shadows, a hand grabbed her wrist and pulled her inside. Then, the door shut and locked behind her. Panic surged through Justine. The scent enveloping her was familiar. Why was Ash there? Before she could answer her own question, he pressed his lips forcefully against hers. More kisses followed, violent and punishing. Justine wanted to shove him away, but Ash was a hulking mass of angry muscle, dominating her completely. Fear surged as she bit his tongue, tasting blood, but he didn't stop. Jenny had no idea how wrong she was about Justine and Ash's life. Their marriage had been consummated quickly, thanks to the "intervention" of some elders. Although Ash might resent Justine's existence, he was undeniably addicted to her body. They had known each other for so long and so well that they instinctively understood how to arouse and please one another. This knowledge was etched into their flesh, a part of their movements. Justine's thoughts spiraled into chaos. Suddenly, she felt a bite on her shoulder. She could tell Ash was upset just from the strengthโand it irritated her. What was his problem?! He had always wanted this divorce! he had signed the paper with his name on the day of their wedding! With Justine gone, he would finally be able to marry the woman he really wanted, right? So why is he angry now? Because she was the one who had suggested it instead of him? The backstage was starting to fill with people. She could even hear one of the assistant artistic directors rushing past her room. If anyone were to knockโor even openโher door, Justine would be famous in the scene for the worst reason possible! Justine bit her lips, forcing herself not to let out even a should. Unfortunately, this only made Ash more beastly. He hated silence, so he did everything he could to make her scream and yelp. - The light was on, bright and blinding. Ash sat languidly on the couch, his shirt and suit surprisingly neat. In contrast, Justine's expensive ballet dress lay torn. After a shower, she slipped into an oversized practice garment while Ash glared at her. "A divorce?" he asked, cutting straight to the chase. It was difficult to discern his emotions from his voice. Justine studied himโhe was still as handsome as ever, but gone was the youthful, teenage look she once loved. In its place stood an indifferent, reserved man in a suit. Her eyes no longer sparkled with admiration and yearning when she looked at him. She nodded firmly. Ash snickered. "What? Because of Jenny?" For some reason, the thought of Justine exploding over his affair with Jenny excited him. Unfortunately, she simply shook her head determinedly. "I don't love you anymore," she signed. "That's why I want a divorce." Reality shattered Ash's fleeting excitement. Her straightforwardness left no room for ambiguityโshe didn't even hint at clinging. His mind went blank. Suddenly, he recalled that rainy night many years ago when that woman had pushed him into the mud, signing furiously, "I don't love you anymore! I am not your mother! You are disgusting, just like your father! Go away! I don't want to see you anymore!" It felt as though all emotions had drained from him. Ash rose and glared at Justine frostily. "Suit me just fine. You stole this marriage from Jenny back then, anyway. She finally gets what's always been hers." "Congratulations," Justine signed earnestly. Ash was stunned. He had not expected that from her. He remembered Jenny begging Justine not to take him away when Justine had taken out a lipstick and written on the wall, right in front of their parents, 'He is mine, and only mine!' The same womanโฆ just congratulated Jenny. Rage inexplicably flared within him. Granted, this marriage should have ended sooner. It had been delayed because she had saved his life while sustaining grievous injuries a year ago, but now she was the one requesting a divorce. That worked to Ash's advantage, right? He had no reason to be mad. "My lawyer will contact you tomorrow at noon to finalize our divorce," he said. Justine nodded. Surprisingly, she felt not a hint of sadness or longing. "Good. We can announce our divorce at the family dinner tomorrow evening," she signed. Ash looked away from her. she had this all planned out, hadn't she? It was as if she could not wait to have every tie with him severed. Chapter 3 Ash sneered and went through the door. Justine watched his hulking frame, suddenly recalling hazy memories of her teenage past: a younger version of him, tall and lean, with his back against her. Despite her earlier calm, she felt a sharp pain in her chest. "Justineโฆ" He had stopped by the door and turned to face her. "I no longer answer to my grandfather, Justine. So there's zero chance of you going back to being my wife after this. Don't regret it. "And most importantlyโdon't give Jenny trouble. You've tormented her enough." Ash understood how obsessive her love had been. Justine's life was so devoid of meaning that the only two things she had were ballet and him. This was why Ash was convinced that Justine's sudden change of attitude stemmed from spite after seeing Jenny. Once she calmed down, he was sure she would regret this decision. His job was to ensure her regret was futile. She could no longer return to himโand he would never accept her. Justine was kind and courteous to everyone except Jenny. Ash had never managed to protect her well enoughโthe poor girl had endured much of Justine's wrath. That was why he was determined not to let Jenny suffer for him any longer, no matter how hysterical Justine could be. "Trust me, Mr. Vanderbilt. You should say this to her," Justine signed, her eyes gentle as always. "She should not mess with me." Otherwise, Jenny would suffer worse. - Justine was nothing if not determined. When Ash was her prize, no oneโnot could have gotten in her way. But now that she wanted him out of her life, she wouldn't shed a tear for him. After Ash left, Justine cleaned up the room. She picked up the torn pieces of her favorite ballet dress. It had been tailor-made for herโa piece of luxury she had won in an international competition. Fixing it would require a lot of money. She had to demand compensation for it in the divorce agreement! Just then, she heard Iris' voice from outside. "Jean? Are you up?" The performances had ended a while ago. Iris had arrived earlier, but the light in the room had been off, so she had assumed Justine had been sleeping. Justine lit a lavender candle, and once the stench of Ash's intrusion faded, she opened the door. "It's over?" she signed. "Other troupes have all left except for your group! Everyone's waiting for you at the party," Iris replied, doing her best to mask her sadness. Yes, it was a party, all rightโa farewell party. Suddenly, Justine's phone rang, startling her. Few people ever called her phone. Those who knew her preferred video calls. But this was an audio call. "Looks like a landline number," Iris murmured. She quickly looked it up on the Internet. "That'sโฆ Eudaimonia Home in Saintwood. Why is a nursing home calling you at this hour?" Justine answered the call before Iris finished her explanation. "Is this Justine Thorpe? Good evening. This is Eudaimonia Home. Mrs. Aurora Roch hasn't been feeling too well for the past two days. If you can, please come here as soon as possible. She would like to meet you." Justine was shocked. - The trip took three hours, and it was already one in the morning when Justine arrived. The nurse who had called her led Justine to Aurora's room. "She's been expecting you," the young woman said. The sight of a sickly, bony woman on a sickbed greeted Justine. Aurora had once been the director of Glascape Orphanage and had been a mother figure who raised Justine. She was the one who had recognized the potential ballerina in her and let her shine. Three years agoโฆ While suffering from an incurable disease, Justine's grandfather found her in the orphanage and wanted her to return home. Justine refusedโuntil some bloggers discovered Glascape Island. The rustic beauty of the fishing town quickly spread across the Internet, attracting several corporations eager to transform it into a tourist destination. At that critical moment, Aurora was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Justine faced a difficult choice. She needed money to prevent the island's purchase and save Aurora. Thus, she approached her grandfather and agreed to a deal. Soon after, Aurora informed Justine that she had contacted a hospital abroad where she would receive treatment. They parted ways but promised to stay in touch. "The treatment went well," she would say. "I met someone I love in the wonderful continent of Aestra. I would like to spend my last few years there." Justine believed her. Aurora had discovered her stomach cancer at an early stage, so her chances of recovery were high. Justine sincerely hoped Aurora was living happily out there, free from any shackles. Then Justine decided to marry Ash. That was when Aurora suddenly came to see her. They had a big argument, and afterward, Aurora stopped contacting Justine. - For years, Justine had been trying to locate Aurora. She would ask around and chase down leads, but she never managed to find herโuntil today. On her way to the hospital, the nurse provided details about Aurora's illness. The cancer cells had been spreading even back when they had their fight. "Jean, is that you?" Aurora's voice sounded familiar and foreign at the same time. Justine approached her, choking back tears. Aurora examined her face and smiled. "Oh, Jean. You're even more beautiful now!" she whispered. Justine studied her in disbelief. Suffering had taken so much from her. Aurora was left with nothing but bones and skin! Justine could not help but cry. "I thought you found someone you love! A-And you're spending your last days somewhere in Aestra!" Justine signed slowly. "So why are you here? Why are youโฆ dying?" Aurora's eyes reddened. "I'm so sorry. I lied." Justine cast her eyes at Aurora's face, shakily holding her hands. She pressed her forehead against the back of Aurora's handsโjust like she used to when she was a child. But there was no warmth left in Aurora's hands. They were frighteningly cold. "Love, you're all grown up now. You have toโฆ learn to accept deathโฆ Mineโฆ and Ares'..." Aresโฆ Justine felt her blood freeze. Memories flooded herโit was a beautiful day. A young man ran across the white waves as they rolled. He laughed and turned back to her, his smile brighter than the sun. "Come over here for a hug, Little Justine!" he had called. Pain coursed through Justineโs limbs. She met Aurora's gaze, her eyes brimming with tears of agony. Chapter 4 Aurora knew exactly what was on her mind. She had raised this child, after all. Half a year after Ares' death, the Thorpe family located Justine in Glascape. Aurora hadn't wanted to be separated from the young woman, but Justine's worsening mental state had made her reconsider. Justine had taken it poorly, wasting all her time searching for news about a man who was already dead. She had been a woman possessedโeveryone feared she would become more self-destructive. Aurora had hoped that sending Justine away to a new place with her original family might help her move on. That was why she had accepted the Thorpes' offer. Thus, Justine returned to Sol. Who would have thought Justine would marry someone not long after? Aurora knew how much Justine had loved Ares. There was no way she could have accepted another man in her life so soonโlet alone a husband. Fearing it was a political marriage of convenience at the cost of her child's agency, Aurora had rushed to Sol. That was when she met Ash Vanderbilt. The young man had just returned from studying abroad. Most terrifying, though, was how much he resembled Ares physically. The only difference between them was the feeling they evoked. Justine had gone mad! She had latched onto Ash as if he were her last hope, utterly convinced in her denial that Ash Vanderbilt was an amnesiac Ares Vance. Any mention of the truthโAres' deathโwould send Justine into uncontrollable hysteria. So why was she so different today? Why was she looking at Aurora with such crushing dejection in her eyesโฆ without a single retort of denial? "Y-You knowโฆ he's not him, d-don't you?" Aurora whispered shakily. Justine nodded tearfully. Of course, she knew! Ahhh, Ash could not muster even the smallest amount of the kindness Ares had so effortlessly displayed. However, back then, Justine could not bear the thought of living in a world without Ares. She had deluded herself, clinging to an impostor, surviving through Ash's superficial semblance of him. How else could she have lived this long? But Ash... was a disappointment. He wore those suits so frequently now that it had become harder and harder to see Ares' ghost in him. Aurora let out a pained sob. "No, no, no. How cruel has he been to youโฆ" How cruel had Ash been to Justine? How much hurt had she endured to break a spell so ingrained in her? What had it taken for Justine to admit she had been living in a delusion? The implication stabbed Aurora like a knife. The equipment connected to her began to beep shrillily in alarm. Justine panicked. She was about to call the nurse when Aurora suddenly grabbed her wrist. "Jeanโฆ once I'm gone, you're not bound to anyone in this world anymoreโฆ Do you understand me?" she croaked. "Leave them. Go home. L-Liveโฆ your life... You are free, Jean." Justine nodded frantically, pressing the emergency button over and over. Aurora's breathing grew erratic, but her eyes were fixed on Justine. She could not leave just yet. Her precious girl was still there, all alone. No one would stand for her. No one would speak for her. Alone. "J-Jean..." she whispered one last time, holding Justine's hand. "C-Call me..." Justine trembled. "Call me... M-Mom..." Aurora exhausted all her strength. Her body collapsed into Justine's arms, her breath short. The old woman was hyperventilating, looking at Justine with a pleading gaze. Justine had not been born mute. It was traumaโfrom before her time in the orphanageโthat had caused her mutism. Aurora had taken her to countless specialists, but the effects of the treatments had been discouragingly small. Now, all Justine could hear was the ringing in her ears. She nodded vigorously and opened her mouth, trying to force out a sound. Her throat felt strange. Panic welled inside her. Time seemed to slow. All she could produce was silence. The nurses rushed into the room, and Justine felt herself being pulled away from Aurora. Chaos surrounded her, accompanied by the incessant ringing in her ears. It wasn't until she heard the long beep from the machine that the ringing finally subsided. One of the nurses gently closed Aurora's eyes. She had been watching Justine until the very end. Then, they covered her pain-twisted face with a piece of white cloth. It was not the first corpse Justine had ever seen. The first time was at a funeral home in Glascape. Aurora had howled, her voice thick with tears, "Ares! no, no!" 'You see this, Ares? You loved me so much, and yet I wasn't there when you ended your life. I never even visited you once in so many years. 'She raised me, right? She just wanted me to call her Mom. And I couldn't even do that. 'I'm a terrible person,' Justine thought. - Aurora had left notes for her burial. There was to be no funeral. She wanted to be cremated immediately. She had also appointed Justine to decide what to do with her ashes and belongings. As Aurora was pushed into the crematory, the nurse who had cared for her the longest collapsed to her knees in tears, howling. But Justine could only watch in cursed silence. Her lips were pale as she tried to call out to Aurora in her mind. - The first snow had arrived on Sol. Ash's meeting had just ended. Robin Letto, his secretary, rushed to his side. "Mr. Vanderbilt! Ms. Pearce said she can't seem to contact Mrs. Vanderbilt," she said hesitantly, too afraid to even breathe too loudly. Ashโs mood had been in the gutters today. It was as if the air itself could freeze around him. Logically, after regaining full control over the family business and outmaneuvering his uncles, Ash should have been overjoyed. Yet, he was the exact opposite. Ash frowned. "Fine." He expected her to regret it, but he hadn't expected it to happen so soon. Now, divorce was back on the table. Despite Ash's thoughts, there was a renewed spring in his step, something even he failed to notice. Nearby, Robin acutely sensed the change in his demeanor. His mood, unexpectedly, seemed to have improved. Ash returned to his office and booted up his laptop. The document he had been working on appeared on the screen: the divorce agreement. He had been revising the terms of the compensation Justine was entitled to receive. The offers were generous. The money alone would be enough for her to live comfortably for a lifetime. He had purchased a property for her abroad. Knowing she had been accepted as the prima ballerina of the Academie Royale, he had bought her a villa in Voue, the capital city of Charlemagne, where the ballet company was based. To Ash, these gestures were his way of expressing gratitude for saving his life. - At noon, a meticulously dolled-up Jenny stepped into Ash's car, and they drove to a Michelin-starred restaurant she had been eager to visit for ages. Grinning sweetly, she cooed, "Ngaww, I don't know what came over me! I just had to eat at this restaurant! You're such a gem, Ashie!" Ash smiled faintly. "I'm glad you're happy." Jenny nodded firmly. "Of course I am! You're always so nice to me." She hesitated for a moment. "Umโฆ Did Justineโฆ you knowโฆ" Ash's smile faded. "Let's just eat." Jenny felt a surge of satisfaction at his darkened expression at the mere mention of Justine. Lunch soon ended, and Ash needed to return to work. "I've kept you long enough, Ashie! Good luck with work!" she said brightly. "I'm off to meet my friends for afternoon tea!" Ash briefly glanced at her belly. "Please take care of yourself." "Of course!" she chirped, waving him off. Once he was out of sight, Jenny's smile disappeared. The innocence drained from her expression as she dialed a number. "Hey. Are you sure Justine will be at the Thierry family's soiree?" she asked. | LEARN_MORE | https://beokn.com/market/buenovela/3?lpid=14797&ut | Random Reading | https://www.facebook.com/61559743679549/ | 321 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Learn More | 0 | beokn.com | DCO | https://beokn.com/market/buenovela/3?lpid=14797&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{campaign.id}}&adset_name={{adset.name}}&adset_id={{adset.id}}&ad_id={{ad.id}}&ad_name={{ad.name}}&placement={{placement}} | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/465733853_502380432950668_5964851641982863637_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=pw-XfeRyaH0Q7kNvgExkHmu&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&_nc_gid=AyEDTKDATlWCYv857cGo0qq&oh=00_AYBjyywHPmO0NuOSA0y8uiAvLQejmSk02Pb9dwpyeqQsTw&oe=676147E3 | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Random Reading | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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๐Attention! Do not read in public๏ผ๐ | At Grace Mansion, Carissa Sinclair stared at the man before herโher husband she had waited for a whole year. Barrett Warren, still in his battle armor, wore an expression of both determination and guilt. "Carissa, the king has issued a royal edict for my marriage with Aurora. She will be joining our household. There's no question about it," said Barrett. Carissa's eyes clouded with confusion. "The queen dowager has praised General Yates as a model for all women in the kingdom. Would she be willing to be a concubine?" Barrett's eyes flashed with a hint of annoyance. "No, she wonโt be a concubine. Sheโll be my legal wife, equal to you." "But calling her equal doesn't change the fact that sheโs still just a concubine," Carissa said, a soft smile playing on her lips. Barrett frowned. "Why can't you face the reality? Aurora and I fell in love with each other on the battlefield, and we earned this marriage with our glorified victory. In fact, I donโt really need your approval on it." Carissa smiled mockingly. "Fell in love, huh? Have you forgot what you promised me before you left for war?" On their wedding night a year ago, Barrett was called away to lead reinforcements on an expedition. Before he left, he lifted his wifeโs veil and vowed, "Carrisa Sinclair, you're the only woman I'll ever love in my life. I will never take a concubine!" Embarrassed, Barrett avoided her eye contact. "Just forget what I said. Back then, I only considered you a suitable match for a wife. I knew nothing about love until I met Rory." When he spoke of the woman he loved, his eyes softened with deep affection. Turning back to Carissa, he added, "Sheโs unlike any woman Iโve ever met. I love her deeply, and I hope you'll be generous enough to welcome her." Carissa felt a lump in her throat. Despite her disgust and reluctance, she asked, "What about your parents? Do they agree?" "They do. It was a royal edict, and mother liked her a lot upon seeing her." They agreed? Huh... How ironic! Seems like everything Carissa had done for this household had all been for nothing. "Is she currently in the mansion?" Carissa asked, lifting a brow. Barrett carried a softness in his voice, "Yes, sheโs talking to my mother and making her very happy. Even mother's health seems to be improving." "Improving?" Carissa felt a whirlwind of emotions. "When you went to war, your mother was already gravely ill. I brought in the best physician, managed the estateโs affairs by day, and stayed up nights caring for her. That's how her condition started to improve." Carissa wasnโt seeking praise. She was just laying out the facts of her exhausting year. "But seeing Aurora has made my mother feel even better," Barrett said earnestly. "I know this is unfair to you, but for the greater good, please support Aurora and me." Carissa lowered her eyes, as if blinking away the tears. But inspected closely, that's actually her sharpened gaze. "Invite General Yates over. I have a few things to ask her." "There's no need," Barrett refused instantly. "Carissa, sheโs different from any woman you know. As a general, sheโs above household squabbles and wouldnโt want to meet you." Carissa retorted, "What are women I know like? Or tell me, what kind of woman am I to you? Have you forgotten? I'm also the daughter of the Marquis's family. My father and my six brothers sacrificed on the Southern Frontier three years ago-" "Thatโs them," Barrett interrupted. "you're still a delicate woman suited only for home comforts, while Aurora has no respect for that. Besides, she never holds back her true thoughts. Trust me, you won't want to hear it from her." As Carissa looked up, the striking beauty mark under her eye became more evident in the light. Calmly, she said, "Itโs fine. If she says anything unpleasant, Iโll ignore it. A true matriarch must understand the bigger picture and act with dignity. Donโt you trust me?" Barrett sighed in frustration. โWhy put yourself through this? The king has approved this marriage, and Aurora will never threaten your control of the household. Carissa, she couldn't care less about those things.โ โOh, you think that's what I fear? Losing the control of this household?โ Carissa countered. Little did Barrett know his household had been reduced to a hollow shell - managing it was a hot potato no one else would bear. Over the past year, it was Carissa's dowry alone that kept the Warren familyโs life respectable, and this was her reward. โEnough,โ Barrett snapped, his patience running thin. โIโve done my duty by informing you. Your opinion wonโt change anything.โ As Carissa watched hum storm out, her bitterness deepened. โMy lady, my lord has really crossed the line!โ Lulu, Carissaโs maid, said, wiping her tears. โDonโt call him that!โ Carissa gave her a stern look. โWe never consummated the marriage. Heโs not your lord. Now go fetch my dowry list.โ โWhy the dowry list?โ Lulu asked, puzzled. Carissa tapped her on the forehead. โSilly girl, we need to reckon everything before we leave.โ Lulu gasped. โLeave? But where can we go? To the Northwatch Estate?โ Suddenly Lulu held her tongue, aware that she had touched the sensitive subject. She spared Carissa a guilty look, "I'll get the list now, my lady." Upon the mention of Northwatch Estate, the always restrained Carissa finally let her tears fall. When she was fifteen, her father, the Marquis of Northwatch, had sacrificed his life on the battlefield. Then, just six months ago, her entire family at the Northwatch Estate was brutally slaughtered โ assassins rumored to be spies from the enemy nation, Westhaven. She rushed back after getting the news, only to find the dismembered bodies of her mother and grandmother. Even her youngest nephew, two years old, didn't escape death, neither. Now, she was the lone survivor of the marquis' family, the idea of restoring her familyโs former glory seemed impossibleโat least to outsiders. After all, she was presented mostly as a delicate, fragile woman, while Aurora Taytes had just made herself the first female general in history. It's only natural that the Warren family was more than happy to agree to the marriage. Yet, unbeknownst to the world, Carissa's martial talent was never beneath her father and brothers. If given a chance on the battlefield, she would definitely outshine Aurora Taytes, perhaps a million times more... Just then, Lulu had brought over the dowry list, "My lady, this year alone, you've spent over six thousand silver coins supporting the household. However, the shops, houses, and estates remain untouched. All the bank savings, along with the property deeds and land titles your mother left, are locked up in the chest." "I see." Carissa's gaze lingered on the list with melancholy. Her mother had given her such a substantial dowry, fearing she might face hardship in her husband's home. Yet now here she was. The Warren family had disregarded all her effort, and Barrett had even broken his vow to take no concubine - the very promise that led her mother to choose him over more eligible suitors, despite the Warren familyโs fall from grace. 'Was this really the life mother wanted for me?' Soon, Carissa lifted her gaze, determination tightening her grip on the dowry list, โLulu, make preparations. Weโre going to see His Majesty tomorrow.โ Luluโs brow furrowed, as if knowing Carissa's purpose, โBut, my lady, I donโt think His Majesty will revoke his edictโโ Carissa shook her head, โNo, Lulu, Iโm not asking him to change the edict, but to request a new oneโan amicable divorce from Barrett.โ Luluโs eyes widened that instant, โA divorce! My lady, you want a divorce?โ Carissa nodded firmly. She was never someone to pester some man. If Barrett Warren loved Aurora Yates so much, then she would let him go. What she needed now was a single edict for an amicable divorce, so she could take away all her dowry and get rid of the despicable Warren family for good, dignified and head high... | LEARN_MORE | https://shgjfh.com/market/meganovel/13?lpid=13831& | Random Reading | https://www.facebook.com/61559743679549/ | 321 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Learn More | 0 | shgjfh.com | DCO | https://shgjfh.com/market/meganovel/13?lpid=13831&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{campaign.id}}&adset_name={{adset.name}}&adset_id={{adset.id}}&ad_id={{ad.id}}&ad_name={{ad.name}}&placement={{placement}} | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-atl3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/464975882_1204712524149205_7926569809786181278_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=g8qRgbutorMQ7kNvgF_oIGZ&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-2.xx&_nc_gid=A2rcwyOfUCFBDsr0XS-9qGA&oh=00_AYDoa04OFkRsHQd-fCoCK4u5RMLVKlR7NcrE05o_CeDY_w&oe=676151C3 | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Random Reading | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Our Apple Chips are the perfect sweet & crispy snack for the game! All football season long, you can enter to win our special Game Day Giveaway. Just follow the link and share your email to enter! https://senecasnacks.com/all-american/ ... Winner will be selected 02/10/2025. ... This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook or Instagram. ... #giveaway #free #freetime #win #winning #giveaway #giveaways #giveawaytime #contest #contests #freebie #freebies #free #freetime #instagiveaway #instafree #instawin #instaprize #applechips #winner #senecaapplechips #freebie | MESSAGE_PAGE | Seneca Snacks | https://www.facebook.com/SenecaSnacks/ | 79,091 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Send message | 0 | IMAGE | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-lga3-3.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/470210576_1210912823344620_1535712880435310323_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=3jQfL0bs3WAQ7kNvgER3Ea9&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-3.xx&_nc_gid=AXRbw6XdwvVpxYCP-KRdTIW&oh=00_AYDIUWOUr5Ou-TAzgWr4J4nrDUmqGKH8bx8JTjBUClOzow&oe=676153E5 | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Seneca Snacks | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Yes | 2024-12-12 18:12 | active | 1994 | 0 | ๐ ๐จ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ช๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฎ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ This holiday season, weโre giving you a chance to WIN festive prizes! 3 lucky winners will take home amazing rewards. Donโt miss out ~ enter now! ๐ How to Join: 1๏ธโฃ Like this post โค๏ธ 2๏ธโฃ Join our Facebook group: โค๏ธ Allovin Insiders: Deals & Fun ๐๐ 3๏ธโฃ Head over to our pinned post in the group and tag 3 friends who could use a dose of holiday style inspiration! โจ โจ ๐ฌ Bonus Entry: Comment in the group and tell us your favorite Allovin item or how youโd style it for the holidays. ๐ Choose the item of your choice: 1 item/winner Fuzzy Dark Green Dress ~ https://amzn.to/3OsOko8 Fuzzy Wine ~ https://amzn.to/3YL7LgJ White Boho Flower Girl Dress ~ https://amzn.to/49sMH3o ๐ Winners will be announced in our Facebook group on Dec. 18, 2024. Make sure youโre part of the group for the big reveal! ๐ Enter now and make your holidays extra special with Allovin! #AllovinChristmas #HolidayGiveaway #TagToWin #ChristmasStyle #HolidayFashion #AllovinInsider | SHOP_NOW | https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/18B9B6AB-FB47-4 | Allovin | https://www.facebook.com/allovinofficial/ | 106 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Shop now | 0 | www.amazon.com | VIDEO | https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/18B9B6AB-FB47-4B15-A297-0B17457B0EDF?maas=maas_adg_7615150CF8C13D04EFC6F1067D66E2B9_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas&channel=brb-fb | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/469904578_437230392796172_8923522910180709738_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=aW-q0zXlsc4Q7kNvgGgaUWc&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&_nc_gid=AXRbw6XdwvVpxYCP-KRdTIW&oh=00_AYB3HHQDY8qPLbhFp5Vke17fA5wkgEsoVqisg1rFKS06-w&oe=67616618 | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Allovin | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Yes | 2024-12-12 18:12 | active | 1994 | 0 | ๐ Survival Food Giveaway Event ๐ | โณ Donโt miss this! Buy 1 get 2 FREE 1-Week Food Kits during our Survival Food Giveaway Event. You can score 2 FREE weeks of delicious meals with your 1-Week Food Kit purchase! ๐ ๐ Click here to secure your Buy 1, Get 2 DEAL | LEARN_MORE | https://products.4patriots.com/food/1week-b1g2/max | The Flouring Home | https://www.facebook.com/theflouringhome/ | 358 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Learn more | 0 | products.4patriots.com | VIDEO | https://products.4patriots.com/food/1week-b1g2/maximize-your-variety | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-lga3-3.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/466966832_1240478660609275_6146151287614632032_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=dEh5_Nfqp2cQ7kNvgF9Yhpd&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-3.xx&_nc_gid=AjBpMz0Bg8AA-q37vvDMmPu&oh=00_AYBfc0HrMQ5121VXy7YtdKAye7Q0e0odTTn9sT_J5bJ4Xw&oe=67613C2B | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | The Flouring Home | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Yes | 2024-12-12 18:12 | active | 1994 | 0 | Enter our December giveaway! Let us know the best gift youโve received at a White Elephant for your chance to win. ๐ | MESSAGE_PAGE | Dairy Queen TX | https://www.facebook.com/DairyQueenTX/ | 12,172,398 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Send message | 0 | VIDEO | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/470080073_560715850104862_8902732137046865888_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=qJKSHqgWGG4Q7kNvgHfuejV&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&_nc_gid=AKknJ9ZTZ_SX0cIE2ssMsTM&oh=00_AYCFIN8FSkbAX7-hj1pAQxEq6cD2mFJkuF3mc8BIyxfyVg&oe=6761641B | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Dairy Queen TX | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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No | 2024-12-12 19:18 | active | 1997 | 0 | En medio de la ruina econรณmica de su familia, ella renunciรณ a su preciado violรญn y se convirtiรณ en la dรณcil mascota de su esposo, solo para encontrarse con el desprecio de este. Afortunadamente, ella por fin despertรณ, se divorciรณ con valentรญa y reiniciรณ su carrera musical, alcanzando un gran รฉxito y provocando el remordimiento de su ex. ===== Joelle Miller examinรณ minuciosamente el feed de Twitter de Rebecca Lloyd, estudiando con mucha atenciรณn cada video, ansiosa por ver el rostro del novio de Rebecca. Rebecca, la protagonista de los videos, irradiaba ternura y delicadeza con su sencillo vestido blanco. Si bien no era tan bella, tenรญa una genuina sencillez y una sonrisa encantadora. Habรญa descubierto que, en los dรญas importantes, Nochebuena, San Valentรญn e incluso el cumpleaรฑos de Joelle, Rebecca estaba con Adrian Miller, su supuesto esposo, quien se habรญa ausentado de todos esos dรญas durante los รบltimos tres aรฑos. Esas alegres narraciones sobre su vida con su novio fueron mรกs que suficientes para hundirla en la tristeza. "ยฟLo ven? รl siempre guarda para mรญ la parte mรกs jugosa de una sandรญa". "Incluso cuando llega tarde a casa, siempre me trae algo". "ยกY miren esta sorpresa! Recogiรณ de la iglesia un amuleto de bendiciรณn para mรญ". ...... El nombre de usuario era "Cuenta Regresiva Hacia la Muerte", la รบnica cuenta a la que Joelle seguรญa. Justo cuando reflexionaba sobre el siniestro nombre, la puerta del baรฑo se abriรณ. En la habitaciรณn poco iluminada apareciรณ Adrian. Gotas de agua caรญan de su cabello. A pesar de la tenue iluminaciรณn, sus atractivos rasgos permanecรญan intactos. Joelle cerrรณ instintivamente su celular y le dio una mirada reflexiva. Hacรญa mucho tiempo desde la รบltima vez que lo vio. Esa noche รฉl no estaba ahรญ por decisiรณn propia. Su abuela, Irene Miller, estaba enferma y, como querรญa un bisnieto con desesperaciรณn, lo obligรณ a regresar. De lo contrario, tal vez nunca hubiera venido. Durante sus tres aรฑos de matrimonio, Adrian pasaba la mayor parte del tiempo en Villas Oak, por lo que rara vez estaba en casa. Todos sabรญan que en realidad no amaba a Joelle. Estaba atrapada en un matrimonio por conveniencia. "Solo te voy a dar una oportunidad. El destino dirรก si quedas e**arazada o no", declarรณ Adrian con una voz resonante. ยฟQuรฉ querรญa decir? Antes de que Joelle pudiera seguir pensando, Adrian la agarrรณ del tobillo y la atrajo hacia รฉl. Joelle palideciรณ ante su crueldad, su cuerpo se tensรณ de miedo. "ยกAdrian! Basta, no quiero...". Empezรณ a luchar frenรฉticamente. Era una completa humillaciรณn verse obligada a vivir en esa situaciรณn con el hombre que amaba. Adrian hizo una mueca de desprecio. "Te atreviste a diseรฑo una vez, asรญ que debiste haberlo visto venir. Solo aguรกntalo". Ante esas duras palabras, los ojos de Joelle se llenaron de lรกgrimas y sus pestaรฑas bailaron como mariposas heridas. Mirando su rostro severo, dijo con voz temblorosa: "Las cosas no fueron lo que imaginabas..." Pero sus protestas fueron interrumpidas. Su resistencia se desvaneciรณ a medida que la desesperaciรณn se apoderaba de ella. "Has aprendido que hacerte la difรญcil es mucho mรกs interesante que quedarse tirada como un pez muerto", comentรณ con rencor. Despuรฉs de ducharse, se marchรณ sin mirar atrรกs, como si no quisiera quedarse mรกs tiempo ahรญ. Joelle no entendรญa quรฉ papel tenรญa en su vida. ยฟSolo era un juguete para su placer? ยฟO una herramienta para cumplir las expectativas de su familia de tener un heredero? La ventana estaba completamente abierta, por lo que entraba un gรฉlido y cortante viento. A Joelle se le erizaron los pelos de la nuca y se arropรณ mรกs con su manta. No solo temblaba de frรญo, sino que sentรญa su corazรณn desgarrado, ahora no conocรญa en absoluto al hombre que habรญa adorado durante casi ocho aรฑos. Tres aรฑos atrรกs, en un lujoso banquete organizado por la familia Miller, Joelle bebiรณ demasiado. Cuando se despertรณ, en la con Adrian. Antes de que pudiera asimilar lo que estaba pasando, su hermano y varios miembros de su familia irrumpieron. Ya no podรญa revertir lo sucedido. La abuela de Adrian tomรณ las riendas y organizรณ su matrimonio. Desde entonces, รฉl estaba convencido de que Joelle lo habรญa hecho a propรณsito. A ella le desconcertaba su profunda animosidad, por mรกs que creyera que lo habรญa d**gado. Despuรฉs de todo, habรญan crecido juntos. Pero ahora lo entendรญa todo. Para รฉl, ella no era mรกs que la nefasta mujer que habรญa saboteado su relaciรณn con Rebecca. A menudo pensaba en lo perfecto que รฉl se veรญa en los videos de Rebecca, siempre tan gentil y atento. Probablemente nunca le mostrarรญa esa misma ternura. No pudo contener mรกs las lรกgrimas y sucumbiรณ a un ataque de sollozos. Esa noche no pudo dormir bien. Tuvo sueรฑos sobre el pasado, cuando ella y Adrian no estaban en malos tรฉrminos. Debido a su angustia, Joelle se levantรณ inusualmente temprano. Despuรฉs de lavarse, se puso ropa de casa y bajรณ las escaleras. Leah Jenkins, la empleada domรฉstica con muchos aรฑos de servicio, la vio bajar y rรกpidamente puso la mesa con el desayuno, ya que conocรญa sus preferencias dietรฉticas. Joelle se tomรณ su tiempo para comer lentamente. "Seรฑora Miller, ยฟpor quรฉ anoche no convenciรณ a su esposo para que se quedara? No viene a casa a menudo", comentรณ Leah con simpatรญa. Habรญa sido sirvienta de la familia Miller durante muchos aรฑos, por lo que habรญa visto cรณmo los dos se convertรญan de amigos de la infancia a enemigos. Joelle se mostrรณ incรณmoda, pero lo ocultรณ con una sonrisa serena. "Lo intentรฉ, pero no quiso quedarse". Incluso si pudiera mantener a Adrian cerca, รฉl tenรญa el corazรณn en otra parte. Mรกs concretamente, en Villas Oak, el hogar de la mujer que realmente amaba. Leah dudรณ y agregรณ con cautela: "Tal vez sea porque el seรฑor Miller estรก muy ocupado con la empresa. Dirigir una compaรฑรญa tan grande requiere mucho tiempo". Tres aรฑos atrรกs, le habรญan reasignado para cuidar de Joelle, asรญ que entendรญa los entresijos de ese matrimonio mejor que nadie. Su perspicacia trajo consigo una sincera simpatรญa hacia ella. Las pestaรฑas de Joelle temblaron mientras mordisqueaba su tostada. Sus ojos se llenaron de lรกgrimas debido a la tensiรณn emocional. Sรญ, Adrian estaba muy ocupado, pero siempre tenรญa tiempo para Rebecca. Frecuentaba la Iglesia Redenciรณn en busca de un amuleto de bendiciรณn para ella. A pesar de su apretada agenda, siempre pasaba las vacaciones con ella. De repente, su celular rompiรณ el silencio. Cuando Leah saliรณ del comedor, Joelle agarrรณ el dispositivo y vio que era una llamada de su mejor amiga, Katherine Nash. "Katherine, quiero el divorcio", confesรณ con voz ronca. Capรญtulo 2 En declive Joelle habรญa tomado una decisiรณn: querรญa el divorcio. No tenรญa sentido seguir alargรกndolo. Tras un silencio atรณnito, Katherine soltรณ una estridente carcajada. "ยฟTe quedarรกs con la mitad de los bienes de Adrian? ยกOh, por Dios! ยกJoelle, te convertirรกs en una multimillonaria!". "No, no serรก asรญ". Joelle habรญa firmado un acuerdo cuando se casรณ con Adrian. Si se divorciaban, ella no recibirรญa nada. "Entonces, ยฟpor quรฉ te estรกs divorciando? ยกTienes que seguir siendo su esposa!". Joelle recordรณ la brutalidad de Adrian la noche anterior, asรญ como la humillaciรณn posterior. Habรญa sido muy ingenua al creer que su amor por รฉl la ayudarรญa a soportar cualquier dificultad. Pero ahora sabรญa que habรญa sido una completa tonta. ยฟEl sufrimiento hacรญa que Adrian la amara mรกs? Claro que no. Para empezar, un hombre que realmente la amara nunca le harรญa sufrir. Joelle se rio de sรญ misma y cambiรณ de tema: "Por cierto, ยฟrecuerdas el favor que te pedรญ?". "Sรญ, justo te iba a contar eso. Me pediste que estuviera atenta a un trabajo, y tengo algo para ti. Vas a enseรฑar a un estudiante a tocar el violรญn, aunque debo decir que serรก un desperdicio de tu talento". "Estรก bien", respondiรณ Joelle con una leve sonrisa. "No serรก un desperdicio en absoluto. Llevo tres aรฑos siendo ama de casa. Es suficiente con que alguien quiera contratarme". "ยฟCรณmo que no serรก un desperdicio? Casi formaste parte de una orquesta internacional. Si no fuera por el matrimonioโฆ". Katherine se quedรณ en silencio, demasiado indignada por su amiga. Despuรฉs de su boda, a Joelle ni siquiera le permitieron trabajar. Las familias adineradas se aferraban a esas reglas obsoletas. Era bastante ridรญculo. Hacรญa tres aรฑos, la carrera de Joelle como violinista despegaba. Pero las estrictas tradiciones de la familia Miller le prohibรญan tocar en pรบblico. El primer dรญa de su matrimonio, la madre de Adrian le dijo: "No tienes que trabajar. Adrian te proveerรก en todo lo que necesites. Tu รบnico trabajo es tener bebรฉs y cuidar a tu esposo". Una vez que terminรณ su llamada con Katherine, Joelle subiรณ las escaleras y fue al estudio para agarrar su violรญn abandonado. Habรญa sido un regalo especial de su padre en su decimoctavo cumpleaรฑos. No obstante, poco despuรฉs de recibirlo, este sufriรณ un derrame cerebral y cayรณ en coma. Su hermano mayor terminรณ asumiendo la responsabilidad de sustentar a la familia, asรญ que la dejรณ perseguir su sueรฑo de tocar el violรญn. Mientras recordaba el pasado, Joelle moviรณ el arco sobre las cuerdas. Aรฑos atrรกs, un accidente le habรญa lesionado la muรฑeca y desde entonces no habรญa vuelto a tocar. A pesar del dolor agudo que sentรญa en esa zona mientras tocaba, no se detuvo y confiรณ en su memoria muscular para tocar una pieza corta. Al final, soltรณ una risa amarga. Sonaba horrible. De repente, escuchรณ la alegre voz de Leah en la puerta. "ยกSeรฑor, ha regresado!". Estaba secretamente aliviada de ver a Adrian, ya que eso tal vez significaba que todavรญa se preocupaba por Joelle. Quizรกs si ella le decรญa algo amable, su relaciรณn podrรญa mejorar. Por su parte, Joelle estaba sorprendida. Adrian rara vez venรญa a casa durante el dรญa. Apenas habรญa dejado el violรญn cuando se abriรณ la puerta. Ahรญ estaba la alta e imponente figura de su esposo. Sus ojos la recorrieron con el ceรฑo fruncido. Recordaba que Joelle habรญa aprendido a tocar el violรญn cuando era niรฑa y que un reconocido profesor la habรญa elogiado por su talento. Sin embargo, por alguna razรณn, habรญa dejado de tocar. Hacรญa un momento, la habรญa escuchado desde afuera y le pareciรณ una interpretaciรณn mediocre. ยฟCรณmo era posible que la elogiara por su talento? Joelle lo mirรณ y bajรณ la cabeza para volver a guardar el violรญn en su estuche. "ยฟQuรฉ te trae por aquรญ?", murmurรณ. "ยฟNecesitas algo?". "Vine a recoger algo y recordarte que maรฑana tenemos que visitar a la abuela", respondiรณ รฉl frรญamente. Era una regla familia visitar a su abuela al menos una vez al mes, y maรฑana era el dรญa. De no ser por esa obligaciรณn, Adrian no habrรญa regresado. Irene se enfadarรญa si no iban juntos. Joelle sonriรณ con amargura. Recordaba las normas de los Miller mejor que Adrian y siempre las cumplรญa. Ni siquiera Irene, tan estricta como siempre, podรญa encontrarle defectos. "No lo he olvidado, me alegra que tรบ tampoco lo hayas hecho", respondiรณ. Su tono acusatorio hizo que Adrian pusiera una mueca. Una ira latente empezรณ a hervir dentro de รฉl. Sin decir nada mรกs, se dirigiรณ al vestidor para buscar algo. Aunque รฉl no solรญa estar en casa, Joelle aseaba meticulosamente su guardarropa, por lo que tenรญa la ropa lavada, planchada y ordenada. Era como si su papel se redujera a realizar las tareas del hogar, algo que Leah tambiรฉn podรญa hacer. Su รบnica ventaja, tal vez, era ser mรกs joven y mรกs guapa que Leah. Sus ojos siguieron los movimientos de Adrian. Tenรญa el dedo anular desnudo, sin el anillo de bodas. Una punzada de dolor le atravesรณ el corazรณn. "Adrian, hay que divorciarnos", declarรณ con una voz tan suave como la brisa. Habรญa agotado todas sus fuerzas al pronunciar esas palabras, pero se sintiรณ extraรฑamente aliviada. Adrian se dio la vuelta y la mirรณ con una sonrisa burlona. "Tienes que pensar muy bien antes de hablar. La familia Watson estรก en declive. Sin mi apoyo, ยฟvas a dormir en la calle con tu hermano?". Desde la caรญda de la familia Watson, Joelle pasรณ de ser amada a quedar en ridรญculo. La familia Miller la despreciaba y la miraba por encima del hombro, como si ella y su hermano fueran sanguijuelas de las que no podรญan librarse. Incluso sus momentos รญntimos con Adrian la hacรญan sentir degradada. Joelle se mordiรณ el labio y se enderezรณ. "Ya he alquilado un apartamento. Incluso si terminara durmiendo en la calle, es asunto mรญo". Solo querรญa que su esposo la respetara, pero tres aรฑos de cautiverio la habรญan dejado sin orgullo ni dignidad. "ยฟY de dรณnde sacaste el dinero para alquilar un apartamento? Si tanto querรญas ser independiente, no deberรญas haber gastado ni un solo centavo de mi familia". De espaldas a ella, Adrian encontrรณ entre unos muebles el anillo de bodas perdido y lo sostuvo en la palma de su mano. Joelle no se dio cuenta. Las palabras de ese hombre la dejaron sin aliento. Sรญ, habรญa utilizado sus escasos ahorros para alquilar el apartamento. Pero como estaba casada con Adrian, ยฟlo que era suyo no era tambiรฉn de รฉl? Ademรกs, el apoyo financiero que Adrian les habรญa dado a los Watson durante todos esos aรฑos ascendรญa a una suma significativa. Joelle siempre habรญa despreciado la idea de deberle algo, pero su deuda con รฉl era infinita. Si se divorciaban, tal vez dejarรญa de darle apoyo financiero a la familia Watson. ยฟEstaba sugiriendo que ella debรญa salir del matrimonio con las manos vacรญas? Cuando Adrian se dio la vuelta para irse, Joelle dijo con una dignidad apenas intacta: "Tengo derecho legรญtimo a este matrimonio y a reclamar lo que supuestamente es mรญo. Pero no te preocupes, no pedirรฉ mucho, solo lo suficiente para ayudar al Grupo Watson a superar esta crisis". Adrian se quedรณ paralizado y su mirada se agudizรณ. Sus labios formaron una fina lรญnea mientras apretaba la mandรญbula. Eran claras seรฑales de su creciente furia. Aunque Joelle ya se habรญa preparado mentalmente, no podรญa soportar su intensidad. Cada segundo bajo su mirada severa la ponรญa mรกs ansiosa. De repente, sonรณ el celular de Adrian, quien lo sacรณ de su bolsillo y estuvo a punto de alejarse. "ยกAdrian!". Capรญtulo 3 Siempre mantendrรฉ la cabeza en alto La frustraciรณn de Adrian crepitaba como estรกtica. "Si tu hermano necesita dinero, dile que vaya al Grupo Miller". "ยกNo se trata de eso!", replicรณ Joelle. La habรญa malinterpretado por completo. Con el corazรณn latiendo con urgencia, corriรณ tras รฉl. "ยกAdrian, quiero el divorcio!". Adrian dejรณ de subir las escaleras y girรณ la cabeza. El celular en su mano habรญa dejado de sonar. Con un metro noventa de altura, se alzaba sobre ella. "Joelle, ยฟno se te ocurre un mejor juego que este interminable tira y afloja?", preguntรณ burlonamente con una mirada gรฉlida. "Si de verdad quieres divorciarte, ยฟpor quรฉ no se lo dices tรบ misma a la abuela? ยกNo quiero volver a escucharte pronunciar esa palabra!". La puerta se cerrรณ de golpe detrรกs de รฉl, haciendo eco a su irrevocable decisiรณn. Joelle se apoyรณ contra la pared y sus piernas cedieron hasta que se deslizรณ al suelo. Una risa amarga emergiรณ de sus labios. Irene habรญa organizado su matrimonio. Adrian se habรญa visto obligado a aceptar, y Joelle lo sabรญa muy bien. Si de verdad querรญa el divorcio, lo mรกs efectivo serรญa hablar con Irene. Sin embargo, una pequeรฑa y estรบpida parte de ella se habรญa aferrado a la esperanza de que ella y Adrian eran una verdadera pareja. Por eso se lo habรญa mencionado primero a รฉl, porque lo veรญa como su esposo. Sin embargo, olvidรณ un detalle crucial: Adrian nunca habรญa querido casarse con ella. Su reticencia habรญa sido evidente desde el principio, aunque ella habรญa intentado pasarla por alto. Sus รบltimas palabras no solo fueron despectivas, sino una orden. Si de verdad querรญa el divorcio, deberรญa enfrentarse a Irene. Joelle se dio una ducha, se puso ropa limpia y se preparรณ para visitar a la anciana. Irene era estricta, autoritaria y temida por toda la familia. Gobernaba con puรฑo de hierro y no toleraba la desobediencia. Pero Joelle tenรญa un vรญnculo muy especial con ella. En parte, habรญa aceptado casarse con Adrian para cumplir las expectativas de Irene. Querรญa cuidar de Adrian, construir un hogar y asegurarse de que la anciana falleciera sin remordimientos. Pero ahora ya no aguantaba mรกs. Ver a Adrian tan preocupado por otra mujer le llenaba de una amargura que parecรญa consumirla. Era consciente de que รฉl no la amaba. ยกNunca lo hizo y nunca lo harรญa! Estaba a punto de irse cuando sonรณ su celular. Era su hermano, Shawn Watson. "ยฟShawn? ยฟQuรฉ ocurre?". "ยกSeรฑora Miller!". Era el asistente de Shawn. Su voz sonaba muy asustada, algo que Joelle nunca habรญa escuchado. Se le helรณ la s**gre y agarrรณ el celular con mรกs fuerza mientras permanecรญa en la escalera. "ยฟDรณnde estรก mi hermano? ยฟQuรฉ le pasรณ?". "Anoche el seรฑor Watson asistiรณ a una reuniรณn de negocios, donde lo presionaron para que b*iera. Supuestamente volverรญa a casa, pero Erick Lloyd insistiรณ en llevarlo a unas aguas termales". Joelle se quedรณ congelada y la furia recorriรณ sus venas. "ยฟErick no sabรญa que eso podrรญa matarlo?". "ยกErick es un s**vergรผenza! Se jacta de su poder desde que su padre y su hermano se volvieron chรณferes de la familia Miller. ยกSeรฑora Miller, tiene que venir rรกpido! El seรฑor Watson estรก siendo operado y los mรฉdicos han emitido dos avisos de condiciรณn crรญtica. ยกNo pude aguantar mรกs, asรญ que la llamรฉ!". El asistente parecรญa estar al borde de las lรกgrimas. Joelle sabรญa que รฉl no se habrรญa puesto en contacto con ella a menos que la situaciรณn fuera bastante desesperada. Shawn siempre la habรญa protegido de las malas noticias, sin importar lo sombrรญas que fueran las circunstancias. Si su asistente estaba tan conmocionado, la vida de su hermano debรญa estar en peligro. Joelle sintiรณ como si el mundo se cerrara a su alrededor y un nudo se formรณ en su garganta. Al bajar del รบltimo escalรณn, tropezรณ y se cayรณ con fuerza, torciรฉndose bruscamente el tobillo. El dolor abrasador la devolviรณ a la realidad y las lรกgrimas brotaron de sus ojos. "ยกOh, no, seรฑora Miller, tenga mรกs cuidado cuando camina!". Leah corriรณ a ayudarla a levantarse. Joelle agarrรณ el brazo de Leah con la visiรณn borrosa a causa de las lรกgrimas. Intentรณ hablar, pero las palabras le salรญan entrecortadas porque estaba sollozando. "Mi hermano... ยกTengo que ir al hospital para verlo!". Leah sintiรณ su urgencia y respondiรณ sin dudar: "De acuerdo, no se preocupe. ยกLe pedirรฉ al conductor que la lleve de inmediato!". Leah era una criada experimentada y confiable que llevaba aรฑos al servicio de la familia Miller. Cinco minutos despuรฉs, el auto ya estaba aparcado delante de la villa. Joelle estaba a punto de subir cuando se volviรณ hacia Leah. "Por favor, no se lo cuentes a Irene. No quiero preocuparla". El corazรณn de la criada se ablandรณ. Incluso con el rostro pรกlido y surcado de lรกgrimas, Joelle se preocupaba por la salud de Irene. ยกQuรฉ muchacha tan rara y extraordinaria! "No se preocupe, seรฑora Miller. Yo sรฉ quรฉ hacer. Vaya a ver a su hermano". Cuando Joelle llegรณ al hospital, Shawn acababa de salir del quirรณfano. Al ver a su jefe conectado a tubos y cables, el asistente casi se desplomรณ. Joelle se acercรณ y lo encontrรณ arrodillado contra la pared, con los ojos hundidos e inyectados en s**gre. Tuvo que contener el impulso de regaรฑarlo por no haber protegido mejor a su hermano. Mรกs tarde habrรญa tiempo para eso. Cuando la condiciรณn de Shawn fue mรกs estable, Joelle llevรณ al asistente a un lado. "Cuรฉntamelo todo. ยฟCรณmo ocurriรณ esto?". El asistente vacilรณ, con el rostro desencajado. "Seรฑora Miller, el seรฑor Watson nos ordenรณ especรญficamente que no la involucremos en los asuntos comerciales". "Pero esto es una cuestiรณn de vida o muerte. ยฟPiensas que todavรญa es una opciรณn no decirme nada?". Ya sin paciencia, Joelle se dio la vuelta para alejarse. "Seรฑora Miller, eso no sirve de nada", respondiรณ el asistente desesperadamente. "Usted sabe que desde la muerte de su padre, el Grupo Watson ha dependido por completo de su hermano. Ha estado luchando para defender la dignidad de la familia, porque quiere que su vida con los Miller sea mรกs llevadera". Durante esos aรฑos, Shawn habรญa luchado valientemente para mantener a la familia a flote. No obstante, sin el apoyo financiero de Adrian, sus esfuerzos se habrรญan desvanecido hacรญa mucho tiempo. Su deseo mรกs profundo era que su hermana viviera cรณmodamente, pero a pesar de sus incansables esfuerzos, nunca pudo hacerle ganar el respeto que merecรญa por parte de su esposo. No importaba lo mucho que se sacrificara, ella seguirรญa siendo infravalorada en la familia Miller. Joelle estaba hirviendo de rabia, pero sabรญa que no podรญa cambiar su realidad. Entonces, inspirรณ profundamente y preguntรณ: "ยฟNo mencionaron mi relaciรณn con Adrian?" Esperaba que alinearse con los Miller pudiera ayudar a Shawn a mantenerse firme en sus actividades sociales. "El seรฑor Watson se niega a tocar ese tema, pues teme que eso le haga las cosas mรกs difรญciles a usted". Joelle soltรณ una risa amarga. Jamรกs habรญa estado en igualdad de condiciones con Adrian. No le extraรฑaba que la despreciara, ya que apenas podรญa soportarse a sรญ misma. Solo hacรญa una hora que le habรญa pedido el divorcio. Y ahora se aferraba al nombre de su esposo, desesperada por facilitarle la vida a su hermano. "Dile a Shawn que soy la esposa de Adrian Miller, Irene me eligiรณ personalmente. ยกMientras sea la seรฑora Miller, mantendrรฉ la cabeza en alto dentro de la familia!". De repente, escucharon unos pasos detrรกs de ella. Joelle se dio la vuelta y vio a Adrian, que tenรญa una sonrisa frรญa en su rostro. A su lado, se encontraba una muchacha de aspecto frรกgil, con grandes ojos inocentes, aferrada a รฉl. Adrian la miraba desdeรฑosamente, como si incluso le costara reconocer su presencia. Ya se habรญa dado cuenta de que ella realmente no querรญa el divorcio. La mujer que habรญa parecido tan decidida a irse, ahora estaba haciendo alarde de su tรญtulo como la seรฑora Miller. Su amenaza de divorcio no habรญa sido mรกs que una estrategia, como una pelea de amantes que terminaba en amenazas vacรญas. Era tan astuta que lo habรญa d**gado para obligarlo a casarse. Con tรกcticas tan engaรฑosas, ยฟcรณmo podrรญa irse tan fรกcilmente? Su matrimonio eran un salvavidas para las dificultades de su familia. Adrian le daba cien millones cada aรฑo al Grupo Watson. Joelle serรญa una tonta si se arriesgaba a perderlo divorciรกndose de รฉl. Capรญtulo 4 Por fin se dio cuenta Hacรญa mucho que Joelle se habรญa vuelto insensible ante la indiferencia de Adrian. Observรณ sin decir nada los brazos entrelazados de la pareja y recordรณ los dulces momentos capturados en los videos de Rebecca, que provocaban la envidia de mucha gente. ยกQuรฉ pareja tan perfecta! Ese pensamiento la golpeรณ. "ยกJoelle, por favor, no nos malinterpretes!", dijo Rebecca con urgencia mientras retiraba su mano del brazo de Adrian. "No me siento bien y no puedo caminar, asรญ que Adie simplemente tuvo la amabilidad de sostenerme". Joelle esbozรณ una leve sonrisa. "ยฟQuรฉ te trae al hospital?", preguntรณ mirando a Adrian, como si no hubiera escuchado la explicaciรณn de Rebecca. "Es por Erick", dijo Rebecca, con las manos entrelazadas como una niรฑa arrepentida. "Tambiรฉn vine a pedirte perdรณn, Joelle. Lamento que Erick haya sido tan descuidado para provocar que tu hermano terminara en el hospital". "ยฟDescuidado?", replicรณ ella. "Tu hermano casi m*ta al mรญo, ยฟy crees que una disculpa bastarรก para arreglarlo?". Rebecca se estremeciรณ y agarrรณ la manga de Adrian en busca de apoyo. "Ya es suficiente, Joelle", respondiรณ รฉl con una voz tan gรฉlida como el invierno. "No fue a propรณsito". Luego, se volviรณ hacia Rebecca y agregรณ suavemente: "Vamos, ยฟno viniste para ver a Erick?". Fue entonces cuando Joelle lo entendiรณ todo. Habรญa esperado ingenuamente que Adrian viniera para ver a Shawn. Pero no, habรญa venido con Rebecca para ver a Erick. Incluso si visitara a Shawn, serรญa por obligaciรณn, nada mรกs. Pero sabรญa que no debรญa esperar que รฉl la defendiera. "ยกRebecca, no olvidarรฉ lo que hizo Erick!", espetรณ. Rebecca doblรณ las piernas y se desplomรณ sobre el pecho de Adrian, quien la atrapรณ justo a tiempo y la abrazรณ con fuerza. "Joelle, Erick no tenรญa malas intenciones. ยกTambiรฉn estรก en el hospital!". "ยฟYa estรก muerto? ยกSi no, tendrรก que pagar por lo que hizo!". Joelle no solรญa arremeter, pero esta vez era diferente. Shawn era la รบnica familia que le quedaba. Su padre, incapacitado por un derrame cerebral, se encontraba en estado vegetativo con poca o ninguna esperanza de recuperaciรณn, y su madre habรญa fallecido en un accidente de trรกfico. Desde los dieciocho aรฑos, habรญan sido solo ella y Shawn, enfrentรกndose juntos a las dificultades del mundo. En sus momentos mรกs oscuros, Shawn llevรณ sola la carga para dejar que Joelle persiguiera su pasiรณn por el violรญn. Ahora la idea de perderlo tambiรฉn a รฉl era insoportable. Su รบnico deseo era que Erick muriera. "Joelle, ยฟcรณmo puedes decir eso?", sollozรณ Rebecca con incredulidad. Ya sin paciencia, Adrian fijรณ su frรญa mirada en Joelle. "ยฟQuรฉ deseas?". "Shawn recibiรณ dos avisos de condiciรณn crรญtica. ยฟQuรฉ hay de Erick?". Rebecca jadeรณ, su frรกgil cuerpo estaba temblando como una hoja en el viento. "ยกJoelle, por favor! Solo me queda un hermano. ยกPor favor, ten compasiรณn!". Se desmayรณ antes de que la otra mujer pudiera responder. Adrian la levantรณ en sus brazos y le dio una รบltima mirada de reproche a Joelle. Luego, se alejรณ y la dejรณ clavada en el mismo lugar, incapaz de moverse o incluso de pensar, lo que pareciรณ una eternidad. Antes de su matrimonio, habรญa sido una chica adinerada, pero luego se convirtiรณ en la sirvienta de Adrian. Ahora se daba cuenta de lo ingenua que habรญa sido. Ella solรญa ser una persona muy orgullosa, pero ahora soporta todo tipo de agravios sรณlo para complacer a su marido. ยกQuรฉ patรฉtico! Han pasado tres aรฑos, es hora de divorciarnos y comenzar una nueva vida... ...... ยฟQuรฉ sucederรก en adelante? Los capรญtulos disponibles son limitados aquรญ, haga click el botรณn abajo para instalar APP y disfrutar leyendo mรกs contenidos maravillosos. (Al abrir el APP, directo accederรก a este libro) &9& | LEARN_MORE | https://fbweb.manobook.com/14484375-fb_contact-spa | Romance Novel | https://www.facebook.com/100083771162998/ | 48,393 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Learn more | 0 | fbweb.manobook.com | VIDEO | https://fbweb.manobook.com/14484375-fb_contact-spa220_2-1023-core2.html?adid={{ad.id}}&char=331118&accid=1164004058227180&rawadid=120214427893840186 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/468060708_2240040479707659_4255570947935614229_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=h_VcojSpmj4Q7kNvgHbMFNv&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&_nc_gid=AAWJiKVm5HaRXtCiXnN53cV&oh=00_AYAM9-vYkWjEXSgE_lvMPRR9ukqe972dr94lre_JgRQeKQ&oe=67615E15 | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Romance Novel | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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New 2024 Volvo S90 Recharge Plug-In Hybrid Ultimate | $73,225 | VIN:LVYH60AF3RP421258 | LEARN_MORE | https://www.sheehyvolvocarshuntvalley.com/inventor | Sheehy Volvo Cars Hunt Valley | https://www.facebook.com/61569367173683/ | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Learn more | 0 | sheehyvolvocarshuntvalley.com | CAROUSEL | VIN:LVYH60AF3RP421258 | https://www.sheehyvolvocarshuntvalley.com/inventory/new-2024-volvo-s90-recharge-plug-in-hybrid-ultimate-e_awd-sedan-lvyh60af3rp421258?alstad_source=car&alstad_vin=LVYH60AF3RP421258&alstad_year=2024&alstad_make=Volvo&alstad_model=S90+Recharge+Plug-In+Hybrid&alstad_condition=new&alst_action=car&alst_action_value=LVYH60AF3RP421258 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/470174863_3096103217204584_7383636722447157246_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=9dZUTmX4tKEQ7kNvgGGbe5G&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&_nc_gid=AyDL5WEApKeGsXSh91Kw318&oh=00_AYAHDBjtUpqqYxHkegNXLCWpM3H10-4WKvlRIQ3nZLjL-g&oe=676167F2 | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Sheehy Volvo Cars Hunt Valley | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Read next chapter | Emerging from the confines of marriage, she blossomed from a mundane housewife to a renowned painter with a legion of admirers. When her ex-husband sought reconciliation at her doorstep, he witnessed her in the arms of a prominent man. "Meet your new sister-in-law!" ===== In the dimly lit, opulent private cinema, the most exclusive jewelry auction was being broadcast live. "One million, going once, going twice--" The rich cadence of the auctioneer's voice echoed through the room, the man tightened his grip around Alicia Bennett's waist... With the intensity between them only grew fiercer as time passed... The auctioneer's gavel fell. "Sold for ten million! Let's give a round of applause to Mr. Joshua Yates!" The name struck Alicia like a lightning bolt. Her body instantly went rigid, something that the man couldn't help but notice, flicked lazily toward the screen. The camera zoomed in on Joshua Yates's face, every detail of his familiar features displayed in perfect clarity. "Joshua Yates, the second son of the Yates family... an acquaintance perhaps?" he drawled, the corners of his mouth tugging into a sly smile. Alicia's frown deepened. The last thing she wanted was to discuss it, she didn't respond. The man, upon seeing the situation, chuckled lightly before his movements grew even more relentless... ...... When it was over, Alicia took advantage of the man's time in the shower and quietly made her escape. When Caden Ward finally emerged from the bathroom, not catching sight of the woman's figure, he curled his lips slightly. Moments later, his assistant, Hank Ford, burst into the room, clearly on edge, "Er, apologies, Mr. Ward. I let my guard down. Give me a moment, and I'll have her brought back immediately." They had just returned to the country, taking every precaution. And yet, a woman had managed to slip through the cracks of their security. Caden's features calm, almost indifferent. "No need. I was... a willing participant." Hank's eyes widened in shock. In all the time he'd known Caden, the man had never slept with a woman,even physical contact. There were even rumors that Caden might suffer from some secret ailment. Yet now, those whispers seemed to evaporate in the face of this unexpected turn of events. Before Hank could make sense of it, Caden's deep voice pulled him back to reality. "I want you to look into Joshua's personal life. Have the report on my desk in half an hour." Tonight, Alicia had stumbled into his room, feverish and desperate. It was obvious she'd been framed. And then came the revelation--Alicia was still a pureness. Two years of marriage to Joshua... Yet she was still untouched? Caden's lips curled into a satisfied smile. But as he reflected, one thing became abundantly clear--Alicia had no idea who she'd been with due to the d*ug's effects. ... By the time Alicia returned home, the first light of dawn filtered through the windows. Only then did she realize how long she had been out. But before she could dwell any further, her phone rang. It was her bestie, Monica Flynn, calling. "Alicia!" Monica practically screeched from the other end of the line, her voice high-pitched with worry. "How are you now?" Alicia exhaled deeply, kicking off her shoes carelessly. "I've been better," she murmured. Monica's anger bubbled over, her words sharp and unrelenting. "Joshua's beyond disgusting! If he doesn't want to stay married, he should just grow a spine and divorce you already! What kind of sick man would scheme against his own wife?" The sharp pain of betrayal shot through Alicia's chest. Yesterday was their second anniversary. Joshua had texted her, suggesting they celebrate. Daring to hope he had changed, she had dressed up to the nine's, only to be met with disappointment and a d*ug-laced drink that sent her spiraling into a night of confusion and chaos. Was Joshua really the mastermind behind this? Swallowing the bitterness that tried clawing its way to the surface, Alicia forced herself to climb the stairs, her movements slow and weary. "It's fine, Monica. I'll handle it." Monica, ever protective, wasn't convinced. "'Handle it'? What do you mean you'll handle it? Just say the word, and I'll be over in a heartbeat." Alicia couldn't help the small, tired smile that tugged at her lips, hanging up the phone. But her heart still felt heavy, just as she lost focus, the door to her bedroom creaked open. She lifted her gaze, and almost instantly, her stomach dropped. There, fresh from a shower, a towel wrapped loosely around his waist, stood Joshua. He stared down at her. Chapter 2 Divorce Alicia snapped out of her daze as soon as she met the icy gaze of Joshua, her so-called husband. His expression remained unchanged, cold and indifferent as ever, as though he was looking at a stranger. The only thing out of place was the scars on his lips. A wave of disgust washed over her, she pushed him away and was about to enter. Joshua frowned, his hand shooting out to grab her wrist. "Alicia, what's with the attitude?" He seemed quite unhappy with her this time, which was a rare thing, considering how little he bothered to come home. Normally, Alicia would have welcomed him back with open arms, a flicker of joy lighting up her tired features, but today she looked drained, almost hollow. She didn't resist his grip, meeting his gaze with a calmness that unnerved him. "Haven't I always been like this? Obedient, sensible, making sure the house is in order, ensuring you're comfortable, ready to give your best at work." A small, bitter smile tugged at her lips. "Isn't that what you like most about me? It makes things easier for you, doesn't it? Frees up time for your other... 'special someone'." Joshua's eyes darkened at the veiled accusation. Denial hovered on his lips, but he didn't bother. Why should he? He dropped her hand and said gruffly, "Actually, that's why I'm here. We need to talk." Alicia vigorously rubbed her wrist, as though she was trying to erase his touch. "So, are you planning to finally go public with her?" Joshua's expression twisted instantly, his calm facade cracking. "What do you know? Did you have me stalked by a private investigator or something?" Alicia let out a soft, humorless laugh. "Is that necessary? Last night, you spared no expense to make her happy. Even a blind person could tell you're mad about her." He stared at her, unsettled by her icy tone. It was still her voice, still Alicia, but there was something different about her... For some reason, he felt inexplicably hurt, like a thorn pricking his heart. Perhaps it was the way she looked at him now--her eyes, once warm and filled with love for him, were now completely empty. There was no anger, no pain, just... nothing. It was a stark contrast to the woman who used to look at him as if he were her entire world. For reasons he couldn't explain, the sight of her like this stirred something in him, an unfamiliar dissatisfaction. Annoyed by his own reaction, Joshua decided to hit back, his voice harder now. "She's pregnant. It's a delicate pregnancy, so I bought her a little something to lift her spirits." Alicia's fists clenched before she could stop them. P**gnant? So, the nights she had stayed up waiting for him to come home, he'd been with another woman, working diligently to start a new family? Seeing Alicia wince a little, Joshua felt a flicker of satisfaction. "It's not that I don't want to touch you," he said, voice dripping with condescension. "You're just about as thrilling as watching paint dry. No man would want that." His cruel words pierced through Alicia, yet she managed to remain composed on the surface. It wasn't that she avoided intimacy; she just wasn't the one to initiate it. Did that make her so undesirable? Was it a sin? Taking a slow, steady breath, Alicia willed herself to stay calm. "Fine," she replied quietly. "Let's get a divorce then. You can give her the title she wants." The word "divorce" made Joshua's eyelid twitch involuntarily. He scoffed, eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Is this another one of your games?" Convinced he was right, his voice grew colder, more biting. "Alicia, for two years, you've pulled every childish stunt, begging for my attention. Aren't you tired yet? Because I sure as hell am." He paused, letting his disdain sink in. "You claim to love me so much. Could you really walk away from me?" Alicia couldn't help the bitter laugh that escaped her. Love him? Did he even understand what that meant? When Joshua's business had crumbled, leaving him with nothing but debt and shattered dreams, it had been Alicia who emptied her savings to pull him from the wreckage. Out of gratitude--or maybe obligation--he had married her. For two long years, she had been the dutiful wife, supporting him as he clawed his way to success. And what had Alicia gotten in return? She had been cast aside like a useless relic, while another woman carried his child. Her love, her loyalty, had been ground into the dirt beneath his feet. To care for this man any longer would be masochism. Her voice steady, Alicia said, "Draft the divorce agreement. I'll agree to whatever terms you want." And with that, she turned and disappeared through the door, leaving Joshua standing alone in the hallway. For a moment, he stared after her angrily, but then a cold, mocking smile tugged at his lips. Fine, she can play the martyr. He doubted she could keep it up for long. Storming out of the house, Joshua headed straight to the apartment where his lover, Lilliana Green, awaited him. "Well, that was fast," she teased upon hearing Joshua was getting a divorce, raising a brow. "Seems she wasn't as tough to deal with as you claimed." "She's cunning," Joshua muttered, the edge of suspicion creeping into his voice. "I don't know if she's actually agreeing to the divorce or just playing me." Lilliana's arms draping lazily around his neck, "Relax, Joshua, even if she changes her mind, it's too late." Joshua's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?" Chapter 3 Letting Go Lilliana's eyes flickered with shadowy intent. She wasn't foolish enough to show her cards now, so she waved it off with an effortless excuse. "During your two-year marriage, she has lived quietly in the shadows as a mere housewife, disconnected from your world. When you're assertive, would she dare to say a word?" Joshua pursed his lips into a hard line. During the past two years, Alicia had indeed done everything for him--given him support and solace. She had loved him fiercely, but at the end of it all, what value did love truly hold? Against all odds, he had clawed his way to the top, and he'd finally grasped the power he craved. That success, however, hadn't come easy, and it wasn't love that secured his position--it was alliances with the powerful. The prestige of the Green family daughter, that title alone, was worth far more than Alicia's devoted love. As these thoughts plagued his mind, Lilliana said happily, "Joshua, congratulations on escaping the grind. Shall we celebrate?" For a moment, Joshua's gaze flickered down to her, but Alicia's indifferent face suddenly flashed before his eyes. Since leaving the house earlier, Alicia hadn't once called him to ask for his whereabouts. Before, if he had been upset with her, she would've called him in a panic. A sharp, inexplicable irritation surged within him. Without thinking, he pushed Lilliana back, "You're only a few weeks' pregnant. Be careful." Lilliana, sharp as ever, sensed he was distracted. "Joshua, what's wrong?" she asked gently. "Don't you want to get divorced?" Joshua's response was instant. "Of course I want to divorce her." Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. "Then why don't you seem very happy?" Joshua offered a quick excuse, his voice steady but distant. "My father's condition has worsened. He doesn't have much time left, and Caden returned last night. He's likely here to claim his inheritance. I need to figure out how to handle him." Lilliana blinked, momentarily thrown. "Caden? Your brother from your father's first marriage? He doesn't even carry the Yates name anymore. What right does he have to fight you for the inheritance?" Joshua's expression darkened. It was true--but at the end of the day, he was still the son of a home-wrecker. All these years of relentless effort had not only been to carve out a name for himself in the Yates family, but to push Caden into the shadows where he belonged. One way or another, Joshua was hell-bent on winning. Meanwhile, Alicia stirred from her sleep. Darkness had already fallen, yet she felt even more drained than before. It was because her dreams revolved around that stranger. when her phone buzzed with a call from Monica did she snap out of her daze. "Alicia, I got your bl**d test results. I passed them to a friend of mine with some serious connections. He's digging around to see who bought the stuff." Alicia sat up a little straighter, her mind sharpening. "Thanks, Monica. Appreciate it." "If you really want to thank me, do me a favor: stop obsessing over that j**k. And after the divorce, focus on your career. You owe me that much." Alicia's chest warmed, her head lowering in quiet gratitude. "I know, I know." Now that she thought about it, she had come to the realization that her feelings for Joshua had never been pure love--they were born out of a debt, a sense of obligation. Her family's expectations had always weighed heavily on her, and in that lonely, stifled childhood, it was Joshua who had been there. His companionship had nurtured a vague affection she'd confused for love. "Lucky for me, love's never been something I've held onto tightly," Alicia murmured. "These last two years... I'll just see it as repaying his kindness." Monica paused, her usual boldness tempered with thoughtfulness. She knew better than anyone how, once upon a time, Joshua had indeed loved Alicia. But, it turned out love could be a fleeting thing. "Alicia, I really hope you've let go for good," Monica said with a convicted sigh. A sharp pang hit Alicia's chest, her eyes stinging as she fought back the urge to cry. Quickly, she pressed her hand to her eyelids, refusing to let the tears fall. It was only then she noticed something startling. Stunned, she stared at her hand. The wedding ring--something she had once held onto so tightly--was gone. Gone for a whole day and night, and she hadn't even noticed. Suddenly, her heart felt lighter, the weight of everything she'd been carrying beginning to lift. She whispered, more to herself than anyone, "Yes, I've truly let go." ... It didn't take long for Joshua to notice. He had returned to grab something quickly when his eyes fell on her hand. His brow furrowed as he asked, without thinking, "Where's your wedding ring?" Chapter 4 Her Nemesis Alicia's only concern now was leaving Joshua, so she ignored his question and asked flatly, "Are the divorce papers ready yet?" That word again--"divorce". Irritation flickered across Joshua's eyes. "What's the rush?" he snapped, his voice cold and sharp. "My father's finalizing his will, and if word gets out about my divorce, it'll ruin my standing. Now, pack your things--we're having dinner at the Yates Mansion this afternoon." With Caden's return, the family was throwing a welcome-home dinner for him. They also hoped that by doing so, it'd lift the spirits of Jerald Yates, Joshua's father. However, maintaining the charade of a happy marriage was the last thing on Alicia's mind. "I'm not going," she announced curtly. "Just get the divorce finalized and stop wasting my time." Joshua laughed, a sound that held no warmth. "Oh, come on, Alicia. Stop pretending. You hid the ring because you don't actually want to leave me, right? You can't stand the thought of being without me." He leaned in, smirking, and added, "You've worked hard these past two years. Even if we divorce, I'll still take care of you--as long as you keep me happy." Alicia's eyes widened, disbelief turning into anger. Hid the ring? Couldn't bear to be without him? His arrogant words sounded like nails on a chalkboard to Alicia's ears. With a sharp sneer, she shot back, "Oh, Mr. Yates, how could I possibly make you happy? Don't worry, I'll return the ring--wouldn't want this plain Jane to irk you, right? Once you have it, we're finalizing the divorce immediately." But Joshua wasn't fazed by her venom. He thought he knew her too well, convinced this was just another ploy to get his attention. Without thinking too much, he tossed a bag at her. "We've got guests today. Dress appropriately, and don't make me look bad." Alicia looked down at the bag, her mind flashing back to the countless times she had visited the mansion dressed in modest, unassuming clothes-- doing everything to blend in, to please him and his family. But now, with their divorce looming on the horizon, Alicia no longer cared to play the part of a dutiful wife. After slipping into the outfit, she carefully applied a touch of makeup, just enough to bring out the vibrance in her already flawless complexion. The subtle enhancements accentuated her smooth skin and delicate features, lending her a certain glow. When Joshua saw her descending the staircase, he froze for a brief moment, eyes lingering. Perhaps it was the way the dress hugged Alicia's graceful curves, making her seem more alluring than usual. At the entrance of the Yates Mansion, they both slipped into their familiar roles, masking the tension between them with practiced ease. Alicia casually looped her arm through Joshua's, their movements synchronized as they walked into the courtyard. Though Jerald was too ill to receive anyone, the grand hall bustled with life, relatives filling the space with chatter. The noise hummed around her, but for some reason, as soon as Alicia crossed the threshold, a sharp chill pricked at her skin. She instinctively looked up, her gaze immediately drawn to the figure lounging casually at the far end of the room. Legs crossed, dark shirt unbuttoned just enough to reveal a sliver of his collarbone, the man oozed arrogance, his presence commanding. When Alicia's eyes finally met his-- a familiar, authoritative stare that pinned her in place-- her mind raced as emotions began to surge uncontrollably. Joshua noticed the shift in her demeanor, his brows furrowing as he asked, "What's going on with you?" Alicia's breath caught in her throat. One word escaped her lips, barely audible. "Caden?" Just the mention of his name sent a chill down her spine. To her, Caden was the embodiment of her nightmares. Due to their families' friendship, their paths first crossed at the tender age of ten. Caden, having taken a year off, transferred to her school, and from that moment, Alicia's perfect world began to unravel. She could no longer claim the top spot. No matter how relentless her efforts, no matter how late she stayed up studying, Caden was always a step ahead. He would outscore her by the smallest of margins--a point, maybe two--leaving her perpetually stranded in second place. Anyone else might have accepted defeat, settled into the role of runner-up. But not Alicia. Born into the once prestigious Bennett family, she was raised under the suffocating weight of living up to her family name. Excellence wasn't just a goal--it was the currency by which she could earn her parents' affection. Failure was not an option, yet Caden had the audacity to snatch away everything she'd worked for with what seemed like effortless ease. It was as if he'd set his sights on her from the very beginning, and Alicia, stubborn to a fault, refused to back down. Their rivalry spanned over a decade, a relentless battle fought both openly and in the shadows, and their final showdown took place in college, just before their graduation, at the national competition. Alicia poured her heart and soul into that moment, her focus razor-sharp as she aimed for nothing less than perfection. And she achieved it, having garnered a perfect score. But Caden, ever the serpent, had bribed the judges, twisting the results in his favor. Alicia was forced, once again, into second place. The sting of injustice was deep, but the harshest blow came from her father, Phil Bennett. Over the phone, his voice dripped with disappointment in her ranking. Alicia, having grown accustomed to his tirades, said nothing. She waited for his anger to ebb, then asked quietly, "I'm graduating soon. Will you come back?" Her mother, Donna, had always been her softer solace. She comforted Alicia that day, promising they'd be there for her graduation. But life had other plans. Phil and Donna, rushing back from Itrubisite to attend the graduation, perished in a tragic plane crash. Overnight, Alicia's world crumbled, left an orphan in this cruel world. Since that day, she had never challenged Caden again. Afterward, Caden left Warrington to build his career overseas. ... "He's back for the inheritance," Joshua muttered, his voice barely audible. Alicia cast him a sidelong glance as he continued, "With a family empire as big as ours, an eldest son like him wouldn't give up so easily." Her brow furrowed slightly. It was true--the Yates empire was massive, a legacy most would kill for. But Caden had accumulated his own fortune, surpassing even the family's vast wealth. Did he really care about the inheritance? Then again, this was Caden. Competing was in his blood. Even if he didn't care about the fortune itself, he'd fight tooth and nail just to win, to toy with everyone else. The man had a knack for stirring chaos purely for his own amusement. Alicia had been his rival for as long as she could remember, and even now, the thought of giving him so much as a glance felt like a waste of energy. She turned to walk away. But Joshua caught her wrist, his grip firm yet tense. "I know you two don't get along," he said. "But he's still my elder brother. We need to maintain appearances." Her body stiffened at the touch, and she immediately tried to pull her hand free. Joshua's frown deepened. "Alicia, behave," he hissed. Irritation flared in her chest. "I'm not refusing to go in. Just let go of me first. I don't want your filthy hands touching me." A flicker of something dark passed over Joshua's face, and instead of releasing her, he intertwined their fingers, squeezing them tight. Alicia bit her tongue, silently fuming. As they neared, Caden's gaze slowly lifted, his eyes narrowing in a lazy, almost bored assessment of them. "Caden," Joshua greeted, his tone strained, meeting his brother's gaze with forced cordiality. Caden's eyes flicked to their entwined hands, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Your girlfriend?" he asked indifferently, as though he didn't recognize Alicia. Chapter 5 We Meet Again So Soon Alicia's nerves coiled tight like a spring. That voice... Her messy thoughts blurred into chaos, but one thing broke through the haze--Joshua's calm declaration. "Alicia and I have been married for two years now. She cares about me, so we kept it low-key. Just went straight for the registration; no ceremony. You were busy abroad at the time, so we didn't bother you." Caden arched a brow, his voice laced with venomous mockery. "Oh, so she's my sister-in-law." The way he spat the words "sister-in-law" felt more like a s*ap than a title, leaving no doubt about his contempt for her. Alicia could feel the man's sneer underneath every syllable. And all this was thanks to her so-called husband, Joshua. Her hand trembled as she snatched a tissue, vigorously wiping her hand. "Looks like Alicia's a bit of a germophobe," Caden observed, his tone a casual jab at her disgust. Joshua's expression darkened, the tension between them thickening. He hadn't expected her to humiliate him like this. "It seems I've spoiled her too much," he muttered, his voice low and tight with irritation. Caden's eyes gleamed with a dangerous glint. "If it's a serious condition, she should get treated. It could impact her role as a mother. You know how badly our father has wanted a grandchild." At this, something flickered across Joshua's eyes. Even though Alicia, his wife, was right beside him, he went ahead and lied through his teeth. "Thanks for the concern, Caden, but I already have good news for Dad. I just haven't gotten around to telling him yet." Caden's smirk deepened, his gaze flicking toward Alicia, who was about done with the bullshit of a charade. She quietly excused herself and strode off. "How far along is she?" he asked meaningfully. "Doesn't seem like she's pregnant." Joshua didn't miss a beat. "Just a month." The answer was as much a threat as it was an announcement. Now, the inheritance stakes had just been raised, and Jerald, ever focused on continuing the family line, would certainly take his unborn grandchild into consideration. Caden's smile hardened, and Joshua delivered the final blow with a smug undertone. "You'd better catch up, Caden. I can't always be one step ahead." Caden, unfazed, waved his hand lazily. "No rush." ... Alicia stepped onto the terrace, the cool night breeze washing over her skin. She drank in the fresh air hungrily to steady her nerves. Pulling out her phone, she quickly dialed the manager of the private cinema again. "Have you found the ring?" she asked anxiously. The manager hesitated, sounding troubled. "Ms. Bennett, we've searched thoroughly and questioned all the staff, but... we really couldn't find any ring." "Then..." Alicia clenched her fist, her mind racing. "Do you have the contact details of the guest who booked the room that day?" "I'm sorry, but due to our privacy policy, we can't disclose any information on our clients." Her heart sank. "I see," she sighed with resignation. "Please tell me immediately if anything turns up, okay?" In a perfect world, she could've just bought an identical ring and pass it off for the original. Unfortunately, Joshua had that ring custom-made, and it wasn't easy to replicate. After dinner, it started to rain. The relatives began to trickle out one by one. Joshua stood by her side as they made their way to the car, his eyes trailing down to her bare wrist. "If you liked that bracelet at the auction, then I can buy you something like it," he said coolly. Alicia had to resist the urge to roll her eyes sardonically. She didn't believe for a second that Joshua had a change of heart towards her. "Trying to buy my silence, huh?" Her words were sharp, slicing right through Joshua's tender facade. "No need. I have no desire to be tangled up in your affairs." Joshua hadn't intended to sound like that, but her mocking tone struck a nerve. His jaw clenched, and a bitter smile crossed his lips. "Fine. Don't take it. The money I spend on you is a waste anyway." Alicia bit the inside of her cheek before adding firmly, "Joshua, I already told you. I'm willing to leave this marriage empty-handed. Let's sign the divorce papers tomorrow morning and end this once and for all." His smile twisted into something dark, something dangerous. "What about the ring?" "I lost it." Joshua's eyes narrowed, his tone unrelenting. "I don't care about anything else. I want the ring." She could barely contain her frustration, her breath hitching as he delivered his final blow. "If you can't find it," he said coldly, "I'll assume you're holding onto it because you still care about me." Just then, Joshua's phone rang; it was Lilliana calling. "Joshua." She mewled his name pitifully. "The thunder is so loud. I'm scared to sleep alone... Can you come over?" The car wasn't heading anywhere near Lilliana's and Joshua was furious with Alicia, so without a second thought, he kicked her out into the rain and sped off. He didn't even leave her an umbrella. Alicia stood frozen by the roadside, the downpour quickly soaking through her clothes. The cold rain seeped into her bones, chilling her to the core. Gritting her chattering teeth, she swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth and began trudging along the drenched pavement. Behind her, the soft hum of an engine crept closer. A sleek, low-profile Maybach rolled up beside her, its headlights cutting through the rain. "Mr. Ward," the driver said, glancing back, "I believe that's Ms. Bennett." The car slowed to a stop. Caden glanced out the window, his sharp eyes narrowing on Alicia's lonesome figure. She had just paused, her fingers gathering the fabric of her soaked dress, tying it up to ease her stride. Caden's lips curled into a faint. "Invite her inside," he drawled. The car came to a halt next to Alicia. The driver stepped out, holding a large umbrella over her head, his voice polite. "Ms. Bennett, it's hard to find a cab at this hour. May I offer you a ride home?" Alicia's eyes flicked up, recognizing the man as the Yates family's driver. She hesitated for a moment before nodding, her voice soft but steady. "Thank you. Sorry for the inconvenience." However, as soon as she slipped into the backseat of the car, she locked eyes with its other passenger--Caden. "We meet again so soon, sister-in-law?" His voice, smooth as velvet, carried a hint of mischief. ...... What happens next? Available chapters here are limited, click the button below to install the App and enjoy more exciting chapters (Automatically jump to this novel when you open the app) &9& | LEARN_MORE | https://fbweb.moboreader.net/63310322-fb_contact-e | Love Story Now | https://www.facebook.com/100083950326074/ | 25,616 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Learn more | 0 | fbweb.moboreader.net | IMAGE | https://fbweb.moboreader.net/63310322-fb_contact-ena265_2-1025-core2.html?adid={{ad.id}}&char=295122&accid=3744269492476246&rawadid=120215701917600531 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/468719206_565088652823582_3279424343119841619_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=9Vz7rhcyCoIQ7kNvgHBuNFm&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&_nc_gid=A510IDqdayY0eVG-6ScBayw&oh=00_AYBJjfQBsxES8pAUIh3fTHOXEgavw4QbaTNMwBtTvDRwkA&oe=67616C4E | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Love Story Now | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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๐Attention! Do not read in public๏ผ๐ | Neah "Where is she?" I hear the Beta scream. I groan and rise to my feet, grabbing the cleaning basket before heading over. The moment Beta Kyle sees me, he strides towards me and his hand slices against my cheek. I don't make a sound. Years of experience has taught me to keep my mouth shut at all times. "Alpha Trey and I are expecting company and you still have not cleaned the office." Beta Kyle spits at me. I nod my head and my hand tightens on the cleaning basket. If only I could find the courage to swing it at his head, it would make my day. But I didn't need another week locked up with no food. My stomach already hurt enough. "We are trying to make a good impression on Alpha Dane. Don't you understand how important it is for us to join ourselves with his pack?!" I don't answer, It's a trap, a ploy to provoke me into saying something that would justify punishment. I keep my eyes lowered, avoiding his gaze. Alpha Dane, I had only ever heard rumours about him. He was a ruthless man, a Wolf feared by others. He didn't mess around and he had the largest pack. "He is the Alpha of Black Shadow, the biggest pack in the world, we need him!" We had never been attacked and we had never attacked anyone, so why did we need another pack to help us? He grabs my shoulders, his nails digging into my skin as he turns me around and kicks me into the office. "Useless Wolf." He mutters as he moves away. Quietly closing the door, I lean against it, observing the already clean office. It looked perfectly fine for a meeting with this so-called powerful Alpha. Closing my eyes, I slide down to the floor. I hated this house. I thought that when I turned eighteen, I could finally escape, but four years later, here I still am, a slave in my own home. Doing all the dirty tasks for my brother, Alpha Trey and the pack. While my ex mate, Beta Kyle waltzes around reminding me of how worthless I am. Someone clears their throat and I freeze, I thought I was alone. Leaning forward, I see a handsome man sitting in a chair, just around the corner. A foot propped up on his knee as he nurses a glass of alcohol. His short hair is dark and his eyes are a deep crimson colour, that don't quite look right. They suddenly shift to me and I throw myself back against the door as my heart pounded. "Is this the way you greet all Alphas?" His deep voice rumbles through the room, there was an edge of amusement to his tone. "I'm sorry." I whisper, getting to my feet. "I...I thought I was alone." I had no idea who he was but I could feel the power radiating off of him, even without my Wolf. "Come forward." He orders and I already feel a lump forming in my throat. Alpha Trey wil kill me. I step around the corner, doing as I'm told, allowing him to see me properly. I close my eyes, expecting the worst. "You smell funny. Yet you are a Wolf, correct?" I nod, though I couldn't tell how he was going to react. Most laughed when they found out about me. "I would prefer it if you spoke to me." He growls, "I'm not in the mood to play games." "Yes." I whisper. I couldn't help but think of all the punishments I was going to have to endure. A whipping maybe? Starvation for another week? "Why do you smell strange? And how is it possible for you to not know I was in the room? You should have scented me." "I..." I hated the question. "You should open your eyes when you are talking to someone. It's rude to not look at them. Has your Alpha not taught you anything?" His deep voice sends a shiver through me. Slowly, I open my eyes and lower them, there was no way I was making eye contact."My Wolf abilities were bound," I mutter. Twice, I wanted to add. Twice my abilities were bound. But he probably wasn't interested in that part. He leans forward, I could feel him staring at me, "Why would someone do that?" If this is the Alpha that my brother is supposed to be meeting with, I knew I could screw everything up for him by saying too much. "It was a punishment." I whisper. It wasn't far from the entire truth. There's a twitch in his cheek. Was he angry to hear of such a punishment? Or maybe, just like the others, he was amused by it. I couldn't tell. The door swings open and my brother screeches at me "Neah, what are you doing in my office?" He turns to the crimson eyed man. "I am so sorry that my sister is bothering you, Alpha Dane." Crap, it's him. My brother spins around, hand poised to hit me. I close my eyes, bracing myself, ready to feel the burn. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."Peeking through slits, I see Alpha Dane has risen to his feet, his hand coiled around my brother's wrist. He is taller than my brother, more muscly too. "Neah," My name rolls off of his tongue, "was kindly showing me to your office, Alpha Trey, as you failed to meet me at the front of your house like I requested." What? I had no idea what he was talking about. And he had no reason to lie for me. My brother glares at me, clenching his jaw tight. "Go and get Beta Kyle." Alpha Trey seethes. "Tell him our guest is here." I nod my head and hurry from the room, the last thing I wanted was to be caught between bickering men. "Beta Kyle," I whisper as I enter the dining hall. He instantly glares at me with his dark eyes. I had spoken without being spoken to. "Alpha Trey is in the office with Alpha Dane. I was sent to inform you." He slams the newspaper down on the table and glares at me as he walks by. "You're lucky that the Alpha sent you to get me, otherwise you wouldn't see sunlight for a few days." Pausing behind me, he yanks my head back, locking his fingers in my hair, leaning in close to me, I feel his hot breath on my skin. He doesn't speak, it was just his way of proving that he could do what he wants when he wants. I try to keep myself busy so I can stay as far away from the office as possible. My peace doesn't last long when I hear my brother calling out to me. Quietly, I pad towards the office and plaster a smile on my face as I open the door. "Neah, go get the champagne and some glasses, we are celebrating." I bow my head and hurry to the drinks cabinet. Quickly finding what my brother has asked for. As I re-enter the office, I can feel Alpha Dane watching my every move, even the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. No one ever watches me this closely. "Neah is your sister, correct?" Alpha Dane questions my brother. "She is." Alpha Trey mutters with disgust. He looks away from me to focus on the man asking questions. "Why do you treat her like trash?" Straight to the point, my brother wouldn't like that. He only liked sharing information on his terms. No one had spoken to my brother about his treatment of me because everyone took great joy in beating me. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't move but I knew I had to get out of there. If this deal goes to pot because of me, then that would be my fault too. "Neah was responsible for our parents' death." Alpha Trey spits I closed my eyes, battling back the tears that were threatening to break free. "Responsible how?" Alpha Dane's voice rumbles through me. He was definitely angry. "She served them Wolfsbane." Don't make a sound. Don't make a sound. I knew Alpha Dane was studying me. They all did, no one could ever quite believe how someone could do something so disgusting as poisoning their own parents. I stood there, with my head hanging low, wishing for the ground to open up and suck me in. There are movements around me. He was standing directly in front of me. With a rough finger he tilts my face up towards his, forcing me to look at him. "You poisoned your parents?" "I was six." I splutter. "I just made them lemonade." My voice comes out all squeaky as I try to defend myself. I could barely remember my parents, but I could remember all the guilt I had been made to feel since that day. His crimson eyes flash to my brothers. "Hardly seems fair to blame a six year old." "A six year old should know the difference between plants." Alpha Trey snaps "Sounds to me like she was set up." Alpha Dane shrugs his shoulders, letting go of me. "You weren't there, Alpha Dane." My brother muttered through gritted teeth as his eyes narrowed to slits. "I didn't ask you here to talk about my slave!" Alpha Dane grabs his leather jacket from the chair. Unlike other Alpha's he seemed to dress more casually. A simple black tee and jeans covered his huge frame. And unlike other Alpha's, his arms are bare of tattoos, not a single bit of ink poked out anywhere. "You're right and now I have a few things to mull over." "I thought we agreed." My brother exclaims "Nothing has been signed. Now I will show myself out." The moment he is out of the office, both my brother and Beta Kyle round on me. "What the heck did you say to him?" My brother demands, slamming a hand into my stomach. "N...nothing. Well, he just asked me why I smelled funny." "Did you tell him?" Beta Kyle demands. He was practically spitting in my face. I hated him. I hated him so much that I had vowed to one day get my revenge and rip his stomach out through his mouth. "WELL?" My brother yells when I don't immediately respond and smacks me across the side of the head. My head involuntarily moves up and down. "But I didn't say it was you." I tried to sound strong and confident but it just comes out as a whisper. My brother's hand locks into my black hair as he yanks my head back, sending a shooting pain through my skull. "If you have ruined this, you won't see daylight again." He drags me by my hair from the office and down the hallway towards the basement door. "Pleaseโฆ." I beg. "He was an AlphaโฆIโฆ I had to answer him." My cheeks burn with my tears as he flings the door open. On the other side of the door is Alpha Dane. He is leaning against the wall with his arms folded, staring out at us. My brother's hand falls from my hair, relieving the pressure on the back of my skull... "Alpha Dane, I thought you had left." Alpha Trey murmurs angrily. "I said I would show myself out. I thought I had found the door, but instead I find a basement, riddled in your sister's strange scent. Is this how you treat your family?" "As I said," my brother holds his ground, "She is responsible for the death of my parents, so yes, this is what she deserves." "You should keep your nose out of other packs' business!" Beta Kyle adds. Alpha Dane laughs. "If I agree to this deal, everything about your business becomes my business. So tell me, what would your punishment be for her? No food, locked away for a week, beatings?" Both Alpha Trey and Beta Kyle hold their tongues. There was no reason for him to defend me and yet he was. I was a nobody, no one special. Just who everyone called a traitor. Only instead of being given a death sentence, my brother had decided to make me spend my life suffering. I see those crimson eyes land on my swollen face. "I have a proposition for you, Alpha Trey." Alpha Dane speaks up again. "We have already agreed on terms." "Well, I'm adding one. And if you don't agree, you will not get my help. Instead, you will become my enemy. And we both know, you don't want that." "I take it that your new terms have something to do with her?" Alpha Trey mutters through clenched teeth. "You would be correct. Let me take her away to my pack and then you, Trey will have a deal." Me? Why would he want me? As my brother and his Beta discuss me, Alpha Dane is still studying me. His look made me nervous. What could someone like him possibly want with me? "Deal." Alpha Trey sticks out his hand for Alpha Dane to shake. He doesn't take it, instead his crimson eyes shift from me to my brother. "I will have paperwork drawn up and will return tomorrow." He reaches a hand out and cups my face, "Ensure you have everything packed." He drags his thumb across my bottom lip and strides to the opposite end of the hallway and straight to the front door. He knew exactly where the front door was, so what was he up to? He pauses at the door. "If I find out any one of you has laid a hand on her. The contract will be the last thing you need to worry about." He struts out, slamming the door behind him. After Dane leaves, my brother grabs me by the collar. "You think you're going to have a good life if you follow Alpha Dane out of here? Don't be naive!" He continues in a vicious voice. "He's the coldest man in the world, he's killed nine of his mates, I'm waiting to see what happens to you!" | LEARN_MORE | https://wwwedb.com/market/meganovel/13?lpid=11783& | New world publications | https://www.facebook.com/100090352943774/ | 3,766 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Learn More | 0 | wwwedb.com | DCO | https://wwwedb.com/market/meganovel/13?lpid=11783&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{campaign.id}}&adset_name={{adset.name}}&adset_id={{adset.id}}&ad_id={{ad.id}}&ad_name={{ad.name}} | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/463745664_1705482006939110_4845627328662362045_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=t-Otgjy7iNMQ7kNvgEQUnLw&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&_nc_gid=AYQdCUmweI_8CGQAGGzHbOK&oh=00_AYAIACQnmLVsjJGxv2lRApb2ApJuRzl4CrIuk4tinYqrYQ&oe=676150D1 | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | New world publications | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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๐Attention! Do not read in public๏ผ๐ | At Grace Mansion, Carissa Sinclair stared at the man before herโher husband she had waited for a whole year. Barrett Warren, still in his battle armor, wore an expression of both determination and guilt. "Carissa, the king has issued a royal edict for my marriage with Aurora. She will be joining our household. There's no question about it," said Barrett. Carissa's eyes clouded with confusion. "The queen dowager has praised General Yates as a model for all women in the kingdom. Would she be willing to be a concubine?" Barrett's eyes flashed with a hint of annoyance. "No, she wonโt be a concubine. Sheโll be my legal wife, equal to you." "But calling her equal doesn't change the fact that sheโs still just a concubine," Carissa said, a soft smile playing on her lips. Barrett frowned. "Why can't you face the reality? Aurora and I fell in love with each other on the battlefield, and we earned this marriage with our glorified victory. In fact, I donโt really need your approval on it." Carissa smiled mockingly. "Fell in love, huh? Have you forgot what you promised me before you left for war?" On their wedding night a year ago, Barrett was called away to lead reinforcements on an expedition. Before he left, he lifted his wifeโs veil and vowed, "Carrisa Sinclair, you're the only woman I'll ever love in my life. I will never take a concubine!" Embarrassed, Barrett avoided her eye contact. "Just forget what I said. Back then, I only considered you a suitable match for a wife. I knew nothing about love until I met Rory." When he spoke of the woman he loved, his eyes softened with deep affection. Turning back to Carissa, he added, "Sheโs unlike any woman Iโve ever met. I love her deeply, and I hope you'll be generous enough to welcome her." Carissa felt a lump in her throat. Despite her disgust and reluctance, she asked, "What about your parents? Do they agree?" "They do. It was a royal edict, and mother liked her a lot upon seeing her." They agreed? Huh... How ironic! Seems like everything Carissa had done for this household had all been for nothing. "Is she currently in the mansion?" Carissa asked, lifting a brow. Barrett carried a softness in his voice, "Yes, sheโs talking to my mother and making her very happy. Even mother's health seems to be improving." "Improving?" Carissa felt a whirlwind of emotions. "When you went to war, your mother was already gravely ill. I brought in the best physician, managed the estateโs affairs by day, and stayed up nights caring for her. That's how her condition started to improve." Carissa wasnโt seeking praise. She was just laying out the facts of her exhausting year. "But seeing Aurora has made my mother feel even better," Barrett said earnestly. "I know this is unfair to you, but for the greater good, please support Aurora and me." Carissa lowered her eyes, as if blinking away the tears. But inspected closely, that's actually her sharpened gaze. "Invite General Yates over. I have a few things to ask her." "There's no need," Barrett refused instantly. "Carissa, sheโs different from any woman you know. As a general, sheโs above household squabbles and wouldnโt want to meet you." Carissa retorted, "What are women I know like? Or tell me, what kind of woman am I to you? Have you forgotten? I'm also the daughter of the Marquis's family. My father and my six brothers sacrificed on the Southern Frontier three years ago-" "Thatโs them," Barrett interrupted. "you're still a delicate woman suited only for home comforts, while Aurora has no respect for that. Besides, she never holds back her true thoughts. Trust me, you won't want to hear it from her." As Carissa looked up, the striking beauty mark under her eye became more evident in the light. Calmly, she said, "Itโs fine. If she says anything unpleasant, Iโll ignore it. A true matriarch must understand the bigger picture and act with dignity. Donโt you trust me?" Barrett sighed in frustration. โWhy put yourself through this? The king has approved this marriage, and Aurora will never threaten your control of the household. Carissa, she couldn't care less about those things.โ โOh, you think that's what I fear? Losing the control of this household?โ Carissa countered. Little did Barrett know his household had been reduced to a hollow shell - managing it was a hot potato no one else would bear. Over the past year, it was Carissa's dowry alone that kept the Warren familyโs life respectable, and this was her reward. โEnough,โ Barrett snapped, his patience running thin. โIโve done my duty by informing you. Your opinion wonโt change anything.โ As Carissa watched hum storm out, her bitterness deepened. โMy lady, my lord has really crossed the line!โ Lulu, Carissaโs maid, said, wiping her tears. โDonโt call him that!โ Carissa gave her a stern look. โWe never consummated the marriage. Heโs not your lord. Now go fetch my dowry list.โ โWhy the dowry list?โ Lulu asked, puzzled. Carissa tapped her on the forehead. โSilly girl, we need to reckon everything before we leave.โ Lulu gasped. โLeave? But where can we go? To the Northwatch Estate?โ Suddenly Lulu held her tongue, aware that she had touched the sensitive subject. She spared Carissa a guilty look, "I'll get the list now, my lady." Upon the mention of Northwatch Estate, the always restrained Carissa finally let her tears fall. When she was fifteen, her father, the Marquis of Northwatch, had sacrificed his life on the battlefield. Then, just six months ago, her entire family at the Northwatch Estate was brutally slaughtered โ assassins rumored to be spies from the enemy nation, Westhaven. She rushed back after getting the news, only to find the dismembered bodies of her mother and grandmother. Even her youngest nephew, two years old, didn't escape death, neither. Now, she was the lone survivor of the marquis' family, the idea of restoring her familyโs former glory seemed impossibleโat least to outsiders. After all, she was presented mostly as a delicate, fragile woman, while Aurora Taytes had just made herself the first female general in history. It's only natural that the Warren family was more than happy to agree to the marriage. Yet, unbeknownst to the world, Carissa's martial talent was never beneath her father and brothers. If given a chance on the battlefield, she would definitely outshine Aurora Taytes, perhaps a million times more... Just then, Lulu had brought over the dowry list, "My lady, this year alone, you've spent over six thousand silver coins supporting the household. However, the shops, houses, and estates remain untouched. All the bank savings, along with the property deeds and land titles your mother left, are locked up in the chest." "I see." Carisse's gaze lingered on the list with melancholy. Her mother had given her such a substantial dowry, fearing she might face hardship in her husband's home. Yet now here she was. The Warren family had disregarded all her effort, and Barrett had even broken his vow to take no concubine - the very promise that led her mother to choose him over more eligible suitors, despite the Warren familyโs fall from grace. 'Was this really the life mother wanted me to have?' It took Carissa no time to made up her mind. โLulu, get prepared. There's somewhere we need to go tomorrow.โ ... Early the next morning, Carissa and Lulu boarded a carriage, heading straight for the royal palace. It was noon by the time they arrived. Under the scorching autumn sun, Carissa and Lulu stood like statues in front of the palace gates. They waited for a full hour, but no one came to let them in. In the palace's study, Derek Walker had already reported Carissaโs arrival to the king three times. โYour Majesty, Mrs. Warren is still waiting outside the palace gates,โ he repeated. The king, Salvador Quinton, set aside the document he was reading and rubbed his temples. โI canโt summon her in. The edict has been issued, and can't be taken back. Tell her to go home.โ โThe guards tried to persuade her, but she refused to leave. Sheโs been standing there for over an hour without moving.โ Salvador felt a pang of guilt. โBarrett requested the marriage as a reward for his military service. I didnโt want to agree, either, but not granting it would embarrass both him and General Yates. They have after all won a big war.โ โYour Majesty, when it comes to military achievements, no one can compare to the Marquis of Northwatch,โ Derek countered. Salvador thought of Hector Sinclair, the Marquis of Northwatch. When Salvador was a crown prince who had recently joined the military, it was Hector who had guided him. Back then, he had also known Carissa when she was only a cute kid. Salvador himself had fought a bloody path to the throne, paved with death. He understood the struggles of military officers, so when Barrett requested marriage as a reward, Salvador had hesitated but eventually agreed. But Derek was right. In terms of military merit, Barrett and Aurora were far inferior to Hector Sinclair. โAlright, let her in. If she agrees to this marriage, Iโll grant her whatever she wants, even if it's a noble title or an official rank,โ said Salvador. Derek breathed a sigh of relief. โAs always, you're wise, Your Majesty!โ ... Carissa knelt in the study with her head bowed. Recalling that Carissa was now the only one left the Sinclair family, Salvador felt nothing but pity for her. "Rise and speak," he commanded. Carissa bowed deeply with her hands clasped. "Your Majesty, I know it's presumptuous of me to seek an audience today. But I also wish to implore for your grace." "Carissa Sinclair, I have already issued the edict of marriage. It's impossible to revoke it," Salvador said. Carissa shook her head gently. "Your Majesty, I'm not imploring you to reverse that edict, but imploring you for another edict - an amicable divorce with General Warren." The young king was taken aback. "Divorce? You want a divorce?" Carissa nodded her head firmly. She was never someone to pester some man. If Barret Warren loved Aurora Yates so much, then she would let him go. What she needed now was a single edict for an amicable divorce, so she could take away all her dowery and get rid of the despicable Warren family for good, dignified and head high... | LEARN_MORE | https://shgjfh.com/market/meganovel/13?lpid=13831& | Random Reading | https://www.facebook.com/61559743679549/ | 321 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Learn More | 0 | shgjfh.com | DCO | https://shgjfh.com/market/meganovel/13?lpid=13831&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{campaign.id}}&adset_name={{adset.name}}&adset_id={{adset.id}}&ad_id={{ad.id}}&ad_name={{ad.name}}&placement={{placement}} | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/464198210_1335425697867830_3839403089342624662_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=je55d_cjoyIQ7kNvgHmf28W&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&_nc_gid=AyEDTKDATlWCYv857cGo0qq&oh=00_AYBC67x_r0z4OIBq-HJQ3JfoFNOC-BtsXOv5e9etgwqiow&oe=67615180 | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Random Reading | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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No | 2024-12-12 19:18 | active | 1997 | 0 |
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๐Attention! Do not read in public๏ผ๐ | Liesel Sharp had just unlocked her phone while waiting for her IV drip to be done when she received a message from her best friend, Chelsea Walden. "Jacob's back." She faltered. She and Jacob Ford had barely spoken throughout their month-long cold war, so she had no idea he was back. Soon, she received another message. "He's brought a young woman back with him." A photo had been sent with the message. The young woman in the photo resembled Liesel a littleโshe was Natalie Sharp, Liesel's younger half-sister. She'd been raised in the countryside. Chelsea continued, "The Sharp family is throwing them a welcome-back party. Do you want to crash it, Lili?" She knew what Liesel was like. Liesel would give Jacob a taste of his own medicine if he dared to do anything to her. There was even a chance she would set the Sharp residence on fire. Liesel checked her IV bag. She'd had a high fever for three days now, and the back of her hand was swollen from the constant IV drips she'd been on. She wasn't in the mood for that nonsense. "No," she replied. Then, she shut her eyes to get some rest. It was close to 10:00 pm when she took a cab back to Viewpoint Residences. The fever had taken its toll on her, so she soon drifted into a restless sleep. Jacob returned at some point, which woke her up. "Did I wake you?" he asked while rolling up the sleeves of his ironed shirt. He looked down at her with an indifferent gaze. His voice was as alluring as always, though. "No." Liesel's voice was a little nasal because she'd just woken up. She explained lazily, "I wasn't sleeping too soundly after taking my meds." He frowned slightly. "Are you sick?" She chuckled softly. She'd been sick for a while now and had mentioned it in her texts to him when admitting defeat. Yet he looked like he'd only just noticed. She poured two glasses of water and handed one to him. "How are things at Norton City? I heard from Brook that there seemed to be some trouble with it. Youโ" Her throat felt dry and uncomfortable; she wasn't in the mood to chat. Still, someone had to back downโit had been nearly two months since they'd seen each other. However, Jacob cut her off. "Let's divorce." | LEARN_MORE | https://beokn.com/market/buenovela/3?lpid=14615&ut | Random Reading | https://www.facebook.com/61559743679549/ | 321 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Learn More | 0 | beokn.com | DCO | https://beokn.com/market/buenovela/3?lpid=14615&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{campaign.id}}&adset_name={{adset.name}}&adset_id={{adset.id}}&ad_id={{ad.id}}&ad_name={{ad.name}}&placement={{placement}} | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/465213480_523643177252179_1090236802447429735_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=aqZ5EjOiIoUQ7kNvgFtdV08&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&_nc_gid=AYQdCUmweI_8CGQAGGzHbOK&oh=00_AYD64zCviAD76RDZ_8vkQhNc40fgOeeynwiunbEXIwsfwA&oe=67615099 | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Random Reading | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Yes | 2024-12-12 18:15 | active | 1995 | 0 |
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Read next chapter | For her, marrying her best friend and carrying his child was a dream come true. However, just at this joyful moment, the man's beloved returned... ===== "It's a good thing you're cautious. You could've lost your baby, Miss Monroe," the GYN told me seriously as she could see the shock in my eyes. Had I heard it right? I was pregnant? I was pregnant with a baby for Pierce--my best friend and my first crush! On the way out of the hospital, I couldn't wait to tell Pierce about our baby. I wondered what his reaction would be. Would he scream in happiness? God! I couldn't contain my happiness. I cupped my flushed face as I fantasized, but the moment I felt the cold of the simple ring on my finger, my wildly beating heart calmed down. I almost forgot that Pierce wasn't the type to be keen on having children, especially since our marriage was arranged by his family. Pierce was a complete gentleman, both as a friend and a husband. Every time we did intimate thing, he was considerate yet cautious, saying there was no need to add extra shackles when we weren't ready. This baby, in a way, was out of the plan. "Ma'am, is everything okay? Do you need to call the boss?" my private driver, Luke, asked worriedly as he noticed my frown. Luke was reliable, like family, but if I chose to share, I still wanted Pierce to be the first to know this news. He was my baby's father. "No," I shook my head, giving Luke a reassuring smile. "He's on a flight. I'll talk to him later myself." I wanted to sense his answer directly from his raw expressions. I was always good at that. I closed my eyes, recalling the first day we met. His bright smile in the sunlight was so dazzling; he was a Prince. Long before we became best friends, I fell in love with him at first sight. But it was only unrequited love; I knew that well. I slid down the car window to get some fresh air but accidentally caught a glimpse of our old high school. That bitter feeling filled my chest once again. Pierce was my first love, but I wasn't his. In high school, I was just a boring nerd in others' eyes while Pierce Anderson was the shining quarterback. Everyone was surprised that we could be friends. Though envy arose, I enjoyed being around him. I slowly realized that I didn't just want to be his friend. However, right when I was about to confess my feelings to him, another girl came into his life. I shook my head, trying to rid myself of those sad memories. I gripped the cold wedding ring on my finger, telling myself the past was the past. Pierce said they were over, and I was his wife now. I was his wife who was carrying his baby. I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes and opened the door to our house. My heart calmed as I breathed in the scent of home. Our home. Pierce and I decorated it together with our own hands. We enjoyed it. Yes, I must have been overthinking. That woman had been out of our lives for a long time, and my marriage with Pierce had been as beautiful as a fairy tale for the past three years. I glanced at the clock on the wall. At this point, Pierce should have gotten off the plane. He had been traveling for over a month for the sake of our family's business. Pierce was the President of ADE, the leading fashion magazine company in Asia, and I was actually the Vice President. We were not only life partners but also good partners at work. I really missed him. I dialed his number immediately. I wanted to hear his voice now, to know when he would arrive home. I would prepare a good meal for him, and he would reward me with a sweet k*ss. Then we might do intimate thing... Oops, I almost forgot I was pregnant now. I needed to tell him this first before we could do anything else. I was happily envisioning our lovely reunion when my heart dropped as a woman's voice came over the line. [Hello?] I snapped the phone as just one word came out. My phone fell to the floor, and my body started shaking uncontrollably. NO! It couldn't be her! It couldn't be Lexi! She was already out of our lives! I must have misheard. I rushed to the fridge, attempting to calm myself with some al**hol. But the moment I was reminded of the doctor's words and my baby. I needed to be cautious for my baby's sake. I turned to grab a box of milk and walked toward the sofa. I didn't know what made me recognize that as Lexi's voice at that moment. I meant Lexi and I were never close. Lexi Gilbert was a typical blonde beauty that men would go crazy for. She was the popular cheerleader in high school while Pierce was the star quarterback. A better match than he and a nerd like me, right? It wasn't surprising that he had fallen for her. My pride couldn't stand watching the man I loved go crazy for another woman. So I had once tried to stay away from them silently, but Pierce refused to quit my life. Every time I drowned myself in a sea of books and studies to forget them, Pierce would appear at my doorstep asking me out. I couldn't say no to his charming smile; I couldn't refuse when he claimed it was his duty as my best friend to take me out to enjoy the real world. To avoid ruining our friendship, I could only hide my broken heart, silently playing the role of his best friend while watching his happy face as he pursued another girl. I finally mustered the courage to study abroad when I learned that Pierce was planning to propose to Lexi. However, I never expected Grams would call to beg me to return. I hurried back only to see a lifeless Pierce. His heart was shattered, thanks to Lexi. My beloved sunshine boy was nowhere to be seen, and my heart b*ed for him. I started to hate Lexi from that moment. I gave up my cherished man for her, and how dared she harm him so badly! Pierce didn't tell anyone what happened except that he was done with Lexi. Grams arranged our marriage. I didn't understand why he agreed until the day I heard him say that marrying anyone but Lexi would be the same for him. It hurt like hell, but I still walked into this marriage without a second thought. My cherished boy was broken, and I wanted to fix him, not caring if I ruined myself in the process. I fell asleep at home, feeling insecure and worried. I woke up in the middle of the night when I felt someone caressing my cheek. Slowly, I opened my eyes and realized I had fallen asleep in the living room. Someone lifted me from the couch. I immediately recognized his scent and touch as I looked at him with heavy-lidded eyes. "Pierce..." "Hmm," he hummed as he walked toward the stairs. "Why did you sleep on the couch?" I stared at his face as he gently placed me down on the bed. He caressed my hair and k*ssed my forehead. He was always so gentle, and that was why I loved him so much. "Where have you been? I've been waiting for you," I said as I caressed his cheek. "Just met a friend. You said you were waiting for me; is it something urgent?" Looking at his gentle face, I suddenly didn't want to ruin the moment, so I closed my parted lips and swallowed the truth back down. Tomorrow, maybe tomorrow, I would have the courage to face all the puzzles. I shook my head and pouted, signaling that I was sleepy. He chuckled and carefully carried me to the bed. Just as he was about to leave me after giving me a goodnight k*ss, I panicked for some reason. I quickly grabbed him... I missed him. I wanted him. "Wait, Kels," he said, stopping me by pinning my hands to the bed. "I thought you said you were sleepy and needed to rest." "But I think I miss you more now." I looked at him with innocence and caught the d**ire flashing in his eyes, but I didn't know why it faded so quickly. He used to be happy when I took the initiative. As if noticing my confusion, he chuckled and playfully pinched my nose. "I'll just take a shower." I nodded and watched him as he walked toward the bathroom. But drowsiness struck again, so I closed my eyes to take a nap. However, it was already morning when I opened my eyes again, and Pierce was beside me, putting a tray of food on the bedside table. "Hey!" I greeted, smiling when I realized what he'd done. He had prepared breakfast for me. In bed. The sweetest. He smiled and sat on the edge of the bed. "Good morning." I grinned as I sat up. He carried the tray and put it beside me. I shot an eyebrow up, tilting my head as I stared at his handsome face. His deep brown eyes and thick, black eyebrows complemented his striking features. "What is this? Is this a bribe? You stood me up last night, bad boy." He didn't laugh. Instead, he heaved a sigh, gently tucking my hair behind my ear before taking my hand and staring into my eyes. "I have something to tell you." My heart raced. I thought about our baby. He had something to say, and I did too. "W-What is it?" I asked, feeling my voice tremble. He took a deep breath. "You know you're important to me, right?" I slowly nodded, my lips parted. I couldn't speak; I was scared of what he was about to say. I had a bad feeling about this. "You were my best friend before we got married. You're one of the few people I treasure..." I hid my clenched fists under the sheets. I didn't understand why he was telling me this, but I felt tears pooling in the corner of my eyes already. "Kelly..." He paused, squeezing his eyes shut before looking into mine again. "I-I think it's time for us to divorce." "P-Pierce..." My heart clenched. He smiled sadly. "I know you don't have feelings for me either. You only married me because of my grandparents. You just did this because you love them. Now it's time for our real happiness, Kelly." I shook my head. "W-What are you talking about, Pierce?" "Lexi is back, Kelly. My first love is back." Chapter 2 Kelly's POV--It Never Rains but It Pours I got off the bed and tried to leave, but Pierce grabbed my hand. I quickly wiped the tears rolling down my cheeks before he could see them. He stood in front of me, searching my face as I struggled to look down and avoid his gaze. My heart felt like it was breaking into pieces. I thought... I thought I could make him fall in love with me during those three years together. I believed his feelings would deepen, that he would see me as a woman rather than just a best friend. I was foolish to hope and dream so high. I had failed. No matter how hard I tried, his heart belonged only to his first love, Lexi. "Kelly..." I sucked in a breath and swallowed the pain as I looked at him. I forced a smile. "I need to wash up before eating." He stared into my eyes, trying to figure out what I was thinking. I knew he understood me too well, so I made a concerted effort to hide my pain and smiled back at him. He sighed and let go of my hand. "Okay. I'll wait for you here. Let's eat and go to work together." Together? How cruel could he be? He still wanted us to get along as if he hadn't just asked for a divorce? He wanted us to stay the same right after telling me that his first love was back and he wanted to divorce me? Oh, Pierce, what's going on in your head? If I used to be able to force myself to remain in the role of his best friend, wishing him happiness, I no longer had that courage after the three years we'd shared. There was no way I could endure that kind of torture again, especially now that I was carrying his baby. The baby... I had thought it was good news for us, but now... it felt more like a burden to him, I guess. A burden that would prevent him from pursuing his true love and freedom. I knew how an unwanted child could grow up. My parents divorced even before my mother died, and my father's new family hated me. It hurt like hell. I didn't want my baby to experience that same pain. I needed to keep my child away from it. I forced another smile. "We can't. I need to visit the studio for the photoshoot of our new models..." "I'll go with you--" "No." I pushed his hand away. His eyes followed my hand before he looked up at me again. "You have some documents to sign. Our schedules are already organized, remember?" "But..." "I have a personal driver, Pierce. I'll be fine going alone." He sighed and slowly nodded. I turned my back on him and entered the bathroom. I immediately opened the shower and stood under the cold water. Tears cascaded down my cheeks as I covered my mouth to suppress my sobs. My shoulders trembled violently, and when I thought about my baby, I swallowed hard, trying to calm myself down. I wiped my face and caressed my belly. I needed to be strong. I had to stay calm. I shouldn't put my baby's life at risk just because I got my heart broken. I had to handle this wisely. I took a deep breath and finished my shower. When I got out of the bathroom, I was shocked to see Pierce still there. He was struggling to fix his tie in front of the full-length mirror. I also noticed my pair of heels and dress on the bed. "Hey! I picked your dress for today." Since our marriage wasn't public, Pierce had said he would try to do little things for me as a husband. He did it well, and I used to enjoy these sweet moments, but now, they felt like d**gers to my heart. I grabbed the dress and went into the walk-in closet. I felt him following me. I put the white dress back and picked a red one. When I turned to face him, his forehead was creased. "I prefer red today. I'd feel beautiful in this dress." His eyes landed on the dress I was holding, and his face immediately relaxed. He nodded and walked toward me. "I see. Help me fix this first." I placed my dress on his arm and started adjusting his tie. I could feel his eyes staring intently and it was making my heart beat so fast. I took a deep breath and chewed my bottom lip as I struggled to fix the tie. My vision started to blur again. D**n! "Kelly..." I jumped in shock. "Hmm?" "Are you okay?" I looked at him and smiled. "Yeah." "I have something else to say." I finished fixing his tie, then immediately grabbed the dress from him. I glanced at him before walking past him and said, "Let's just talk some other time. I'm going to be late." I heard him sigh as he followed me again. He's silent the whole time as if he's thinking about something. "You should eat before you leave." I turned to him and nodded. "I will. You should go now." "Kelly, we're on the same page, right?" I stared at him. No, Pierce. We're never on the same page. All of this was just my stupid fantasy. I thought you had feelings for me, and I was so wrong. "If it's about the divorce, I understand everything, Pierce. I know what I have to do. Just give me some time because I'm really busy with the company. I won't run away." "Kelly, I'm not just doing this for myself. I'm doing this for you too. You've been caged with me ever since we got married. I know you're not happy because deep down, you want to find the man you deserve. Someone who will truly love you. Not me. Not someone who's half-hearted." "I understand what you're trying to say, Pierce," I said, trying to turn away, but he held me by the waist, keeping me in place. He did everything he could to capture my gaze, and he succeeded. He looked at me worriedly. "You are my best friend. I don't want to lose you, Kels. You're one of the few people I..." "I know," I said out of frustration. He looked shocked, so I took a breath to calm myself. "I-I know. You don't have to worry. I'm just stressed about work. It's not about our divorce." His lips parted, and he slowly nodded, as if he could finally breathe properly. He walked toward me, and I froze when he gently k*ssed my forehead... "Thank you, Kelly," he whispered. My heart clenched. It had been three years, but I was still such a coward. Why couldn't I just tell him that I loved him? He's my husband, and I'm carrying his baby! If I told him, he might change his mind! I swallowed hard, ready to speak, but his phone rang. I didn't miss the caller ID. Again, it was Lexi. "I gotta go." He scratched his head in apology, and I didn't miss the upturned corners of his mouth. "I called Luke, and he's waiting outside. Eat before you go, okay?" With that, he left our room. The tears I had managed to hold back burst forth again. Why did I think I could have a chance? He had made his choice the moment he asked for a divorce, hadn't he? Whenever it came to Lexi, I was always the one he would abandon. Chapter 3 Kelly's POV--Stiff Upper Lip I entered the studio wearing two-inch red heels and a red dress. Everyone turned to look as I walked down the hallway, greeting me with smiles, but my face remained stoic, not showing any emotions at all. The conversation with Pierce this morning lingered in my mind, but I couldn't let it affect my work. I couldn't fail my work after I had failed my marriage. I took a deep breath to steady myself. However, when I entered the photoshoot room, I could notice everyone was in chaos. "We can't! She's not answering her calls. What should we do? The Vice President is coming today. She'll be furious." "We can just tell her the truth. She's nice." "Not in this situation, Lily! She'll scold us--" "What's happening here?" I asked, stepping further into the room. The staff turned to me with worried expressions, and I knew then that something was wrong. "G-Good morning, Miss Monroe." Miss Monroe. Of course, no one knew that Pierce and I were married except for our families. I felt a pinch in my heart because of that truth. It hurt. I stared at her blankly, "What? "W-We have a problem, Miss Monroe. Miss Chen, our model, has been refusing our calls. She said she heard that we're changing the model, so...she doesn't want to come here. She's even threatening to file a case against us." She bowed her head, and I gritted my teeth, scanning the room. "Where's the marketing manager?" "S-She's still trying to convince Miss Chen, Miss Monroe." I massaged my forehead, squeezing my eyes closed. I grabbed my hair and screamed in so much anger, causing everyone around me to jump in shock. I g**aned, sucking in a breath before looking around. "Miss Monroe..." "What is this, Miss Hayley? You're the marketing manager. What's happening?" "Miss Monroe, I don't know how it happened, but Miss Chen heard that you're changing our model. She's about to file a case against us--" Changing the model? How had I not known about this? Miss Chen had always been a trusted partner, and if not necessary, changing models for a commercial shoot on short notice would only create chaos for the company. I would never allow such a costly mistake. "I never asked for that. You must be mistaken." I cut her off to save the time, "Fix this mess, or I'll have to fire you!" "Miss Monroe... It's Mr. President who ordered the change." Hayley spoke hesitantly. "He instructed us as soon as he returned from his business trip yesterday." The truth hit me hard. Pierce's order? Why hadn't he told me? He used to discuss every major decision with me first. "It shouldn't be..." Confusion clouded my mind. Pierce was not a clueless businessman; he maintained a clear distinction between work and personal matters, which was why he always succeeded. And that was also why he chose to keep our marriage a secret. "Yes, Kelly. I gave the order." The voice pulled me back. "M-Mr. President..." Hayley bowed in respect as the man suddenly appeared behind me. "I think you owe me an explanation, Pierce. About changing the model!" I snapped as I turned to face him. He knew how much effort I had put into securing this project. I hadn't slept well for days, and Miss Chen was the perfect fit for us. He had agreed too. But now... he just changed the model as he liked without informing me in advance. It felt like a hard s**p in the face. "Go ahead with the work. I'll explain it to her." He pacified the staff first, ignoring the anger simmering in my eyes. "Answer me, Pierce! Why did you change the model so suddenly?" I couldn't contain my fury. He touched my shoulder and whispered, "This isn't the place to talk. Let me explain in the car." I glanced around, noticing others sneaking glances at us. I shook off his hand and walked toward the parking lot, my heart growing heavier with each step. I had a sinking feeling I wouldn't like his explanation. "Now, say it," I blurted once we were seated in his car. He stared into my eyes as if weighing my emotions. I looked away again.; I couldn't bear his gaze. I couldn't withstand his eyes that never looked at me the way I wanted him to. He had no feelings for me and it hurt so much. "I-I..." he paused, sighing. "I replaced Miss Chen because Lexi wants to be our model. She's also a good fit, so I agreed--" "What?" I asked in disbelief. He pressed his lips together and looked away, ruffling his hair in frustration before shaking his head and holding my hand. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. It was just so sudden. She asked for a favor, and I couldn't say no." I pulled my hand away, looking at him with a mix of pain and anger. "You can't say no to her, so you'd rather harm the company--our company. You've betrayed me, Pierce." "Kels, come on. You know how much I love her. She's my first love." Painfully, I closed my eyes. Oh yes, she was your first love. She's always the one you want, no matter the cost. As long as she frowns a bit, you turn a blind eye to the pain and effort of others. You're so heartless, Pierce. "Well, you've made your decision. I don't have a say in this since you're the President. Just go. I'll be in the office." I said coldly, opening the car door to leave. "Kelly..." I looked him in the eyes. "Go home early. Let's talk about our divorce at home tonight." Chapter 4 Kelly's POV--Left High and Dry I was playing with the wedding ring on my finger. I told him to go home early, but he didn't come home at all. He wasn't even answering my calls. Well, now Lexi was back; this house was probably not home in his eyes anymore. My eyes turned to my pregnancy report on the table. What a mockery. I was still naive to hold a glimmer of hope that things would be different if I told him about the baby. But forget this baby thing was out of his plan. I wiped away the tears collecting at the corners of my eyes and picked up the report. It was 5 a.m. already when I looked at the clock on the wall. I tried to dial his number again, but it was still busy. What was he busy with? Was he busy staying with Lexi? He must have missed her a lot, didn't he? I didn't remember how I fell asleep. When the alarm clock went off, he didn't come home yet. I sneered at myself as I caught my reflection in the dresser mirror. The dark circles under my eyes were so clear, and my hair was a total mess, looking like a ghost. Suddenly, a wave of nausea flooded my stomach, and I realized I hadn't eaten anything last night. Feeling sick again, I ran to the sink and puked. I spat yellowish liquid, and while I was washing my mouth, I felt a warm hand caressing my back. I immediately lifted my face and met a pair of brown eyes looking at me through the mirror. Standing behind me with a worried expression was my husband, Pierce. I had always been thankful to have him as my best friend and husband, but now... I'm losing him. Hopelessly losing him. "Are you okay? Are you not feeling well? You should've told me." I stared at him through the mirror. "You didn't answer my calls." Guilt flickered in his eyes. "I'm sorry. I had some things to do. I stayed in the office all night." I wiped my face and walked past him. He followed me as I sat in front of the vanity and started combing my hair. "Kels..." "I woke up late. I failed to prepare breakfast." I tried to avoid his eyes. I felt like I would lose my temper and snap at him. There was no moment when I felt his selfishness so clearly as now. He called me his best friend, yet he had never seriously confronted my needs. My feelings. "Kels... you know I'm not asking about this. I'm just worried about your condition..." "Kels, are we still okay?" I stopped combing my hair and slowly met his eyes. Through the mirror, again. Really? He's asking me that? After he offered me a divorce without even asking if I was okay with it? He decided on his own, just because his first love is back. I couldn't believe him. I faked a smile. "I just don't feel well today, Pierce." He immediately squatted beside me, which was not surprising because I knew he truly cared. What surprised me was why he was still doing this after he buried a dagger in my heart. "Are you okay?" He gently touched my forehead and neck. "Are you sick? Tell me how you feel, Kels." "My feelings don't matter," I couldn't help but blurt out. He looked shocked by what I said. When I attempted to avoid him, he grabbed my wrist and made me face him. His face was mirroring his anger now. He was completely lost his patience. "What's wrong with you, Kels? You've been acting like this since yesterday. Is this about Lexi? Or was it because I didn't come home last night?" I looked him in the eyes, annoyed. "You're the one who asked for a divorce! I told you to come back earlier, but you just let me wait the whole night. How do you want me to greet you this morning, Pierce?" He clenched his jaws and shook his head. "Kels, I..." "Enough. We can talk about the divorce after work today." "Kels!" He called and grabbed my shoulders. Confusion and pain were visible in his eyes. "Are you... in love with me?" I was taken aback. In love? Yes! Ever since we were in high school. Ever since he became my best friend. Who wouldn't fall for someone who had been protecting you ever since? But of course, I couldn't tell him. It would only complicate things more. I didn't even want him to pity me. I shook my head and pushed his arms away. "Are you on d**gs? I'm not in love with you." I turned my back on him and entered the bathroom again. I locked it before going to the bathtub. I should focus on myself. I can't let my emotions affect me, but... why are my tears falling again? "You are so pathetic, Kelly! You can't even tell him how you truly feel," I whispered to myself as I wiped my tears angrily. It took me almost an hour to bathe. When I was done, I realized Pierce had already left. I shook my head in disbelief. He's been constantly abandoning me. I can't believe we've reached this point. I thought we were okay. I was so stupid. *** "Good morning, Miss Monroe..." "Good morning, Vice President..." I did not greet anyone back, just like how I used to greet them. I still felt pissed, and my mood seemed off. Irritation could easily take over me, and I couldn't control it. Probably because of Pierce's divorce proposal or because of my pregnancy. I was about to enter my office when I heard two girls talking. "Did you see her? I bet she's Mr. Anderson's girlfriend. They seemed close." My forehead creased. Pierce's girlfriend? "Ah! It's a waste that I didn't see her face, but I feel like it's Miss Lexi." "Lexi? Lexi Gilbert? The model?" "Yes! I bet my whole month's salary on this. They look good together." "Come on! Miss Monroe and Mr. Anderson look better together." "Are you serious? They're best friends. You know, some people are better off just friends. It's Mr. Anderson and Miss Monroe." I squeezed my eyes closed and pushed the door of my office. I slowly closed it and rested my back against it. This is harder than I expected. I took a deep breath and sat in my swivel chair. I opened the computer at the same time a notification popped up on the screen of my phone. My hands started shaking as soon as I saw the notification. It was Pierce's social media update. He uploaded a photo of him and Lexi together, eating in a fancy restaurant. I balled my fists and gritted my teeth. See, Kelly? That's what happens when you step into such a loveless marriage without a second thought. You would only break yourself if you continued on the wrong path. Just get a divorce. Spare him and yourself. Your baby needs a strong mommy... ...... ==== Marrying her best friend was a dream come true for Kelly, but everything truly has a limitation. Pierce is Kelly's first love, but as his best friend, she knew well there was always another woman deep in his heart, Lexi Gilbert. Kelly finally realized their happy marriage of the last three years was just a beautiful dream when Pierce asked for a divorce just because Lexi returned. She could only be his best friend even if she was carrying his baby. Since their friendship had become a cage, Kelly chose to set him free, as well as the miserable herself. But why then, it was Pierce who became the one who refused to move on? To make matters worse, her devil stepbrother also domineeringly stepped in at the same time, asking her to be his. What happens next? How could Kelly save her heart in this battle of love and hate? Available chapters here are limited, click the button below to install the App and enjoy more exciting chapters (Automatically jump to this novel when you open the app) &3& | LEARN_MORE | https://fbweb.moboreader.net/61818322-fb_contact-e | Romantic Novel City | https://www.facebook.com/100083790041265/ | 4,122 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Learn more | 0 | fbweb.moboreader.net | IMAGE | https://fbweb.moboreader.net/61818322-fb_contact-encp25_2-1103-core3.html?adid={{ad.id}}&char=331118&accid=1166169688155768&rawadid=120213581491120597 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/465739744_2000490840428616_1213963453933743700_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=N9CmiroecLgQ7kNvgGs-Q50&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&_nc_gid=AWcPsyL7QNIU-0xiY1q3HgV&oh=00_AYApL8fvACoowttCwXGi8XHW0dwOM1_uUjx997eyn2R3dw&oe=67616760 | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Romantic Novel City | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Read more FREE chapters๐ | Itโs not the first time I received photos of my husband, Owen, cheating on me. After losing my parents, I was adopted by Owenโs family. I grew up with him. We were inexplicably attracted to each other but we dared not to admit it. Until that one crazy night... anyway we got married when we were both 22. Now, itโs been three years. But Owen had been acting very strange recently. These photos seemed to explain why... I had to confront him. โOwen?โ I called out. โOwen, where are you?โ He didn't answer. Owen was on the phone with his friend. As I was about to knock on the door, I overheard: โNo, I donโt think I love her anymore.โ Owenโs words gave me icy chills. โHow could he say that?!โ My heart was broken. Owen left without any explanation that night. When Owen came back he was very drunk. He started kissing me and called me Josie. I couldnโt believe what I heardโฆ โJosieโฆ? Were you with Josie?โ I asked with panic in my voice. I couldnโt believe my husband cheated on me with my best friend. Life passed, I became more and more painful. I finally got divorced with Owen. I thought there would be no relationship between us. But the appearance of Raymond gave me fresh hope for love. Raymond was Owenโs uncle. He was only several years older, but very mature. He was tall, handsome and rich. He was one of the most attractive men I knew. After living in Australia for most of his life, he had come back 10 years ago to take over his familyโs business. By now, he was the most successful CEO in the city. Although all women admired him, he remained single. I couldnโt believe such a wonderful man would confess to me. I didnโt know why he would fall in love with such an ordinary woman like me? Heโs always there when I was in danger and even got injured when protecting me. But I can not accept him as his relationship with my ex-husband. Then the unexpected thing happened. My best friend set me up. When I woke up, I found myself under Raymond's sheet. โDonโt be scared, Noah.โ โIโll protect you.โ โIโm willing to take responsibility.โ โNoah, I love you.โ His magnetic voice always lingered in my ears. Could I trust him? What will happen if I get involved in this forbidden relationship? | LEARN_MORE | https://redtgb.com/market/goodnovel/1?lpid=14837&u | Random Reading | https://www.facebook.com/61559743679549/ | 321 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Learn More | 0 | redtgb.com | DCO | https://redtgb.com/market/goodnovel/1?lpid=14837&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{campaign.id}}&adset_name={{adset.name}}&adset_id={{adset.id}}&ad_id={{ad.id}}&ad_name={{ad.name}}&placement={{placement}} | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/463600279_1053409966435668_5063960042783931742_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=1y5nR64Xi04Q7kNvgFdyiGL&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&_nc_gid=AyEDTKDATlWCYv857cGo0qq&oh=00_AYBdHEzyHx5AvQYlq0jE9P00HWV1mD0h043LPI91fZ6Mjw&oe=6761679E | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Random Reading | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Custom 3D Crystals by Beyond Memories | ๐ฅ Introducing Beyond Memories - Customizable, Laser-Etched Crystals for Any Occasion! Gift-giving made easy with our personalized solution. | SHOP_NOW | https://beyond-memories.com/collections/classic-co | Beyond Memories | https://www.facebook.com/beyondmemoriesus/ | 8,501 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Shop Now | 0 | beyond-memories.com | DCO | {{product.description}} | https://beyond-memories.com/collections/classic-collection | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/470023778_563854193106683_7963771919309673763_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=QEAyIF5xnokQ7kNvgEuSPf8&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&_nc_gid=AOVdvdzOFXJSroaaTUNTfNO&oh=00_AYCbCVcn71b6TmhNcpisSs5BbwoIl6DfAxg-p7M127uCtg&oe=67613B8C | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Beyond Memories | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Yes | 2024-12-12 19:18 | active | 1997 | 0 | Emerging from the confines of marriage, she blossomed from a mundane housewife to a renowned painter with a legion of admirers. When her ex-husband sought reconciliation at her doorstep, he witnessed her in the arms of a prominent man. "Meet your new sister-in-law!" ===== In the dimly lit, opulent private cinema, the most exclusive jewelry auction was being broadcast live. "One million, going once, going twice--" The rich cadence of the auctioneer's voice echoed through the room, the man tightened his grip around Alicia Bennett's waist... With the intensity between them only grew fiercer as time passed... The auctioneer's gavel fell. "Sold for ten million! Let's give a round of applause to Mr. Joshua Yates!" The name struck Alicia like a lightning bolt. Her body instantly went rigid, something that the man couldn't help but notice, flicked lazily toward the screen. The camera zoomed in on Joshua Yates's face, every detail of his familiar features displayed in perfect clarity. "Joshua Yates, the second son of the Yates family... an acquaintance perhaps?" he drawled, the corners of his mouth tugging into a sly smile. Alicia's frown deepened. The last thing she wanted was to discuss it, she didn't respond. The man, upon seeing the situation, chuckled lightly before his movements grew even more relentless... ...... When it was over, Alicia took advantage of the man's time in the shower and quietly made her escape. When Caden Ward finally emerged from the bathroom, not catching sight of the woman's figure, he curled his lips slightly. Moments later, his assistant, Hank Ford, burst into the room, clearly on edge, "Er, apologies, Mr. Ward. I let my guard down. Give me a moment, and I'll have her brought back immediately." They had just returned to the country, taking every precaution. And yet, a woman had managed to slip through the cracks of their security. Caden's features calm, almost indifferent. "No need. I was... a willing participant." Hank's eyes widened in shock. In all the time he'd known Caden, the man had never slept with a woman,even physical contact. There were even rumors that Caden might suffer from some secret ailment. Yet now, those whispers seemed to evaporate in the face of this unexpected turn of events. Before Hank could make sense of it, Caden's deep voice pulled him back to reality. "I want you to look into Joshua's personal life. Have the report on my desk in half an hour." Tonight, Alicia had stumbled into his room, feverish and desperate. It was obvious she'd been framed. And then came the revelation--Alicia was still a pureness. Two years of marriage to Joshua... Yet she was still untouched? Caden's lips curled into a satisfied smile. But as he reflected, one thing became abundantly clear--Alicia had no idea who she'd been with due to the d*ug's effects. ... By the time Alicia returned home, the first light of dawn filtered through the windows. Only then did she realize how long she had been out. But before she could dwell any further, her phone rang. It was her bestie, Monica Flynn, calling. "Alicia!" Monica practically screeched from the other end of the line, her voice high-pitched with worry. "How are you now?" Alicia exhaled deeply, kicking off her shoes carelessly. "I've been better," she murmured. Monica's anger bubbled over, her words sharp and unrelenting. "Joshua's beyond disgusting! If he doesn't want to stay married, he should just grow a spine and divorce you already! What kind of sick man would scheme against his own wife?" The sharp pain of betrayal shot through Alicia's chest. Yesterday was their second anniversary. Joshua had texted her, suggesting they celebrate. Daring to hope he had changed, she had dressed up to the nine's, only to be met with disappointment and a d*ug-laced drink that sent her spiraling into a night of confusion and chaos. Was Joshua really the mastermind behind this? Swallowing the bitterness that tried clawing its way to the surface, Alicia forced herself to climb the stairs, her movements slow and weary. "It's fine, Monica. I'll handle it." Monica, ever protective, wasn't convinced. "'Handle it'? What do you mean you'll handle it? Just say the word, and I'll be over in a heartbeat." Alicia couldn't help the small, tired smile that tugged at her lips, hanging up the phone. But her heart still felt heavy, just as she lost focus, the door to her bedroom creaked open. She lifted her gaze, and almost instantly, her stomach dropped. There, fresh from a shower, a towel wrapped loosely around his waist, stood Joshua. He stared down at her. Chapter 2 Divorce Alicia snapped out of her daze as soon as she met the icy gaze of Joshua, her so-called husband. His expression remained unchanged, cold and indifferent as ever, as though he was looking at a stranger. The only thing out of place was the scars on his lips. A wave of disgust washed over her, she pushed him away and was about to enter. Joshua frowned, his hand shooting out to grab her wrist. "Alicia, what's with the attitude?" He seemed quite unhappy with her this time, which was a rare thing, considering how little he bothered to come home. Normally, Alicia would have welcomed him back with open arms, a flicker of joy lighting up her tired features, but today she looked drained, almost hollow. She didn't resist his grip, meeting his gaze with a calmness that unnerved him. "Haven't I always been like this? Obedient, sensible, making sure the house is in order, ensuring you're comfortable, ready to give your best at work." A small, bitter smile tugged at her lips. "Isn't that what you like most about me? It makes things easier for you, doesn't it? Frees up time for your other... 'special someone'." Joshua's eyes darkened at the veiled accusation. Denial hovered on his lips, but he didn't bother. Why should he? He dropped her hand and said gruffly, "Actually, that's why I'm here. We need to talk." Alicia vigorously rubbed her wrist, as though she was trying to erase his touch. "So, are you planning to finally go public with her?" Joshua's expression twisted instantly, his calm facade cracking. "What do you know? Did you have me stalked by a private investigator or something?" Alicia let out a soft, humorless laugh. "Is that necessary? Last night, you spared no expense to make her happy. Even a blind person could tell you're mad about her." He stared at her, unsettled by her icy tone. It was still her voice, still Alicia, but there was something different about her... For some reason, he felt inexplicably hurt, like a thorn pricking his heart. Perhaps it was the way she looked at him now--her eyes, once warm and filled with love for him, were now completely empty. There was no anger, no pain, just... nothing. It was a stark contrast to the woman who used to look at him as if he were her entire world. For reasons he couldn't explain, the sight of her like this stirred something in him, an unfamiliar dissatisfaction. Annoyed by his own reaction, Joshua decided to hit back, his voice harder now. "She's pregnant. It's a delicate pregnancy, so I bought her a little something to lift her spirits." Alicia's fists clenched before she could stop them. P**gnant? So, the nights she had stayed up waiting for him to come home, he'd been with another woman, working diligently to start a new family? Seeing Alicia wince a little, Joshua felt a flicker of satisfaction. "It's not that I don't want to touch you," he said, voice dripping with condescension. "You're just about as thrilling as watching paint dry. No man would want that." His cruel words pierced through Alicia, yet she managed to remain composed on the surface. It wasn't that she avoided intimacy; she just wasn't the one to initiate it. Did that make her so undesirable? Was it a sin? Taking a slow, steady breath, Alicia willed herself to stay calm. "Fine," she replied quietly. "Let's get a divorce then. You can give her the title she wants." The word "divorce" made Joshua's eyelid twitch involuntarily. He scoffed, eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Is this another one of your games?" Convinced he was right, his voice grew colder, more biting. "Alicia, for two years, you've pulled every childish stunt, begging for my attention. Aren't you tired yet? Because I sure as hell am." He paused, letting his disdain sink in. "You claim to love me so much. Could you really walk away from me?" Alicia couldn't help the bitter laugh that escaped her. Love him? Did he even understand what that meant? When Joshua's business had crumbled, leaving him with nothing but debt and shattered dreams, it had been Alicia who emptied her savings to pull him from the wreckage. Out of gratitude--or maybe obligation--he had married her. For two long years, she had been the dutiful wife, supporting him as he clawed his way to success. And what had Alicia gotten in return? She had been cast aside like a useless relic, while another woman carried his child. Her love, her loyalty, had been ground into the dirt beneath his feet. To care for this man any longer would be masochism. Her voice steady, Alicia said, "Draft the divorce agreement. I'll agree to whatever terms you want." And with that, she turned and disappeared through the door, leaving Joshua standing alone in the hallway. For a moment, he stared after her angrily, but then a cold, mocking smile tugged at his lips. Fine, she can play the martyr. He doubted she could keep it up for long. Storming out of the house, Joshua headed straight to the apartment where his lover, Lilliana Green, awaited him. "Well, that was fast," she teased upon hearing Joshua was getting a divorce, raising a brow. "Seems she wasn't as tough to deal with as you claimed." "She's cunning," Joshua muttered, the edge of suspicion creeping into his voice. "I don't know if she's actually agreeing to the divorce or just playing me." Lilliana's arms draping lazily around his neck, "Relax, Joshua, even if she changes her mind, it's too late." Joshua's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?" Chapter 3 Letting Go Lilliana's eyes flickered with shadowy intent. She wasn't foolish enough to show her cards now, so she waved it off with an effortless excuse. "During your two-year marriage, she has lived quietly in the shadows as a mere housewife, disconnected from your world. When you're assertive, would she dare to say a word?" Joshua pursed his lips into a hard line. During the past two years, Alicia had indeed done everything for him--given him support and solace. She had loved him fiercely, but at the end of it all, what value did love truly hold? Against all odds, he had clawed his way to the top, and he'd finally grasped the power he craved. That success, however, hadn't come easy, and it wasn't love that secured his position--it was alliances with the powerful. The prestige of the Green family daughter, that title alone, was worth far more than Alicia's devoted love. As these thoughts plagued his mind, Lilliana said happily, "Joshua, congratulations on escaping the grind. Shall we celebrate?" For a moment, Joshua's gaze flickered down to her, but Alicia's indifferent face suddenly flashed before his eyes. Since leaving the house earlier, Alicia hadn't once called him to ask for his whereabouts. Before, if he had been upset with her, she would've called him in a panic. A sharp, inexplicable irritation surged within him. Without thinking, he pushed Lilliana back, "You're only a few weeks' pregnant. Be careful." Lilliana, sharp as ever, sensed he was distracted. "Joshua, what's wrong?" she asked gently. "Don't you want to get divorced?" Joshua's response was instant. "Of course I want to divorce her." Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. "Then why don't you seem very happy?" Joshua offered a quick excuse, his voice steady but distant. "My father's condition has worsened. He doesn't have much time left, and Caden returned last night. He's likely here to claim his inheritance. I need to figure out how to handle him." Lilliana blinked, momentarily thrown. "Caden? Your brother from your father's first marriage? He doesn't even carry the Yates name anymore. What right does he have to fight you for the inheritance?" Joshua's expression darkened. It was true--but at the end of the day, he was still the son of a home-wrecker. All these years of relentless effort had not only been to carve out a name for himself in the Yates family, but to push Caden into the shadows where he belonged. One way or another, Joshua was hell-bent on winning. Meanwhile, Alicia stirred from her sleep. Darkness had already fallen, yet she felt even more drained than before. It was because her dreams revolved around that stranger. when her phone buzzed with a call from Monica did she snap out of her daze. "Alicia, I got your bl**d test results. I passed them to a friend of mine with some serious connections. He's digging around to see who bought the stuff." Alicia sat up a little straighter, her mind sharpening. "Thanks, Monica. Appreciate it." "If you really want to thank me, do me a favor: stop obsessing over that j**k. And after the divorce, focus on your career. You owe me that much." Alicia's chest warmed, her head lowering in quiet gratitude. "I know, I know." Now that she thought about it, she had come to the realization that her feelings for Joshua had never been pure love--they were born out of a debt, a sense of obligation. Her family's expectations had always weighed heavily on her, and in that lonely, stifled childhood, it was Joshua who had been there. His companionship had nurtured a vague affection she'd confused for love. "Lucky for me, love's never been something I've held onto tightly," Alicia murmured. "These last two years... I'll just see it as repaying his kindness." Monica paused, her usual boldness tempered with thoughtfulness. She knew better than anyone how, once upon a time, Joshua had indeed loved Alicia. But, it turned out love could be a fleeting thing. "Alicia, I really hope you've let go for good," Monica said with a convicted sigh. A sharp pang hit Alicia's chest, her eyes stinging as she fought back the urge to cry. Quickly, she pressed her hand to her eyelids, refusing to let the tears fall. It was only then she noticed something startling. Stunned, she stared at her hand. The wedding ring--something she had once held onto so tightly--was gone. Gone for a whole day and night, and she hadn't even noticed. Suddenly, her heart felt lighter, the weight of everything she'd been carrying beginning to lift. She whispered, more to herself than anyone, "Yes, I've truly let go." ... It didn't take long for Joshua to notice. He had returned to grab something quickly when his eyes fell on her hand. His brow furrowed as he asked, without thinking, "Where's your wedding ring?" Chapter 4 Her Nemesis Alicia's only concern now was leaving Joshua, so she ignored his question and asked flatly, "Are the divorce papers ready yet?" That word again--"divorce". Irritation flickered across Joshua's eyes. "What's the rush?" he snapped, his voice cold and sharp. "My father's finalizing his will, and if word gets out about my divorce, it'll ruin my standing. Now, pack your things--we're having dinner at the Yates Mansion this afternoon." With Caden's return, the family was throwing a welcome-home dinner for him. They also hoped that by doing so, it'd lift the spirits of Jerald Yates, Joshua's father. However, maintaining the charade of a happy marriage was the last thing on Alicia's mind. "I'm not going," she announced curtly. "Just get the divorce finalized and stop wasting my time." Joshua laughed, a sound that held no warmth. "Oh, come on, Alicia. Stop pretending. You hid the ring because you don't actually want to leave me, right? You can't stand the thought of being without me." He leaned in, smirking, and added, "You've worked hard these past two years. Even if we divorce, I'll still take care of you--as long as you keep me happy." Alicia's eyes widened, disbelief turning into anger. Hid the ring? Couldn't bear to be without him? His arrogant words sounded like nails on a chalkboard to Alicia's ears. With a sharp sneer, she shot back, "Oh, Mr. Yates, how could I possibly make you happy? Don't worry, I'll return the ring--wouldn't want this plain Jane to irk you, right? Once you have it, we're finalizing the divorce immediately." But Joshua wasn't fazed by her venom. He thought he knew her too well, convinced this was just another ploy to get his attention. Without thinking too much, he tossed a bag at her. "We've got guests today. Dress appropriately, and don't make me look bad." Alicia looked down at the bag, her mind flashing back to the countless times she had visited the mansion dressed in modest, unassuming clothes-- doing everything to blend in, to please him and his family. But now, with their divorce looming on the horizon, Alicia no longer cared to play the part of a dutiful wife. After slipping into the outfit, she carefully applied a touch of makeup, just enough to bring out the vibrance in her already flawless complexion. The subtle enhancements accentuated her smooth skin and delicate features, lending her a certain glow. When Joshua saw her descending the staircase, he froze for a brief moment, eyes lingering. Perhaps it was the way the dress hugged Alicia's graceful curves, making her seem more alluring than usual. At the entrance of the Yates Mansion, they both slipped into their familiar roles, masking the tension between them with practiced ease. Alicia casually looped her arm through Joshua's, their movements synchronized as they walked into the courtyard. Though Jerald was too ill to receive anyone, the grand hall bustled with life, relatives filling the space with chatter. The noise hummed around her, but for some reason, as soon as Alicia crossed the threshold, a sharp chill pricked at her skin. She instinctively looked up, her gaze immediately drawn to the figure lounging casually at the far end of the room. Legs crossed, dark shirt unbuttoned just enough to reveal a sliver of his collarbone, the man oozed arrogance, his presence commanding. When Alicia's eyes finally met his-- a familiar, authoritative stare that pinned her in place-- her mind raced as emotions began to surge uncontrollably. Joshua noticed the shift in her demeanor, his brows furrowing as he asked, "What's going on with you?" Alicia's breath caught in her throat. One word escaped her lips, barely audible. "Caden?" Just the mention of his name sent a chill down her spine. To her, Caden was the embodiment of her nightmares. Due to their families' friendship, their paths first crossed at the tender age of ten. Caden, having taken a year off, transferred to her school, and from that moment, Alicia's perfect world began to unravel. She could no longer claim the top spot. No matter how relentless her efforts, no matter how late she stayed up studying, Caden was always a step ahead. He would outscore her by the smallest of margins--a point, maybe two--leaving her perpetually stranded in second place. Anyone else might have accepted defeat, settled into the role of runner-up. But not Alicia. Born into the once prestigious Bennett family, she was raised under the suffocating weight of living up to her family name. Excellence wasn't just a goal--it was the currency by which she could earn her parents' affection. Failure was not an option, yet Caden had the audacity to snatch away everything she'd worked for with what seemed like effortless ease. It was as if he'd set his sights on her from the very beginning, and Alicia, stubborn to a fault, refused to back down. Their rivalry spanned over a decade, a relentless battle fought both openly and in the shadows, and their final showdown took place in college, just before their graduation, at the national competition. Alicia poured her heart and soul into that moment, her focus razor-sharp as she aimed for nothing less than perfection. And she achieved it, having garnered a perfect score. But Caden, ever the serpent, had bribed the judges, twisting the results in his favor. Alicia was forced, once again, into second place. The sting of injustice was deep, but the harshest blow came from her father, Phil Bennett. Over the phone, his voice dripped with disappointment in her ranking. Alicia, having grown accustomed to his tirades, said nothing. She waited for his anger to ebb, then asked quietly, "I'm graduating soon. Will you come back?" Her mother, Donna, had always been her softer solace. She comforted Alicia that day, promising they'd be there for her graduation. But life had other plans. Phil and Donna, rushing back from Itrubisite to attend the graduation, perished in a tragic plane crash. Overnight, Alicia's world crumbled, left an orphan in this cruel world. Since that day, she had never challenged Caden again. Afterward, Caden left Warrington to build his career overseas. ... "He's back for the inheritance," Joshua muttered, his voice barely audible. Alicia cast him a sidelong glance as he continued, "With a family empire as big as ours, an eldest son like him wouldn't give up so easily." Her brow furrowed slightly. It was true--the Yates empire was massive, a legacy most would kill for. But Caden had accumulated his own fortune, surpassing even the family's vast wealth. Did he really care about the inheritance? Then again, this was Caden. Competing was in his blood. Even if he didn't care about the fortune itself, he'd fight tooth and nail just to win, to toy with everyone else. The man had a knack for stirring chaos purely for his own amusement. Alicia had been his rival for as long as she could remember, and even now, the thought of giving him so much as a glance felt like a waste of energy. She turned to walk away. But Joshua caught her wrist, his grip firm yet tense. "I know you two don't get along," he said. "But he's still my elder brother. We need to maintain appearances." Her body stiffened at the touch, and she immediately tried to pull her hand free. Joshua's frown deepened. "Alicia, behave," he hissed. Irritation flared in her chest. "I'm not refusing to go in. Just let go of me first. I don't want your filthy hands touching me." A flicker of something dark passed over Joshua's face, and instead of releasing her, he intertwined their fingers, squeezing them tight. Alicia bit her tongue, silently fuming. As they neared, Caden's gaze slowly lifted, his eyes narrowing in a lazy, almost bored assessment of them. "Caden," Joshua greeted, his tone strained, meeting his brother's gaze with forced cordiality. Caden's eyes flicked to their entwined hands, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Your girlfriend?" he asked indifferently, as though he didn't recognize Alicia. Chapter 5 We Meet Again So Soon Alicia's nerves coiled tight like a spring. That voice... Her messy thoughts blurred into chaos, but one thing broke through the haze--Joshua's calm declaration. "Alicia and I have been married for two years now. She cares about me, so we kept it low-key. Just went straight for the registration; no ceremony. You were busy abroad at the time, so we didn't bother you." Caden arched a brow, his voice laced with venomous mockery. "Oh, so she's my sister-in-law." The way he spat the words "sister-in-law" felt more like a s*ap than a title, leaving no doubt about his contempt for her. Alicia could feel the man's sneer underneath every syllable. And all this was thanks to her so-called husband, Joshua. Her hand trembled as she snatched a tissue, vigorously wiping her hand. "Looks like Alicia's a bit of a germophobe," Caden observed, his tone a casual jab at her disgust. Joshua's expression darkened, the tension between them thickening. He hadn't expected her to humiliate him like this. "It seems I've spoiled her too much," he muttered, his voice low and tight with irritation. Caden's eyes gleamed with a dangerous glint. "If it's a serious condition, she should get treated. It could impact her role as a mother. You know how badly our father has wanted a grandchild." At this, something flickered across Joshua's eyes. Even though Alicia, his wife, was right beside him, he went ahead and lied through his teeth. "Thanks for the concern, Caden, but I already have good news for Dad. I just haven't gotten around to telling him yet." Caden's smirk deepened, his gaze flicking toward Alicia, who was about done with the bullshit of a charade. She quietly excused herself and strode off. "How far along is she?" he asked meaningfully. "Doesn't seem like she's pregnant." Joshua didn't miss a beat. "Just a month." The answer was as much a threat as it was an announcement. Now, the inheritance stakes had just been raised, and Jerald, ever focused on continuing the family line, would certainly take his unborn grandchild into consideration. Caden's smile hardened, and Joshua delivered the final blow with a smug undertone. "You'd better catch up, Caden. I can't always be one step ahead." Caden, unfazed, waved his hand lazily. "No rush." ... Alicia stepped onto the terrace, the cool night breeze washing over her skin. She drank in the fresh air hungrily to steady her nerves. Pulling out her phone, she quickly dialed the manager of the private cinema again. "Have you found the ring?" she asked anxiously. The manager hesitated, sounding troubled. "Ms. Bennett, we've searched thoroughly and questioned all the staff, but... we really couldn't find any ring." "Then..." Alicia clenched her fist, her mind racing. "Do you have the contact details of the guest who booked the room that day?" "I'm sorry, but due to our privacy policy, we can't disclose any information on our clients." Her heart sank. "I see," she sighed with resignation. "Please tell me immediately if anything turns up, okay?" In a perfect world, she could've just bought an identical ring and pass it off for the original. Unfortunately, Joshua had that ring custom-made, and it wasn't easy to replicate. After dinner, it started to rain. The relatives began to trickle out one by one. Joshua stood by her side as they made their way to the car, his eyes trailing down to her bare wrist. "If you liked that bracelet at the auction, then I can buy you something like it," he said coolly. Alicia had to resist the urge to roll her eyes sardonically. She didn't believe for a second that Joshua had a change of heart towards her. "Trying to buy my silence, huh?" Her words were sharp, slicing right through Joshua's tender facade. "No need. I have no desire to be tangled up in your affairs." Joshua hadn't intended to sound like that, but her mocking tone struck a nerve. His jaw clenched, and a bitter smile crossed his lips. "Fine. Don't take it. The money I spend on you is a waste anyway." Alicia bit the inside of her cheek before adding firmly, "Joshua, I already told you. I'm willing to leave this marriage empty-handed. Let's sign the divorce papers tomorrow morning and end this once and for all." His smile twisted into something dark, something dangerous. "What about the ring?" "I lost it." Joshua's eyes narrowed, his tone unrelenting. "I don't care about anything else. I want the ring." She could barely contain her frustration, her breath hitching as he delivered his final blow. "If you can't find it," he said coldly, "I'll assume you're holding onto it because you still care about me." Just then, Joshua's phone rang; it was Lilliana calling. "Joshua." She mewled his name pitifully. "The thunder is so loud. I'm scared to sleep alone... Can you come over?" The car wasn't heading anywhere near Lilliana's and Joshua was furious with Alicia, so without a second thought, he kicked her out into the rain and sped off. He didn't even leave her an umbrella. Alicia stood frozen by the roadside, the downpour quickly soaking through her clothes. The cold rain seeped into her bones, chilling her to the core. Gritting her chattering teeth, she swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth and began trudging along the drenched pavement. Behind her, the soft hum of an engine crept closer. A sleek, low-profile Maybach rolled up beside her, its headlights cutting through the rain. "Mr. Ward," the driver said, glancing back, "I believe that's Ms. Bennett." The car slowed to a stop. Caden glanced out the window, his sharp eyes narrowing on Alicia's lonesome figure. She had just paused, her fingers gathering the fabric of her soaked dress, tying it up to ease her stride. Caden's lips curled into a faint. "Invite her inside," he drawled. The car came to a halt next to Alicia. The driver stepped out, holding a large umbrella over her head, his voice polite. "Ms. Bennett, it's hard to find a cab at this hour. May I offer you a ride home?" Alicia's eyes flicked up, recognizing the man as the Yates family's driver. She hesitated for a moment before nodding, her voice soft but steady. "Thank you. Sorry for the inconvenience." However, as soon as she slipped into the backseat of the car, she locked eyes with its other passenger--Caden. "We meet again so soon, sister-in-law?" His voice, smooth as velvet, carried a hint of mischief. ...... What happens next? Available chapters here are limited, click the button below to install the App and enjoy more exciting chapters (Automatically jump to this novel when you open the app) &9& | LEARN_MORE | https://fbweb.moboreader.net/63310322-fb_contact-e | Good Story | https://www.facebook.com/100090635329790/ | 766 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Learn more | 0 | fbweb.moboreader.net | VIDEO | https://fbweb.moboreader.net/63310322-fb_contact-ena265_2-1025-core2.html?adid={{ad.id}}&char=331118&accid=638434121690371&rawadid=120217275146400091 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/468324220_1667430207167790_1355274708717037359_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=uVj74hHlW8sQ7kNvgG4Pwju&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&_nc_gid=AK44mXB-YS1_fKfwy7gX--k&oh=00_AYDchRc0AVKafT84ijv364typL8oOsYhwgqwR2Kgizpo3Q&oe=67616D35 | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Good Story | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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๊ณ์ ์ฝ๊ธฐ๐ | ๋จํธ์ ๋ฐฐ์ ์ ๋ฐ๊ฒ ๋์๋ค. ๋ชจ๋ ์ฌ๋๋ค์ด ๊ทธ๋ ์ ๋ถํ์ ๋น์์์ง๋ง ๋๊ฐ ์์์ผ๋ด. ๊ณ ์กธ๋ ํ์ง ๋ชปํ ๊ทธ๋ ์ ์ ์ฒด๋ ์ต๊ณ ์ ํด์ปค์ด์ ์ผ๋ฅ ๋ ์ด์์ ์ธ๊ณ์ ์ผ๋ก ์ ๋ช ํ ์ํ๊ต์์์ผ๋ฉฐ ์ ๋ช ํ ๋ณด์ ๋์์ด๋์ธ ๊ฒ์ด๋ค. ===== "์ผ๋ฅธ ์ดํผ ์๋ฅ์ ์๋ช ํ๊ณ ๊ณ ์จ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ์์ ๋๊ฐ! ์์ฐ๋ ํ์ฌ ์ผ ๋๋ฌธ์ ๋ฐ๋น . ๋ํํ ๋ญ๋นํ ์๊ฐ์ด ์๋ ์ ๋ผ๊ณ !" ๊ณ ์์๊ฐ ์ง์ฆ์ ๋๋ค. ์๋จ์ ๋ฐ์น์ ์๋ฅ ํ๋๊ฐ ํญ ๋จ์ด์ก๋ค. ์๋ฅ ์๋์ชฝ์ ์๋ช ์ด ํ๋์ ๋ค์ด์๋ค. ๊ณ ์์ฐ. "์์ฐ ์จ๋ ์ด๋ ์์ฃ ? ์ ์์ฐ ์จ๊ฐ ์ง์ ์์ ๋งํ์ง๋ ์๋ ๊ฑฐ์์?" ์๋จ์ด ๋ฌผ์๋ค. ๊ณ ์์๋ ๋ง์น ์๋จ์ด ํฐ๋ฌด๋์๋ ์ง๋ฌธ์ ํ๋ค๋ ๋ฏ์ด ์ฝ์์์ ์ณค๋ค. "๋ด ๋์์ด ๋ ๊ฐ์ ์ ํํ ์ ๊ฒฝ ์ธ ์๊ฐ์ด ์๋ ์ค ์์?" ๊ณ ์์๋ ์๋จ์ ๋จธ๋ฆฌ๋ถํฐ ๋ฐ๋๊น์ง ํ์ด๋ดค๋ค. ์๋จ์ ์๋ฆ๋ค์ด ์ธ๋ชจ๋ ๋ถ์ ํ ์ ์์๋ค. ๊ณ ์์์กฐ์ฐจ๋ ์๋จ์ ์ฒ์์ ๋ณด๊ณ ๊ฐํํ ์ ๋์์ผ๋ ๋ง์ด๋ค. ํ์ง๋ง ์๋จ์ ์๋ฆ๋ค์ด ์ธ๋ชจ๋ ์ธ์ ๋ ๊ฐ๋ ค์ ธ ์์๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ์ ์ฑ ๋ง์ ์๋จธ๋ฆฌ์ ํฐ ๊ฒ์ ๋ฟํ ์๊ฒฝ์ ๊ทธ๋ ์ ์กฐ๊ทธ๋งํ ์ผ๊ตด์ด ๊ฑฐ์ ๊ฐ๋ ค์ก๊ณ , ๋ ํ๋ ํ ์ด๋๋ณต์ ์ ๊ณ ์์ด์ ๊ท ํ ์กํ ๋ชธ๋งค๋ฅผ ์์ ํ ๊ฐ์ถฐ ๋ฒ๋ ธ๋ค. ๊ณ ์์๋ ์๋จ์ ์ง์์ผ ๋ฐ์ ํ ์ค ๋ชจ๋ฅด๋ ์ฃผ๋ถ์ผ ๋ฟ์ด๋ผ๊ณ ์๊ฐํ๋ค. ์๋จ์ ์ ์ ์ ๊นจ๋ฌผ๋๋ ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์์์ ํฐ๋๋ ธ๋ค. "์ผ ํ๋๋ผ ๋ฐ์ ๊ฑฐ์์? ์๋๋ฉด ํ์ง์ฐ ์จ์ ์๊ฐ ๋ณด๋ด๋๋ผ ๋ฐ์ ๊ฑฐ์์?" ์๋จ์ด ์์ธํ๊ฒ ๋งํ๋ค. ๊ณ ์์ฐ๊ฐ 10๋ ๋์ ์ฌ๋ํ ์ฌ์ ํ์ง์ฐ! 3๋ ๊ฐ์ ์ํ๋ก์ด ๊ฒฐํผ ์ํ ๋์ ๋จน๊ตฌ๋ฆ๋ง๋ฅ ๊ทธ๋ฆผ์๋ฅผ ๋๋ฆฌ์ฐ๊ณ ์์๋ค. ๊ทธ ๋น์, ํ์ง์ฐ๊ฐ ๊ฒฐํผ์ ์๋๊ณ ์ฌ๋ผ์ ธ๋ฒ๋ฆฐ ํ์, ๊ณ ์จ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ์ A์์ ์์๊ฑฐ๋ฆฌ๊ฐ ๋ ๋ปํ๋ค. ์๋จ์ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ํ ์๋ฒ์ง ๊ณ ํ๋์ ํ๋ ์ฝ์์ ์งํค๊ณ , ์ด๋ฆฐ ์์ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์๊ฒ ์ง ๋น์ ๊ฐ๊ธฐ ์ํด ๋ง์ค์ ์์ด ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ๊ฒฐํผํ๋ค. ์๋จ์ ์ํ๋ฅผ ๊ฐ๊ธฐ ์ํด ์์ ์ ์ ์ฒด๋ฅผ ์จ๊ธฐ๊ณ ์์ ์ ๋ชจ๋ ๊ฒ์ ๋จํธ๊ณผ ๊ณ ์จ ์ง์์ ํ์ ํ๋ค. ๊ณ ์จ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ์ ์์ง์จ ์ดํ, ์๋จ์ ์๋ถ๋ชจ๋์ ์ ๋ชจ์ จ๊ณ , ๊ณ ์์๋ฅผ ์ด์ฌํ ๋์๋ค. ๋์ ํฅ์ ๋ง์ ์ฐ๋ ๊ณ ์์๋ ๋์ด ๋ถ์กฑํ ๋๋ง๋ค ์๋จ์๊ฒ ๋์์ ์์ฒญํ๊ณค ํ๋ค. ๊ณ ์์๊ฐ ๋จํธ์๊ฒ ํญํ ๋นํ ๋๋ง๋ค ๊ณ ์จ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ ์ฌ๋๋ค์ ์์ ๋ค์๊ฒ ๋ถ์ ์ ์ธ ์ํฅ์ ๋ฏธ์น ๊น ๋ด ๋ ๋ชจ๋ฅด๋ ์ฒํ๋ค. ์๋จ์ด ๋์์ฃผ์ง ์์๋ค๋ฉด ๊ณ ์์๋ ์ด๋ค ํํ ์ผ์ ๋นํ์์ง ๋ชฐ๋๊ณ , ์์กฐ๋กญ๊ฒ ์ดํผํ ์๋ ์์์ ๊ฒ์ด๋ค. '์ด์ ์์ ๋ ๋ฌด์ํ๊ณ ์๋ ์ฒ์ ํด!' ์ดํผ ํฉ์์์ ์กฐ๊ฑด์ ์ดํด๋ณด๋ ์๋จ์ ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์๋ฅ๋ฅผ ๋ซ๊ณ ํ ์ด๋ธ ์์ ๋ด๋ ค๋์๋ค. "์ดํผ์ ๋์ํ๊ฒ ์ง๋ง, ์์ฐ ์จ ์ฌ์ฐ์ ์ ๋ฐ์ ๋์๊ฒ ์ค์ผ ํด์." ๋๋ผ ๋์ ํฌ๊ฒ ๋ฌ ๊ณ ์์๋ ํ ์ด๋ธ์ ๋ด๋ฆฌ์น๋ฉฐ ๋ฒ๋ก ์ผ์ด์ฐ๋ค. "๊ฟ ๊นจ! ๊ณ ์จ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ์ ์์ง ์ค๋ฉด ๋ค ํ์๊ฐ ํ ๊ฑฐ๋ผ๊ณ ์๊ฐํ๋ ๋ณด์ง? ๋ ํ ํผ๋ ๋ชป ๋ฐ๊ณ ๋๊ฐ๊ฒ ๋ ๊ฑฐ์ผ!" ์๋จ์ ์ฐจ๋ถํ๊ฒ ์์น๋ง๋ฅผ ๋ฒ๊ณ ํ๋ ํ ํ์จ์ด์ ์งํผ๋ฅผ ๋ด๋ ธ๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ฌ์ ๋ชธ๋งค๊ฐ ๋๋ณด์ด๋ ๋งค๋ํ ์์์ ์ฒญ๋ฐ์ง๊ฐ ๋๋ฌ๋ฌ๋ค. ์๋จ์ ์๊ฒฝ์ ๋ฒ๊ณ ๋ฏธ์๋ฅผ ์ง์ผ๋ฉฐ ๊ณ ์์๋ฅผ ๋ฐ๋ผ๋ดค๋ค. "๊ฒฐ์ ์ ํ๋์ด ๋ด๋ฆฌ๋ ๊ฒ ์๋์ฃ . ์์ฐ ์จ์ ์ง์ ์๊ธฐํด ๋ณผ๊ฒ์." ๊ณ ์์๋ ์ด์ค๋ฝ๊ธฐ๋ง ํ๋ ์๋จ์ด ๋๊น์งํ ์ฌ์ด์ ๋ถ์๊ธฐ๊ฐ ํ ๋ค๋ฅธ ์ฌ๋์ผ๋ก ๋ณ์ ํ์ ๊น์ง ๋๋ผ ์ ์ ๋ง๋ฌธ์ด ๋งํ๋ค. ๊ณ ์์๊ฐ ์ ์ ์ ์ฐจ๋ ธ์ ๋, ์๋จ์ ์ด๋ฏธ ์ ๊ตฌ๋ก ๊ฑธ์ด๊ฐ๊ณ ์์๋ค. "์ด๋ ๊ฐ? ๋น์ฅ ์ด๋ฆฌ ์์ ์๋ฅ์ ์๋ช ํ์ง ๋ชปํด!" ๊ณ ์์๊ฐ ์๋ฆฌ์ณค๋ค. ๋ถ๋ ธ์ ์ฌ๋ก์กํ ๊ณ ์์๋ ์๋ฅ๋ฅผ ์์ผ์ฅ๊ณ ๋ฉ์ด์ ธ๊ฐ๋ ์๋จ์๊ฒ ๋์ก๋ค. ์ข ์ด๊ฐ ๊ณต์ค์ ํ๋ญ์ด๋ฉฐ ์๋จ์ ์์ฌ์์ฌํ๊ฒ ์ง๋์ณค๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ฆฌ๊ณ ๋ฐ์ผ๋ก ๋๊ฐ์๋ง์ ์ฌ๋นจ๋ฆฌ ์ ํ๋ฅผ ๊ฑธ์๋ค. "๊ณ ์์ฐ๊ฐ ์ด๋ ์๋์ง ์๋ ค์ค." ์คํ 4์๊ฐ ๋์ ์ฝ๋์ธ๊ทธ ํ ๋๊ฐ ๋ฅ์ํ๊ฒ ๊ตํต์ฒด์ฆ์ ํค์น๊ณ ๋๊ฐ๋ฉฐ ๊ณ ์๋๋ก๋ฅผ ์ง์ฃผํ๋ค. "์ฐพ์์ด. ์ฑ์ฌ ๋๊ทน์ฅ์ ์๋ค. GPS ์ค์ ํด ๋จ์ด." ๋ธ๋ฃจํฌ์ค ์คํผ์ปค์์ ์ฝ๊ฐ ๋ถ์ํ ๋ฏํ ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๊ฐ ํ๋ฌ ๋์๋ค. "๋จ์, ์ฑ๊ธํ๊ฒ ํ๋ํ์ง ๋ง. ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ ๊ทธ๋ด ๊ฐ์น๊ฐ ์๋ ์ฌ๋์ด์ผ..." ์ง์ฆ๋๊ธฐ๋ ํ๊ณ ์ฐ์ต๊ธฐ๋ ํ ์๋จ์ ๋์น์ ์ฐํธ๋ฆฌ๋ฉฐ ๋งํ๋ค. "๊ฑฑ์ ๋ง. ๋ด๊ฐ ์ ๊ทธ๋ฌ๊ฒ ์ด." "๊ทธ์ผ..." ์ ํ ๋ฐ๋ํธ์์ ์ํฌ์ฐ์ด ๋ฐ๋ฐํ๋ค. "๋๋ ํ์์๋ ์นจ์ฐฉํ ์ ์ง๋ง, ์ด ์ด ๋ ๋๋ฅผ ๊ตฌํด์ค ์ฌ๋์ด ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ผ๋ ๊ฑธ ์๊ฒ ๋ ์ดํ๋ก ์์ ํ ๋ฌ๋ผ์ก์์. ๋ค ๊ฐ์น๋ฅผ ์์๋ณด์ง ๋ชปํ๋ ์ฌ๋ ๋๋ฌธ์ ์ ์์ ์ ํฌ์ํ๋ ค๋ ๊ฑฐ์ผ? ๊ทธ ์ฌ๋์ ์ํด ์ง์ง ์ ๋ถ๊ณผ ๋ฅ๋ ฅ๊น์ง ์จ๊ธฐ๊ณ ... ๋์ฒด ์ ๊ทธ๋ฌ๋ ๊ฑด๋ฐ?" "๊ทธ๋งํด!" ์๋จ์ด ์๋ฆฌ์ณค๋ค. "๊ทธ ์ฌ๋ ๋๋ฌธ์ ๊ทธ๋ฌ๋ ๊ฑฐ ์๋์ผ. ๋, ์ฐ๋ฆฌ ์ง์ ์ํฉ์ด ์ง๊ธ ์ผ๋ง๋ ๋ณต์กํ์ง ์์์." ์ํฌ์ฐ์ด ๋จ์ง ๊ทธ๋ ๊ฐ ๊ฑฑ์ ๋ผ์ ํ๋ ๋ง์ด๋ผ๋ ๊ฑธ ๊นจ๋ซ๊ณ ์๋จ์ ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ๋ฎ์ท๋ค. "๊ฑฑ์ ๋ง. ๊ทธ๋ฅ ์ดํผํ๋ ค๊ณ ๊ทธ๋ฌ๋ ๊ฑฐ๋๊น." "๋ญ? ๋ง์์ฌ..." ์ํฌ์ฐ์ด ํ ์๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ๋๋ค. ์ํฌ์ฐ์ด ํฐ ์๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ๋ด๊ธฐ ์ ์ ์๋จ์ ์ฌ๋นจ๋ฆฌ ์ ํ๋ฅผ ๋์๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ์์ ์ ์ธ๊ฒ ๋ฐ์ผ๋ฉฐ ๋ฏธ์๋ฅผ ์ง์๋ค. ์๋จ์ ์์ ๊ฐ๋ก๋ง๊ณ ์๋ ๋ถ๊ฐํฐ๋ฅผ ๋ฅ์ํ๊ฒ ํผํ ๋ค์ ๋น ๋ฅธ ์๋๋ก ๋ฌ๋ ค๋๊ฐ๊ธฐ ์์ํ๋ค. ํํธ, ๊ฒ์์ ๋ถ๊ฐํฐ์ ๋ท์ข์์ ์์ ๋จ์๊ฐ ์ฐจ๊ฐ์ด ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๋ก ๋งํ๋ค. "์ฝ๋์ธ๊ทธ๋ฅผ ๋ฐ๋ผ๊ฐ. ๋ฐ์ฒ์ฃผ์๊ฒ ๋ค์ ๊ต์ฐจ๋ก์์ ์ ์ฐจ๋ฅผ ๋ง์ผ๋ผ๊ณ ์๋ ค." ๋น์๋ ์ฐจ ์๋๋ฅผ ๋์ด๋ฉฐ ๋จ๋ฆฌ๋ ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๋ก ๋ฌผ์๋ค. "๋ํ๋, ์ ์ฐจ๊ฐ ๋ฌด์จ ๋ฌธ์ ๋ผ๋ ์์ต๋๊น?" ๋จ์๋ ๋ฑ์ ๊ธฐ๋๊ณ ์ ์ ์ ์ด์ง ๋ฒ๋ฆฌ๋๋ ์ค์ผ๊ฑฐ๋ ธ๋ค. "์ค๋๋ง์ด์ผ, ํธ๋ผ์ด์ธํธ." ์ 2ํ ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ํธ๋ผ์ด์ธํธ ํธ๋ผ์ด์ธํธ? ์ด์ ์์ ์์ ์๋ ์จ์งํ์ ๋๋ผ ์์ฐํ๋ค. ์๋ ๊ฐ ์ธ๋๊ทธ๋ผ์ด๋ ๋ ์ด์ฑ ๋ญํน ์์๋ฅผ ์ฅ์ ํ๋ฉฐ ์ฑํผ์ธ์ผ๋ก ํ์ฝํ๋ ์ ์ค์ ์ธ ๊ทธ ํธ๋ผ์ด์ธํธ๊ฐ ์ ์ฌ๋์ด๋ผ๊ณ ? ํธ๋ผ์ด์ธํธ๋ 3๋ ์ ์ ํ์ ๋ ์์ด ์ฌ๋ผ์ง์ง ์์์๋? ํธ๋ผ์ด์ธํธ๊ฐ ์ ์ง๊ธ ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ A์์ ๋ํ๋ ๊ฑธ๊น? ๊ฒ๋ค๊ฐ ์ธ๋ จ๋ ์ฝ๋์ธ๊ทธ์ ์ด์ ์๋ ์ฌ์ฑ์ธ ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ฌ๋ ๋ท์ข์์ ์์ ๋จ์๊ฐ ํ์ ์ ๋ด์ ๋งํ์ ์จ์งํ์ ์๋ฌด ๋ง๋ ํ์ง ์์๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ์์ ๊ฐ๋ ์ฐจ์ ์จ์ ํ ์ง์คํ๋ฉฐ ์ ๋ ๋์น์ง ์์ ๊ฑฐ๋ผ ๊ฒฐ์ฌํ๋ค. ์๋จ์ ๋ถ๊ฐํฐ๋ฅผ ์ถ์ํ๋ฉด์ ์ผ์ชฝ ์ฌ์ด๋ ๋ฏธ๋ฌ๋ฅผ ํ๊น ๋ณด๋ฉฐ ๋์ด์ ์ฐํธ๋ ธ๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ๋ธ๋ฃจํฌ์ค ์ด์ดํฐ์ ๋๋๋ฆฌ๋ฉฐ ์ฐจ๋ถํ๋ฉด์๋ ๋จํธํ ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๋ก ๋งํ๋ค. "ํฌ์ฐ์, ์์ฑ์ ์ ์ํด. 8์ ๋ฐฉํฅ์ ๋ถ๊ฐํฐ๊ฐ ๋ฐ๋ผ์ค๊ณ ์์ด. ์ฐจ์ฃผ๋ฅผ ํ์ธํด์ค." ์ํฌ์ฐ์ ๋นํฉํ์ง๋ง ์ฌ๋นจ๋ฆฌ ๊ทธ๋ ์ ๋ง์ ๋ฐ๋๋ค. ์ฐจ์ฃผ๋ฅผ ์์๋ธ ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ํ์จ์ ์ฌ๋ฉฐ ์ด์ดํฐ์ ๋๊ณ ๋งํ๋ค. "๋ฐฐ์จ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ์ ์ฐจ์ผ. ์ด ์ฐจ ์ฃผ์ธ์... ๋ฐฐ๋ํค์ด์ผ!" ์๋จ์ ๋์๋ ๋๋ ๊ธฐ์์ด ์ญ๋ ฅํ๋ค. "๋ง๋ ์ ๋ผ. ์ด๋ป๊ฒ ์๋ ์ฌ์ด์ผ?" ์ํฌ์ฐ์ด ๋นํฉํ ๋ฏ ๋งํ๋ค. "์ง๋๋ฌ ํด์ธ ๊ธ์ต ์ค์ฌ์ง ์ธ ์คํธ๋ฆฌํธ์์ ๋์์๋ค๋ ์์์ ๋ค์์ด. ์ด๋ฏธ A์๋ฅผ ๋ค์ง์ด ๋์๊ณ ์ค๋๋ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ๋ค ์ฌ์ด์ ๊ถ๋ ฅ ๊ตฌ๋๊น์ง ๋ฐ๊ฟ๋์๋." ์ํฌ์ฐ์ด ๋ง์ค์ด๋ค๊ฐ ์์ฌ์ค๋ฌ์ด ๋ฏ์ด ๋ฌผ์๋ค. "๋, ๋ฐฐ์จ ๊ทธ๋ฃน ์ฌ๋์ด๋ ๋ญ... ์์์ด?" "์ผ!" ์๋จ์ด ๋ธ๋ฃจํฌ์ค ์ด์ดํฐ์ ๋๋๋ฆฌ๋ฉฐ ์ฒด๋ ํ ๋ฏ ๋งํ๋ค. "์๋ฌด๋ฆฌ ๋๋ผ๋ ๊ทธ ์ ๋๋ก ์์ฌ์ด ๋ง์ง๋ ์์. ๊ฒ๋ค๊ฐ ์ง๋ 3๋ ๋์ ๋๋ A์์ ์์๋ค๊ณ . ํด์ธ๋ก ์ฌํ์ ๊ฐ ๋๋ง๋ค ํ์ ์ด ๋จ๊ธฐ์ง ์์ผ๋ ค๊ณ , ์ ๋ถ ์์กฐ๊น์ง ํ๋ฉด์ ๋ค๋ ์ด. ์ผ๋ง๋ ๋ฒ๊ฑฐ๋ก์ด๋ฐ. ๋ด๊ฐ ๋ฐฐ์จ ๊ทธ๋ฃน ์ฌ๋๋ค์ ๊ฑด๋๋ฆด ์๊ฐ์ด๋ ์์์ ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์?" ์ํฌ์ฐ์ ์์ ์ ์ค์๋ฅผ ๊นจ๋ซ๊ณ ์๋๋ฌ ๋งํ๋ค. "๋ง์, ์ด๊ฒ ๋ค ๊ณ ์์ฐ ๋๋ฌธ์ด์ผ. ๊ทธ ์ฌ๋๋ง ์๋์์ด๋ ๋๋..." "๋์ด. ๋ถ๊ฐํฐ์ ์ค๋งํธ ์์คํ ์ ์๊ฒฉ์ผ๋ก ํดํนํ ์ ์์๊น? ์ง๊ธ ๋น์ฅ ํด๊ฒฐํ์ง ์์ผ๋ฉด ๋ฐฐ๋ํค์ ๋ด๊ฐ ํ์ฅ์์ ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ฅผ ์ก๋ ๊ฑธ ๋ณด๊ฒ ๋ ๊ฑฐ์ผ." ์๋จ์ ๋ค์ ๋ฐฑ๋ฏธ๋ฌ๋ฅผ ํ๋ ์ณ๋ค๋ดค๋ค. ๋ถ๊ฐํฐ๊ฐ ์ ์ ๋ ๊ฑฐ๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ์ขํ๋ฉฐ ๋ค๊ฐ์ค๊ณ ์์๋ค. "์ ๋ผ!" ์ํฌ์ฐ์ด ๊ธด๋ฐํ ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๋ก ๋งํ๋ค. "์๋ ์๋ ๋ชจ๋ ๋ ๋ค ๋ฌ๋ ค์๋ ์ฐจ์ผ. ๋จ์ํ ์์คํ ์ ์ค๋จํ๋ ๊ฒ๋ง์ผ๋ก๋ ํจ๊ณผ๊ฐ ์๋ค๊ณ !" ์๋จ์ ์ด๋ง๋ฅผ ๋์ฑ ์ธ๊ฒ ์ฐํธ๋ฆฌ๋ฉฐ ์ ์ ์ด๋ ค๋ ์๊ฐ ์ํฌ์ฐ์ด ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ๋ค๊ธํ ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๋ก ๋งํ๋ค. "๋จ์, ์๋ ๋ฆ์ถฐ! 2ํฌ๋ก๋ฏธํฐ ์ ๊ต์ฐจ๋ก์์ ๋ฐ๋ฆฌ์ผ์ด๋๊ฐ ์ณ์ ธ ์์ด!" ๋จผ์ง์ ์ํด๋ก ๋ค์์ธ ์๊ฐ๊ฐ ๊ฑทํ๊ณ ์๊ธธ์ด ๋๋ฌ๋์, ์๋จ์ ์ง์ฆ์ ๋ด๋ฉฐ ๋งํ๋ค. "์ ๋ง ๋ฉ์ง ๊ด๊ฒฝ์ด๋ค." ๋น ๋ฅธ ์๋๋ก ๋ฌ๋ฆฌ๋ ์ฝ๋์ธ๊ทธ๋ ๊ณง ์์์ ๋ค๊น์ง ๋ป์ ๋ฐ๋ฆฌ์ผ์ด๋์ ๊ฐํ ๋ฉ์ถ ์๋ฐ์ ์์๋ค. ์๋จ์ ์์คํํธ ๋๋ก ์์์ ์์ ํ ๊ถ์ง์ ๋ชฐ๋ฆฌ๊ณ ๋ง์๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ์ ์์๋ ์คํฌ์ธ ์นด 6๋๊ฐ, ๊ทธ๋ ๋ค์๋ ๋ถ๊ฐํฐ๊ฐ ์ํ๋น๋นํ๊ฒ ๊ฐ๋ก๋ง๊ณ ์ ์์๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ์ข์์ ๊ธฐ๋์์ ํฅ๋ฏธ๋กญ๋ค๋ ๋ฏ์ด ๋์น์ ์น์ผ์ฌ๋ ธ๋ค. ์ ๋์ ์๋ ํ๋ผ๋ฆฌ์ ์ด์ ์๊ฐ ๋ฌด๋ฆฌ์ ์ฐ๋๋จธ๋ฆฌ๊ฐ ๋ถ๋ช ํ๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ์๋จ์๊ฒ ์ฐจ์์ ๋ด๋ ค ๋ํ๋ฅผ ๋๋์๊ณ ์์งํ๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ผ์๋ ๋ถ๊ตฌํ๊ณ ์๋จ์ ์์ ์ ๋ฐฑ๋ฏธ๋ฌ์ ๋น์น ๋ถ๊ฐํฐ์ ๊ณ ์ ๋์ด ์์๋ค. ๊ฑฐ๋ฆฌ๊ฐ ๋ฉ์ด์ ์ด์ ์์ ์ผ๊ตด์ด ๊ฒจ์ฐ ๋ณด์๋ค. ๋ท์ข์์ ์์ ๋ฐฐ๋ํค์ ๋ชจ์ต์ ์ฝ๊ฐ ๊ฐ๋ ค์ ธ ์์์ง๋ง, ์ด์ง ๋ณด์ด๋ ๊ฒ์ ์ ์ฅ์ ์ฌ์ ํ ์์์ ์ธ ์์ฐ๋ผ๋ฅผ ๋ด๋ฟ๊ณ ์์๋ค. ์จ์งํ์ ์ฝ๋์ธ๊ทธ๊ฐ ํ์ฐธ ๋์ ์์ง์ด์ง ์๋ ๊ฒ์ ๋ณด๊ณ ๋ท์ข์์ ํ๋ ๋ณด๋ฉฐ ๋งํ๋ค. "๋ํ๋, ๋ฐ์ฒ์ฃผ๋ฅผ ์์ผ์ ์ต์ง๋ก ๋์ด๋ด๋ฆฌ๋ผ๊ณ ํ ๊น์?" ๋ฐฐ๋ํค์ ๋ค๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ๊ผฌ๊ณ ์์ ์ค์ง ์๊ฐ๋ฝ์ ๋ผ์์ง ํฌ๋ฅด๋ง๋ฆฐ ๋ฐ์ง๋ฅผ ๋ฌด์ฌํ๊ฒ ๋๋ฆฌ๋ฉฐ ๋งํ๋ค. "๊ธฐ๋ค๋ ค." ๋ฐฐ๋ํค์ ๋๊บผ์ด ์ฐจ์ฐฝ ๋๋จธ๋ก ์์ฐจ์ ํ ์๋จ๊ณผ ์์ ์ ๋ง์ฃผ์น๋ ๋ฏํ๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ์๊ฒ ์์์ ํฐ๋จ๋ ธ๋ค. "์ด๋ ๊ฒ ์ฝ๊ฒ ์กํ๋ฉด ํธ๋ผ์ด์ธํธ๊ฐ ์๋์ง." ์๋จ์ ์ธ๋ด์ฌ์ด ํ๊ณ์ ๋ค๋ค๋๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ์์ชฝ์ ๊ตํต ์ํฉ์ ์ดํด๋ณด์๋ค. ์๋ ๋ฌด๋ฆฌ๋ ์ฃผ์ ํ๋ ๋ฏํด ๋ณด์๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๋ฅผ ์ฐจ์์ ๋์ด๋ด๋ฆฌ๋ ค๊ณ ํ๋ ๋์ ์๋ก ์ ํธ๋ง ์ฃผ๊ณ ๋ฐ์ ๋ฟ์ด์๋ค. "ํฌ์ฐ์, ์ฑ์ฌ ๋๊ทน์ฅ์ผ๋ก ๊ฐ๋ ๋ค๋ฅธ ๊ธธ์ด ์์ด? ์ฐพ์์ค." ์๋จ์ด ๋ฌผ์๋ค. ์ํฌ์ฐ์ด ์๊ฐ๋ฝ์ผ๋ก ํ๋ฉด ์์์ ๋ฐ์๊ฒ ์์ง์ด๋ ๊ฑฑ์ ์ด๋ฆฐ ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๋ก ๋งํ๋ค. "ํ๋ ์๊ธด ํ๋ฐ, ์ด ๊ต์ฐจ๋ก๋ฅผ ์ง๋์ผ ํด. ๋์น ์ํฉ์์๋ ๋ถ๊ฐ๋ฅํ ๊ฑฐ๋ ๋ค๋ฆ ์์ด!" '๋ต, ๊ฒฝ๋ก๊ฐ ๋ณ๊ฒฝ๋์์ต๋๋ค. ์์ ์๊ฐ 5๋ถ ๋จ์ถ๋ฉ๋๋ค...' ์๋จ์ ๋ด๋น๊ฒ์ด์ ์์คํ ์ ์๋์ํจ ํ, ๋ชธ์ ๋๋ฐ๋ก ์ธ์ฐ๊ณ ํธ๋๋ธ๋ ์ดํฌ๋ฅผ ์กฐ์ ํ๋ฉฐ ์์ ์ ๋ฐ์๋ค. ์์ง์ ์ฐ๋ ์ฐฌ ์์์ ๊ทธ ๋ฌด๋ฆฌ์ ํ์ ์ด ๋ฐ๋์๋ค. ์ฐ๋๋จธ๋ฆฌ๋ ๋ค์ ์๋ ๋ถ๊ฐํฐ๋ก๋ถํฐ ์ ํธ๋ฅผ ๋ฐ์ ๋ฏ ํต์ ์๋๋ฅผ ์ค๋จํ๊ณ ๋ถํ๋ค์ ์๋จ ์ชฝ์ผ๋ก ๋ณด๋๋ค. ๋ชธ์ธ์๊น์ง ๊ฐ์คํ ๋ฏ ๋น์ฅํด ๋ณด์๋ค. ์๋จ์ ์ผ๊ตด์ ๋ฏธ์๊ฐ ๋ฒ์ก๋ค. ๋จ์๋ค์ด ํ ํ ๋ผ ๊ฑฐ๋ฆฌ๊น์ง ๋ค๊ฐ์จ ์๊ฐ, ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ํธ๋ค์ ํ ๋๋ฆฌ๋ฉฐ ์์ ์ ๋ฐ์๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ๊ตฌ๊ฒฝ๊พผ๋ค์ ๋๋ ์์ ์ ๋ฐ์ผ๋ฉฐ ์ฐจ๋ ์ฌ์ด๋ก ๊ธ๊ฒฉํ๊ฒ ๋ฌ๋ ค๋๊ฐ๋ค. "๋ด๊ฐ ์ง๋๊ฐ ์ ์๋ ๊ธธ์ ์์ง!" ์ ํ ๋ฐ๋ํธ์์ ์ํฌ์ฐ์ด ๊ธฐ๋ปํ๋ฉฐ ์๋ฆฌ์ณค์ง๋ง, ๊ทธ๋ ์ ํฅ๋ถ์ ๊ณง ๊ฑฑ์ ์ผ๋ก ๋ฐ๋์๋ค. "๋ฐฐ๋ํค์ ๋ฐ๋ฆฌ์ผ์ด๋๋ฅผ ๋ซ์์ผ๋, ์ด์ ์ ์ชฝ๊ณผ๋ ์์๊ฐ ๋ ๊ฑด๊ฐ?" ์๋จ์ด ๋น์์๋ค. "์ ์ชฝ์์ ๋จผ์ ์๋น ๊ฑธ์์์. ๊ทธ๋ฆฌ๊ณ ์ ํ๋ ๋ ์๊ธด๋ค๊ณ ๋ฌ๋ผ์ง ๊ฒ ๋ญ์ผ?" ๊ทธ๋ ๊ฐ ๋ ๋ ๋ค์๋ ์๋์ฐจ ๋ฐํด๊ฐ ๊ธ๊ฒฉํ๊ฒ ํด์ ํ๋ ๋ ์นด๋ก์ด ์๋ฆฌ๊ฐ ํ์ฐธ ๋์ ๊ณต์ค์ ๋งด๋์๋ค. ์ฌ๋ฌด์ค๋ก ๋์์จ ๋ฐ์ฒ์ฃผ๋ ๊ฒ์ ์ง๋ฆฌ ์ผ๊ตด๋ก ๋ฐฐ๋ํค์ ๋ง์ฃผํ๋ค. "์ฃ์กํฉ๋๋ค, ๋ํ๋. ํธ๋ผ์ด์ธํธ๋ฅผ ๋ง๋ ๋ฐ ์คํจํ์ต๋๋ค. ์ด๋ค ๋ฒ์ด๋ ๋ฌ๊ฒ ๋ฐ๊ฒ ์ต๋๋ค." ๋ฐฐ๋ํค์ ๋ฐ๋ฅ๋ถํฐ ์ฒ์ฅ๊น์ง ๋ฟ๋ ์ปค๋ค๋ ์ฐฝ๋ฌธ ์์ ์์ A์๋ฅผ ๋ด๋ ค๋ค๋ดค๋ค. ๊ทธ์ ์์ ์ ํ ๊ฑด๋ฌผ์ ๊ณ ์ ๋์ด ์์๋ค. "๊ทธ ์ฝ๋์ธ๊ทธ, ๊ณ ์จ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ๊ณผ ๊ด๋ จ์ด ์๋?" ์จ์งํ์ ์ฌ๋นจ๋ฆฌ ํ๋ธ๋ฆฟ์ ์กฐ์ํ๋ฉฐ ๋๋ตํ๋ค. "๊ธฐ๋ก์ ๋ฐ๋ฅด๋ฉด ์ด ์ฐจ๋ 3๋ ์ ์ ๊ตฌ์ ํ ๊ฒ์ผ๋ก, ์ฃผ๋ก ๊ณ ์์ฐ ์จ์ ๊ทธ์ ์๋ฒ์ง๊ฐ ์ฌ์ฉํ์ต๋๋ค." ์จ์งํ์ ์ ์ ๋ฉ์นซํ๋๋ ๊ณ์ํด์ ๋งํ๋ค. "์ค๋ ๊ทธ ์ฐจ๋ฅผ ๋ชฌ ๊ฑด ๊ณ ์จ์ฐ ์จ์ ์๋ด, ์๋จ์ด๋ผ๋ ์ฌ๋์ธ๋ฐ... ๊ทธ๋ถ์ด ํธ๋ผ์ด์ธํธ์ผ ๋ฆฌ๋ ์์ด์." ๋ฐ์ฒ์ฃผ๊ฐ ์ฝ์ธ๊ฒ ์จ์งํ์ ๋ง์ ๊ฐ๋ก๋ง์๋ค. "๋ง๋ ์ ๋ผ์! ์จ ๋น์๋๋ ๊ทธ ์ฌ์๊ฐ ๋ฐ๋ฆฌ์ผ์ด๋๋ฅผ ์ด๋ป๊ฒ ๋ถ์๋์ง ๋ณด์ จ์์์. ๊ทธ ์ฌ์๊ฐ ํธ๋ผ์ด์ธํธ๊ฐ ์๋๋ผ๋ฉด, ์ด๋ป๊ฒ ๊ทธ๋ฐ ๊ฑธ ํด๋ผ ์ ์๊ฒ ์ต๋๊น? ํธ๋ผ์ด์ธํธ๊ฐ ํ๋ฆผ์์ด์!" ๊ณ์ํด์ ๋ฐ์ดํฐ๋ฅผ ์ดํผ๋ ์จ์งํ์ ํ์ ์ด ๊ตณ์ด์ก๋ค. "๊ธฐ๋ก์ ๋ฐ๋ฅด๋ฉด, ์๋จ ์จ๋ ์ํ ์ ์์ฌ ์ฌ์ฅ์ ๋ธ๋ก, ํ๋ฒํ ์ง์ ์ถ์ ์ ๋๋ค. ์ด๋จธ๋๋ ์ผ์ฐ ๋์๊ฐ์ จ๊ณ , ์๋ฒ์ง์ ์ฌํผ ํ ์ด๋ณต ์ค๋น ์ ์ด๋ณต ์ธ๋๊ฐ ์๊ธฐ๋ ๋ฐ๋์ ๊ณ ๋ฑํ๊ต๋ฅผ ๊ทธ๋ง๋๊ณ ๋ค๋ฅธ ๋์๋ก ์ด์ฌํด์ผ ํ์ต๋๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ฌ๋์ด ์ด๋ป๊ฒ ๋ ธ๋ฆฐ์ฐ ๊ฒฝ์ฃผ์์ ์ฐ์น๊น์ง ๊ฑฐ๋จธ์ฅ ๋ ์ด์๊ฐ ๋ ์ ์์์๊น์?" ๋ง๋ฌธ์ด ๋งํ ๋ฐ์ฒ์ฃผ๋ ๋ณธ๋ฅ์ ์ผ๋ก ๋ฐฐ๋ํค์๊ฒ๋ก ์์ ์ ๋๋ ธ๋ค. ํค๊ฐ ํค์น ํ ๋ฐฐ๋ํค์ ์กด์ฌ ์์ฒด๋ง์ผ๋ก๋ ์๋์ ์ธ ์กด์ฌ๊ฐ์ ๋๋ฌ๋ด๊ณ ์์๋ค. ๋ฐฐ๋ํค์ ๋ฌด์ฌํ ํํ ํ๋ฆฝ ์๊ณ๋ฅผ ๋ง์ง์๊ฑฐ๋ฆฌ๋ฉฐ ๋ฌ๊ธ์์ด ์์์ ํฐ๋จ๋ ธ๋ค. ๊ทธ์ ๊ฐ์์ค๋ฐ ์์์ ๊ณ์ ์๋ ๋ ์ฌ๋์ ๋ชธ์ด ์ค์นํด๋ฌ๋ค. "๋ค์ ์ฃผ์ ์์ ํํฐ์ ๊ณ ์จ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ์ ์ด๋ํด." ์ฝ๋์ธ๊ทธ๋ ์ฑ์ฌ ๋๊ทน์ฅ ๋ฌธ ๋ฐ์์ ๋ผ์ต ์๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ๋ด๋ฉฐ ๋ฉ์ท๋ค. ์ธ๋ จ๋๊ณ ์น์ํ ์ท์ ์ ๊ณ ์ฝ๋์ธ๊ทธ์์ ๋ด๋ ค ๋จผ์ง๊ฐ ์์ฑํ ๊ธธ์ ๊ฑธ์ด์ค๋ ์๋จ์ ๋ชจ์ต์ ๋ ์ด์ ๊ณ ์์ฐ๊ฐ ์๊ณ ์๋ ๋ณด์์ ์ธ ์ฃผ๋ถ๊ฐ ์๋์๋ค. ๊ณ ์์ฐ๊ฐ ์ง์ฆ์ ๋ด๋ฉฐ ์ด๋์์ง ํ์ ์ผ๋ก ์๋ฆฌ์ณค๋ค. "์๋จ..." ์๋จ์ ์ฅ๋๊ธฐ ๊ฐ๋ํ๋ฉด์๋ ์ํ์ ์ธ ๋ฏธ์๋ฅผ ์ง๋๋ ์๋์ฐจ ์ด์ ๋ฅผ ๊ฐ๋ณ๊ฒ ํ๋ค๋ฉฐ ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ฅผ ํฅํด ๋ค๊ฐ๊ฐ๋ค. "์๋ํ ๊ณ ๋ํ๋์ ๋ด์ฐ๋ ์ฝ์ํธ ๋ณด๋ฌ ๊ฐ ์๊ฐ์ ์์ผ๋ฉด์ ์ดํผํ ์๊ฐ์ ์์ผ์ ๊ฐ ๋ด์. ๊ทธ๋์ ๋ด๊ฐ ์ง์ ์ดํผ ์๋ฅ๋ฅผ ๋ค๊ณ ์์ฃ ." ๋ณํจ์์ด ํ์ง์ฐ๋ฅผ ๊ฐ์ธ๊ณ ๋๋ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ๋ชจ์ต์ ์๋จ์ ์กฐ๊ธ ์์ธํด์ก๋ค. ์๋จ์ด ์ ์ธํ๋ค. "๊ณ ์์ฐ, ๊ทธ๋ ๊ฒ ์ฌ๋ํ๋ ์ฌ๋ ๊ณ์ ์๊ณ ์ถ์ผ๋ฉด, ์ดํผ ์๋ฅ์ ์๋ช ํ๊ณ ์ฌ์ฐ์ ๋๊ฐ์ด ๋๋๋๋ก ํ์. ํ์ง๋ง ๋จ ํ ํผ์ด๋ผ๋ ์ ๊ฒ ์ฃผ๋ฉด ์ดํผ์ ๋์ํ์ง ์์ ๊ฑฐ์ผ. ๊ทธ๋ ๊ฒ ๋๋ฉด ๋น์ ๊ณผ ๋น์ ์ ์ฐ์ธ์ ํ์์ ๋ถ๋ฅ์ด๋ผ๋ ๋ง์ ๋ค์ผ๋ฉฐ ์ด ์ ๋ฐ์ ์๊ฒ ๋๊ฒ ์ง." ์ 3ํ ๋ด ๋น์ฐธํ ๊ฒฐํผ ์ํ๊ณผ ํจ๊ป ์นจ๋ชฐํ์ด ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ ํ์์ ์์ข ์ ์ด๊ณ ๋ค๋ฃจ๊ธฐ ์ฌ์ด ์๋ด๊ฐ ์ด๋ ๊ฒ ๋ณํ ์ค์ ์ ํ ์์ํ์ง ๋ชปํ๋ค. "๊ฟ ๊นจ!" ๊ณ ์์ฐ๊ฐ ์ง์ฆ์ ๋ด๋ฉฐ ์ด๋์์ง ํ์ ์ผ๋ก ์๋ฆฌ์ณค๋ค. "๊ทธ๋งํด, ์๋จ. ๋ด ๊ด์ฌ์ ๋๊ธฐ ์ํด์ ์ด๋ฐ ์ง์ ํ๋ ๊ฑฐ๋ผ๋ฉด ์ด์ ๊ทธ๋ง ๋ฌ." ๊ทธ๊ฐ ๊ฒฝ๊ณ ํ๋ ๋ฏํ ๋๋น์ผ๋ก ๋งํ๋ค. "๊ทธ๋ด์๋ก ๋ ์ ์ด ๋จ์ด์ง ๋ฟ์ด๋ผ๊ณ ." ์๋จ์ ์ฒ์์ผ๋ก ๊ณ ์์ฐ๊ฐ ์์ ์ ๋ํด ์ ์๋ ๋ฏ์ด ์ ๋ฉ๋๋ก ๋งํ์ ํฅ๋ฏธ๋ฅผ ๋๊ผ๋ค. "๋ ์๊ธฐํ๋๋ฐ ๊ฐ์ ์๊ธฐ๋ ์ ๊บผ๋ด? ์ญ๊ฒน์ง๋ ์์?" ์๋จ์ ๋ ์ฌ๋์ ํฅํด ์ฑ๊ธ ์์ผ๋ฉฐ ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ฅผ ํฅํด ๋ ์นด๋กญ๊ฒ ๋งํ๋ค. "ํ์ง์ฐ ์จ๊ฐ ๊ทธ๋ ๊ฒ ์ข์์ผ๋ฉด ๋ฐ๋ผ์ ํด์ธ๋ก ๊ฐ๋ฒ๋ฆฌ์ง ๊ทธ๋ฌ์ด? ์ ๋์ ๊ฒฐํผํ ๊ฑฐ์ผ? ๊ทธ ์ ๋๋ก ์ฌ๋์ด ๊น์ง๋ ์์๋ ๋ณด์ง?" ๊ทธ๋ ์ ๋ง์ ์ ๊ณก์ ์ฐ๋ฆฐ ๊ณ ์์ฐ๊ฐ ์ฌ๋นจ๋ฆฌ ๋๋ตํ๋ค. "ํ ์๋ฒ์ง๊ฐ ๊ณ ์จ ๊ทธ๋ฃน์ ์ด์ฉํด ๋๋ฅผ ํ๋ฐํ๋ ๊ฑฐ ์์์. ๊ทธ๋ ์ง ์๊ณ ์์ผ ๋ด๊ฐ ์ง์ฐ๊ฐ ๋ ๋๋ ๊ฑธ ๊ฐ๋งํ ์์์ ์ง์ผ๋ดค์ ๋ฆฌ๊ฐ..." "๊ทธ๋ฌ๋๊น, ๋ ๋๋ฌธ์ด๋ผ๋ ๊ฑฐ์์?" ์๋จ์ด ๋ ์นด๋กญ๊ฒ ๋ฐ๋ฐํ๋ค. "๊ทธ๋ผ ๊ทธ ์ง์ ํ ์ฌ๋์ด๋ผ๋ ๊ฒ๋ ๊ณ ์จ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ์ ์ฌ์ฐ ์์ ์์์๋ ์๋ฌด๊ฒ๋ ์๋ ๊ฑฐ๋ค?" ์๋จ์ด ์กฐ๋กฑํ๋ฏ์ด ์์๋ค. "๊ณ ์์ฐ ์จ, ์ฌ๋ ๋ฐ์ ๋ชจ๋ฅด๋ ์น์ ๋จ์ธ ์ฒ ์ข ๊ทธ๋งํด!" ๋ชจ๋์ ์์์ ์์ ์ ์์ ์ด ๋ฐํ์ง์, ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ์ผ๊ตด์ด ๋ฒ๊ฒ๊ฒ ๋ฌ์์ฌ๋๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ํ์ง์ฐ๊ฐ ๋์ ์ฌ๋ ค ๊น์ ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๋ก ์ฌ๋นจ๋ฆฌ ๊ทธ๋ฅผ ๋ณํธํ๊ธฐ ์์ํ๋ค. "์๋จ ์จ, ์์ฐ ์จ์ ๋ด ์ฌ์ด๋ฅผ ๊ทธ๋ ๊ฒ ํ์ด๋์ผ๊ฒ ์ด์? ์์ฐ ์จ๋ ์์ฐ ์จ ๋๋ฆ๋๋ก์ ์ด์ ๊ฐ ์์์ ๊ฑฐ์์." ๊ทธ๋ฌ๋ฉด์ ํ์ง์ฐ๋ ์๋ฏธ์ฌ์ฅํ๋ฉด์๋ ๋๋ฐ์ ์ธ ๋๋น์ผ๋ก ์๋จ์ ๋ง์ฃผ๋ดค๋ค. "์๋จ ์จ, ์ฌ์ฐ ๋ถํ ์์ ๋ ๋ง์ ์ด๋์ ๋ณด๊ธฐ ์ํด ๋์ ์์ฐ ์จ์ ๊ด๊ณ๋ฅผ ์ด๊ฐ์งํ๋ ค๋ ๊ฑฐ ๋ค ์์์. ์ ์ด์ ์๋จ ์จ๋ ๋์ ๋ชฉ์ ์ผ๋ก ๊ฒฐํผํ ๊ฑฐ์์์?" ๊ทธ๋ ์ ๋ง์ ์๋จ์ ๋ํ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ํ์ค๊ฐ์ ๋์ฑ ์ปค์ก๋ค. "๊ทธ๋ด ์ค ์์์ด! ๋น์ ์ ์ธ์ ๋ ์์ฌ์ด ๋ง์์ง. ์ด๋ฏธ 2์ต ์ก๊ธํ๊ณ , ๊ทธ ์์ฐ๋๋ ๊ณง ๋น์ ๋ช ์๊ฐ ๋ ๊ฑฐ์ผ. ๊ณ ์จ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ์๊ฒ ๊ทธ๋ฐ ๊ฒ์ฏค์ ์ฝ๊ฒ ํด๋ผ ์ ์๋ ์ผ์ด์ผ. ๋น์ ๋ค ๊ฐ์กฑ์ฒ๋ผ ํ์ฐฎ์ ์ง์์ด ์๋๋๊น..." "๊ทธ ์ ๋๋ก๋ ์ ๋์ง!" ์๋จ์ ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ฅผ ๋ฐ๋ผ๋ณด๋ฉฐ ๋ ์นด๋กญ๊ฒ ๋ฐ๋ฐํ๋ค. "๋น์ ์ ์ต๋ง์ฅ์์ผ. ์ฐ๋ฆฌ์ ๊ณต๋ ์ฌ์ฐ๊ณผ ์ฐจ, ๋ถ๋์ฐ์ ๋ชจ๋ ๊ณ ๋ คํ๋ฉด ์ต์ํ ์ฒ ์ต์ ์ค์ผ์ง. ์ง๊ธ ๋น์ ๋๋๊ฐ ์ค ์ค๊ณ ์์ฐ๋๋ก ํ ์น๋ ค๊ณ ํ๋ ๊ฑฐ์ผ?" ์๋จ์ ๋ ์นด๋ก์ด ์์ ์ด ํ์ง์ฐ์๊ฒ๋ก ํฅํ์, ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ๋ณธ๋ฅ์ ์ผ๋ก ๋ชธ์ ์์ธ ๋ ธ๋ค. "๋ด๊ฐ ์๋ชป ๋ณธ ๊ฒ ์๋๋ผ๋ฉด, ๋น์ ์ ์ธ์ด ํ๊ณ ์๋ ๋ชฉ๊ฑธ์ด ๊ฐ๊ฒฉ์ด ์ต์ 2์ต์ด ๋์ง ์๋?" ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ ํ์ง์ฐ์ ์์ ๋ง์์๋ฉฐ ๋งํ๋ค. "์๋จ, ๋ถ๋๋ฌ์ด ์ค๋ ๋ชฐ๋ผ? ์ง์ฐ์ ๋ชฉ๊ฑธ์ด๋ ๋ด๊ฐ ์ ๋ฌผํ ๊ฑฐ์ผ. ๋๋ฐ์ ๋ชจ๋ฅด๋ ๋น์ ๊ณผ๋ ๋ฌ๋ฆฌ ์์ํ๊ณ ์ฐฉํ ์ฌ์๋ผ๊ณ !" ์๋จ์ ๊ณ ๊ฐ๋ฅผ ๋๋์ด๋ฉฐ ๋ฐ๋ฐํ๋ค. "๊ทธ๋ฌ๋๊น, ๋ ์ฃผ๊ธฐ ์ซ๋ค ์ด๊ฑฐ์ง, ์ง๊ธ?" ๊ทธ ๋ง๊ณผ ํจ๊ป ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ๋์์์ ์ฝ๋์ธ๊ทธ์ ๋ค์ ์ฌ๋ผํ๋ค. ๋ชจ๋๊ฐ ๊ทธ๋ ์ ํ๋์ ์์ํดํ๋ฉฐ ์ง์ผ๋ณด๊ณ ์์ ๋, ์คํฌ์ธ ์นด ์์ง์ ๊ต์์ด ๊ณต๊ธฐ๋ฅผ ๊ฐ๋ฅด๋ฉฐ ์ธ๋ คํผ์ก๋ค. ๋งค๋ํ ๊ฒ์์ ์ํผ์นด๊ฐ ๋ ์ ํ์ด์ฒ๋ผ ์์ผ๋ก ๋ฌ๋ ค๋๊ฐ๋ฉฐ, ํ ๋น ๊ณ๋จ์ ๋ฐ๋ผ ๋ด๋ ค๊ฐ ๋ฌด๋๋ก ๊ณง์ฅ ๋์งํ๋ค. "์พ !" ๋ฐฉ์ฌํ๊ณ ์๋ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ํ์ง์ฐ๋ ํฉ๋ ๋ฆฌ๋ ๋๋ฌด ํํธ์ ๋ฎ์ด ์ฐ๊ณ ๋ง์๋ค. ํ์ง์ฐ๋ ๋ ์นด๋ก์ด ๋น๋ช ์ ์ง๋ ๊ณ , ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ ๋ถ๋ ธ๊ฐ ์น๋ฐ์ด ์ฌ๋ผ ์๋ฆฌ์ณค๋ค. "์๋จ, ํ ๋ฒ๋ง ๋ ์ด๋ฌ๋ฉด ๊ฐ๋งํ ๋์ง ์์..." ํ์ง๋ง ์๋จ์ ๊ทธ์ ์ถฉ๊ณ ๋ฅผ ์์ ํ ๋ฌด์ํ๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ์ฐจ๋ฅผ ํ์งํ๋ฉฐ ๋ฌด๋์์ ์์ ๊ฑฐ๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ๋๊ณ ๋ฉ์ถฐ ์ธ์ ๋ค. "๊ณ ์์ฐ ์จ, ๋ค์ ํ ๋ฒ ๋ฌผ์๊ฒ. ์ฌ์ฐ ๋ถํ ํ ๊ฑฐ์ผ, ๋ง ๊ฑฐ์ผ?" ๊ทธ๋ ๊ฐ ๊ธด์ฅ์ด ํฝํฝํ ๋ถ์๊ธฐ๋ฅผ ๋ซ๊ณ ์๋ฆฌ์ณค๋ค. ์์ง์ ๊ต์์ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ์ผ๊ตด์ด ์ํ์๊ฒ ์ง๋ ธ๋ค. ์ํ์ ์ธ ์ฐจ์ ์ด๋ง์ด๋งํ ์๋จ์ ์กด์ฌ๊ฐ์ ์ง๋๋ฆฐ ๊ทธ๋ ๋ฏธ์ฒ ํ์ถํ ์๊ฐ์กฐ์ฐจ ๋ชปํ๊ณ ์ ์๋ฆฌ์ ์ผ์ด๋ถ์๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๊ฒฝ๋น๋ฅผ ๋ถ๋ฅด๋ ค๊ณ ํ์ง๋ง, ๊ฒฝ๋น์๊ณผ ์ฌ๋๋ค์ ๋ชจ๋ ๊ฒ์ ์ง๋ ค ๋๋ง๊ฐ๊ณ ์์๋ค. ์ด ๋์น ์ํฉ์์๋ ์ธ ์ฌ๋๋ง์ด ๋จ์ ์์๋ค. ์๋จ, ์์ ํ ๋ฏธ์ณ๋ฒ๋ ธ๋ค! ์๋จ์ ๊ฒ์ ์ง๋ฆฐ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ํ์ง์ฐ์ ์ผ๊ตด์ ๋ณด๊ณ ๋ง์กฑ์ค๋ฌ์ด ๋ฏธ์๋ฅผ ์ง์๋ค. ๋ฌด์์ด ์์ง ์๋ฆฌ๊ฐ ๋์ฑ ์ปค์ง๋๋ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ๊ณตํฌ์ ์ง๋ฆฐ ์์ ์๋์ ์๋์ฐจ๋ ๋ค์ ํ ๋ฒ ๋ฌด๋๋ฅผ ํฅํด ๋์งํ๋ค! "์์์ด! ๋น์ ๋ง๋๋ก ์ฌ์ฐ ๋ถํ ํ๋ฉด ๋์์!" ์ฐจ๋ ๋ฌด๋์์ ๋ช ์ผํฐ๋ฏธํฐ ๋จ์ด์ง ๊ณณ์์ ๊ฒจ์ฐ ๋ฉ์ท๋ค. ์ ๋ฒํผ๊ฐ ์์ฌ์์ฌํ๊ฒ ๋ฌด๋๋ฅผ ์ค์น ๋ปํ๋ค. ์๋จ์ ์ด์ ๋๋๋๋ํด์ง ์ฐจ ๋ฌธ์ ๋ฐ๋ก ๋ฐ์ฐจ๊ณ ์นจ์ฐฉํ๊ฒ ์ฐจ์์ ๋ด๋ ค ํ์งฑ์ ๋ ์ฑ ๋จ๊ณ ์๋ ๋ ์ฌ๋์ ๋ง์ฃผ๋ณด์๋ค. ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ ์ฌํธํก์ ํ๋ฉฐ ํ์ ์ฌ์ ๋์ฐพ์ผ๋ ค๊ณ ์ ์ผ๋ค. "ํ์ง๋ง ๋ค์ ์ฃผ๊น์ง ๊ธฐ๋ค๋ ค์ผ ํด. ์ด๋ฒ ์ฃผ๋ง์ ํ ์๋ฒ์ง ์์ ์ด์ผ. ์์ง์ ์ดํผ ์์์ ์ ํ ์ ์์ด." ๊ณ ํ๋ ํ ์๋ฒ์ง๋ ์ธ์ ๋ ์๋จ์๊ฒ ์น์ ํ๊ณ , ๊ทธ๋ ์ญ์ ๊ทธ์ ์์ผ์ ๋ง์น ์๊ฐ์ ์์๋ค. ์๋จ์ ์ด๊นจ๋ฅผ ์ผ์ฑํ๋ฉฐ ๋งํ๋ค. "์ค๋ ์ฝ์์ ๊ผญ ์ง์ผ. ์ด๋ ๊ฒ ๋ง์ ๋์ด ์ฐ๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ์ฃผ๋ชฉํ๋ ๊ฐ์ด๋ฐ ๊ณ ์จ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ์ ํ๊ณ์๊ฐ ๊ฐํ ์๊ธฐ๊ฐ ๋ด๋ฑ์ ๋ง์ ๋ฒ๋ณตํ์ง๋ ์๊ฒ ์ง?" ๊ทธ๋ ์ ๋ง์ ๋ฐ๋ฐํ ์ ์์๋ ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ ์ข์ ํด์ ์ด๋ฅผ ์ ๋ฌผ์๋ค. ์๋จ์ ๋ช ๊ฑธ์ ์์ผ๋ก ๋์๊ฐ, ํ์ง์ฐ๋ฅผ ์ง๋์น๊ณ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์๊ฒ ์์ ์ ๊ณ ์ ํ๋ฉฐ ๊ฐ๋ณ๊ฒ ํ๋ฅผ ์ฐผ๋ค. "์ฌ์ค, ์ ์ฐจ๋ ์ฒ์์ ๋ฌด๋์ ๋ถ๋ชํ์ ๋ ๋ฒ์จ ๋ง๊ฐ์ก์ด. ๊ทธ๋ฅ ๋น์ ์ ๋๋ผ๊ฒ ํ๋ ค๊ณ ์์ง์ ์ผ๋์์ ๋ฟ์ด์ผ. ์ด์ฐจํผ ๋ถ๋ชํ์ง๋ ๋ชปํ์ ๊ฑฐ์ผ." ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ ์ถฉ๊ฒฉ์ ๋์ด ํ๋ฅ๊ทธ๋์ก๋ค. ์๋จ์ ๋์น์ ์น์ผ ์ฌ๋ฆฌ๊ณ ๋น๊ผฌ๋ฏ์ด ๋งํ๋ค. "๋น์ ๊ฐ์ ์ฌ๋์๊ฒ ๊ทธ๋ ๊ฒ ์ข์ ์ฐจ๋ฅผ ํ๋นํ๋ค๋." ๋ง์ด ๋๋ ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ๋๊ธธ ํ ๋ฒ ์ฃผ์ง ์๊ณ ๋ฐ์ผ๋ก ๋๊ฐ๋ค. ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ ์ ์ ์ ๋ชป ์ฐจ๋ฆฌ๊ณ ๊ทธ ์๋ฆฌ์ ์ ์ ๋ฉํ๋ ์ ์์๋ค. ์์๊ฐ์ ๋๋ฌด ๋ง์ ์ผ์ด ๋ฒ์ด์ ธ ๋ฐ์๋ค์ด๋ ๋ฐ ์๊ฐ์ด ํ์ํ๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ์๋จ์ด ๋ ๋๋ ๊ฒ์ ๋ณด๊ณ ์์ผ 3๋ ๋์ ํ๋ฒํ๋ ์๋ด๊ฐ ์์ ๋ ๋ชจ๋ฅด๊ณ ์์๋ ์จ๊ฒจ์ง ๋งค๋ ฅ์ด ์์ ๊ฑฐ๋ผ๋ ์๊ฐ์ด ๋ค์๋ค. "๋ค ๋ ๋๋ฌธ์ด์์, ์์ฐ ์จ! ๋๋ฅผ ๋ณดํธํ๋ ค ํ์ง๋ง ์์์ด๋ ๊ทธ๋ฐ ํฐ๋ฌด๋์๋ ์๊ตฌ๋ฅผ ์ ๋ ๋ค์ด์ฃผ์ง ์์์ ํ ๋ฐ!" ํ์ง์ฐ๋ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ์ท๊น์ ๋ถ์ก๊ณ ๋จ๋ฆฌ๋ ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๋ก ๋งํ๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๊ฐ ๋๋ฌผ์ ๋ณด์ด์ ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ ๋ค์ ๊ทธ๋ ์๊ฒ๋ก ์์ ์ ๊ณ ์ ํ๋ค. ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ ํ์ง์ฐ๋ฅผ ๋์ด์๊ณ ๋ถ๋๋ฝ๊ฒ ์๋กํ๊ธฐ ์์ํ๋ค. "๋ค ํ์ด ์๋์ผ. ๋ค ์์ฌ ๋ง์ ์ ์ฌ์ ํ์ด์ง. ๋ด๊ฐ ๋ฐฉ์ฌํ ํ์ ํ ์๊ธฐ๊ฐ ์ํ๋ ๊ฑธ ์๊ตฌํ๋ค๋." ํ์ง์ฐ๋ ๋๋ฌผ์ ๊ธ์ฝ์ด๋ฉฐ ๊ทธ๋ฅผ ์ฌ๋ ค๋ค๋ดค๋ค. "์ด์ ์ฐ๋ฆฌ ์ด๋กํด์? ๋น์ ์ด ์ค๋ซ๋์ ์ฌํ์ ๊ธฐ์ธ์ฌ ๊ณ ์จ ๊ทธ๋ฃน์ ๊ฒฝ์ํ ๋๋ถ์ ์ง๊ธ์ ์ฌ์ฐ์ ์์ ํ ์ ์๊ฒ ๋ ๊ฑด๋ฐ, ์ ์ฌ์๋ ์๋ฌด๊ฒ๋ ์ ํ์์์. ๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ฌ์๊ฐ ๋น์ ์ฌ์ฐ์ ์ ๋ฐ์ ๊ฐ์ ธ๊ฐ๋ค๋์?" ํ์ง์ฐ๋ ์ ์ ์ ๊นจ๋ฌผ์๋ค. "๋๋ ์ด๋ค ์ํฉ์๋ ๋น์ ์ ์ง์งํ ๊ฑฐ์์. ํ์ง๋ง ์ด๋ฐ ๋ถ๋นํ ์ผ์ด ๋ฒ์ด์ง๋ ๊ฑธ ๊ฐ๋ง ๋๊ณ ๋ณผ ์๋ ์์ด์. ์์ฐ ์จ ์ด๋จธ๋์ ๋๋์ด ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ฅผ ๋ค์ผ๋ฉด ๋ง์ด ํ๋์ค ํ ๋ฐ์." ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ ์ฝ์์์ ์ณค๋ค. "์ฐ์ ์๊ฒ ๋ค๊ณ ๋ ํ์ง๋ง, ์์ํ ๋ฐ๋ผ ์ค ์๋ ์์ง." ์์๋ผ์ฅ์ด ๋ ๊ทน์ฅ ๋ฐ์์ ์๋จ์ ์ํฌ์ฐ์๊ฒ ์ ํ๋ฅผ ๊ฑธ์๋ค. "์ฑ์ฌ ๋๊ทน์ฅ์ผ๋ก ๋ฐ๋ฆฌ๋ฌ ์ฌ ์ ์์ด?" ์ํฌ์ฐ์ด ์์ํดํ๋ฉฐ ๋ฌผ์๋ค. "์ฝ๋์ธ๊ทธ ๋๊ณ ๊ฐ์์?" ์์ ์ ์์ ๋ด๋ ค๋ค๋ณธ ์๋จ์ ์กฐ๊ธ ์ ์ ์ถฉ๋ ๋๋ฌธ์ ์๊ธด ์์ฒ๋ฅผ ๋ฐ๊ฒฌํ๋ค. ์์ฒ๋ ์์์ง๋ง ๋๊ฒ ํผ์ ธ ์์๊ณ , ์ด์ ๋ ํผ๊ฐ ๋๊ธฐ ์์ํ๋ค. "๋ด ๋น์ฐธํ ๊ฒฐํผ ์ํ๊ณผ ํจ๊ป ์นจ๋ชฐํ์ด." ์ 4ํ ๋ฐฐ์จ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ์ ์ฐํ ์ด๋์ฅ ๊ทธ ํ๋ง๋ ๋ง์ ๋ด๊ธด ๋ป์ ์ดํดํ ์ํฌ์ฐ์ ์๊ฐ ์จ์ด ๋ฉ๋ ๋ฏํ๋ค. ํธ๊ธฐ์ฌ์ด ์๊ธด ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ์ฌ๋นจ๋ฆฌ ์ฐจ ํค๋ฅผ ์ฑ๊ฒจ ์๋จ์ ๋ฐ๋ฆฌ๋ฌ ๋๊ฐ๋ค. ์ํฌ์ฐ์ด ๊ณ ์๋๋ก๋ฅผ ๋ฐ๋ผ ์ง์ฃผํ๋ ํ๋ผ๋ฆฌ ์์์ ๋ฏฟ์ ์ ์๋ค๋ ๋ฏ์ด ์ธ์ณค๋ค. "๊ทธ ๋์ฐํ ์ปคํ์ ๊ทธ๋ฅ ๋ค์ด๋ฐ์ง ๊ทธ๋ฌ์ด?" ์๋จ์ ์นจ์ฐฉํ๊ฒ ์์ฒ๋ฅผ ์น๋ฃํ๋ฉด์ ๋๋ตํ๋ค. "๋ฒ์ ์ด๊ธฐ์ง ์๋ ํธ์ด ์ข์ผ๋๊น." ์ํฌ์ฐ์ ๋ง๋ฌธ์ด ๋งํ๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ์๋จ์ด ์ด ๋ํ๋ฅผ ๊บผ๋ฆฐ๋ค๋ ๊ฒ์ ๊นจ๋ซ๊ณ ์ฌ๋นจ๋ฆฌ ์ฃผ์ ๋ฅผ ๋ฐ๊ฟจ๋ค. "์, ๊ทธ ์์ ์ฐํ ๋ง์ด์ผ. ๋ ํน๋ณ ๊ฒ์คํธ๋ก ์ด๋๋ฐ์์์. ์ด๋ฒ์๋ ๊ฐ ๊ฑฐ์ง?" ์๋จ์ด ๋๋ตํ๊ธฐ๋ ์ ์ ์ํฌ์ฐ์ด ๋งํ๋ค. "์ด์ฐจํผ ์ดํผํ ๊ฑฐ์์. ์ด์ ๊ทธ ๋ฉ์ฒญํ ๊ณ ์์ฐํํ ๋ ์ด์ ์จ๊ธธ ํ์ ์์ง ์์?" ์ํฌ์ฐ์ด ์ ์ ์์ฃฝ ๋ด๋ฐ๋ฉฐ ๋ง๋ถ์๋ค. "์ด๋ฒ ์ฐํ ์ค๋นํ๋๋ผ ์ผ๋ง๋ ๊ณ ์์ ํ๋๋ฐ. ์๋น ํํ ์ข์ ์ธ์์ ์ฃผ๊ณ ์ถ๋จ ๋ง์ด์ผ. ๋๋ ๋ด ๊ฐ์ฅ ์นํ ์น๊ตฌ์์. ์ฌ ๊ฑฐ์ง, ์?" "์์์ด." ์๋จ์ด ์ฒด๋ ํ ๋ฏํ ๋ฏธ์๋ฅผ ์ง์ผ๋ฉฐ ๋งํ๋ค. "๋ค๊ฐ ์ํ๋ค๋ฉด์ผ!" ์ํฌ์ฐ์ ๊ธฐ๋ป์ ์ ๋๊ฒ ๊ฒฝ์ ์ ์ธ๋ ค๋๋ค. "์ข์, ๋ด์ผ ์ฌ์ฏ ์ ์ ๊ฐ์ด์ผ! ์ด๋์์ ์ ๊ตฌ๋ก ๋ณด๋ผ๊ฒ!" ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ์์นจ ์ผ์ ์ ์๋ฒฝํ๊ฒ ์ํํ๊ณ , ํ์ฌ ์์ 30๋ถ ์ ์ ์ฌ์ ๋กญ๊ฒ ์ฐํ์ฅ์ ๋์ฐฉํ๋ค. ์๋จ์ ์ง์ง ์ ์ฒด๋ฅผ ์จ๊ธด๋ฐ๋ค ์ด์ ์ ์ฐธ์ ๋ป์ ์ ๋๋ก ๋ฐํ์ง ์์ ํ์ ๊ณต์ ์ด๋์ฅ์ ๋ฐ์ง ๋ชปํ๋ค. ๊ทธ๋์ ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ์ ๊ตฌ ๊ทผ์ฒ์ ์๋ ์์ ํ๋น๋ฆฌ์จ์ ์์ ์ปคํผ๋ฅผ ๋ง์๋ฉฐ ์ด๋์์ด ๋์ฐฉํ๊ธฐ๋ฅผ ๊ธฐ๋ค๋ฆฌ๊ณ ์์๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๊ฐ ์ปคํผ๋ฅผ ๋ฐ์ฏค ๋ง์ จ์ ๋ ์ด๋์์ด ๋ฌธ์๋ฅผ ๋ณด๋ด์๋ค. "๋ฆ์ด์ ์ฃ์กํฉ๋๋ค, ์ฒ์ฌ ๋์์ด๋๋! 10๋ถ ์์ ๋์ฐฉํด์!" ์๋จ์ด ์์ผ๋ก ์์ผ๋ฉฐ ๋ต์ฅ์ ๋ณด๋ด๋ ค๊ณ ํ๋ ๊ทธ ๋, ๋น๊ผฌ๋ ๋ฏํ ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๊ฐ ๋ค๋ ค์๋ค. "์ด๊ฒ ๋๊ตฌ์ผ, ์๋จ ์จ์์์? ์ฌ๊ธฐ์ ๋น์ ์ ๋ง๋ ์ค์ ๋ชฐ๋๋ค์. ์์ฐ ์จ์๊ฒ ์์๋ฃ๋ฅผ ๋ฌ๋ผ๊ณ ๊ตฌ๊ฑธํ๋ฉด์ ๋ฐฐ์จ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ์ ์ฐํ๊น์ง ๋ฐ์ ๋ค์ด๋ ค๊ณ ํ๋ค๋. ํ์ง๋ง ๋ง์ด์ฃ ..." ๊ทธ๋ ์ ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๊ฐ ์ ์ ์ฐจ๊ฐ์์ก๋ค. "์ด ์ฐํ๋ ๋น์ ๊ฐ์ ์ฌ๋์ด ์ฐธ์ํ ์ ์๋ ์๋ฆฌ๊ฐ ์๋์์. ์ฃผ์ ๋ฅผ ์์์ผ์ง." ์ 5ํ ๊ธฐ์ด์ด ์์ ๋๊ฒ ๋ง๋๋ ๊ฑฐ์ผ ์๋จ์ ๋ฉ์นซํ๋๋ ์ฒ์ฒํ ๊ณ ๊ฐ๋ฅผ ๋ค์๋ค. ํ์ง์ฐ๊ฐ ๊ฐ์์ ์ผ๋ก ๊ฑฑ์ ํด์ฃผ๋ ์ฒ ๊ทธ๋ ๋ฅผ ๋ด๋ ค๋ค๋ณด๊ณ ์์๋ค. ์๋จ์ ๋ถ์ ์ ์ ์ ๋ง์ ์ฌ๋ฆฌ๋ฉฐ ๋ ์นด๋กญ๊ฒ ๋๋ตํ๋ค. "๋น์ ์ด ๋ฌด์จ ์๊ด์ด์ฃ ? ๋ด๊ฐ ๋ฐฐ์จ ๊ฐ๋ฌธ ์ฐํ์ ๊ฐ๋ ๋ง๋ , ๋น์ ์ด ์ ๋ฐ ์๋์์์." ํ์ง์ฐ๋ ์๋จ์ ์ง์ค์ ์ธ ๋๋ต์ ์กฐ๊ธ ๋๋ ๋ฏ ๋์ด ๋๊ทธ๋์ก๋ค. ์๋จ์ ๋ฑ๋๋ฌด ์์์ ๊ธฐ๋์ด ์์ ๋ฌด์ฌํ๊ฒ ํธ๋ํฐ์ ํกํก ๋๋๋ ธ๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ๋งคํน์ ์ธ ๋์ผ๋ก ํ์ง์ฐ๋ฅผ ๋๋ฆฌ๋ฏ์ด ์ณ๋ค๋ดค๋ค. ํ์ง์ฐ๋ ํ์คํ ๊ตํํ๋ค. ๋๊ตฌ๋ผ๋ ๋ฐ๋ํ ํ๋์ ๋งํฌ๋ฅผ ์ ์ฐ๋ ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์๋ค. "์๋จ?" ๋ฐ๋ก ๊ทธ๋, ๊ณ ์์ฐ๊ฐ ๋ค๊ฐ์๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ์๋จ์ ์ฌ๊ธฐ์ ๋ณผ ์ค์ ์์์กฐ์ฐจ ๋ชปํ๋ค. ๊ณ ์์ฐ๊ฐ ๋์ด์ ์ฐํธ๋ ธ๊ณ , ๊ทธ์ ์์๊ธด ์ผ๊ตด์ด ์ฆ์ ์ด๋์์ก๋ค. "๋๋ฅผ ๋ง์ ์ํค๋ ค๊ณ ์ฌ๊ธฐ๊น์ง ์จ ๊ฑฐ์ผ?" ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ ํ๋ฅผ ๋ด๋ฉฐ ์๋ฆฌ์ณค๋ค. "๊ทธ๋ฅ ์ข ๊บผ์ ธ!" ํ์ง์ฐ๋ ๋ง์น ์์ ์ ์ง์๋ฅผ ์ ์ธํ๊ธฐ๋ผ๋ ํ๋ฏ ์ผ๋ถ๋ฌ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ํ์ ๋์ด์์ผ๋ฉฐ ๋์ ์ ์ธ ๋๋น์ผ๋ก ์๋จ์ ๋ฐ๋ผ๋ดค๋ค. ์๋จ์ ๊ทธ๋ฐ ๋ฌด๋กํ ํ๋์ ์ฐธ๊ณ ๋์ด๊ฐ ์ฌ๋์ด ์๋์๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ์๊ฐ๋ฝ์ ๊ฝ ์์ผ์ฅ๋๋ ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ฅผ ๊ฒฝ๋ฉธ์ค๋ฝ๋ค๋ ๋ฏ์ด ๋ฐ๋ผ๋ณด๋ฉฐ ์ฐจ๊ฐ์ด ๋ฏธ์๋ฅผ ์ง์๋ค. "๋ค์ ๋งํด๋ณผ๋? ์ง๊ธ ๊ฐํ ๋๊ตฌ ๋ณด๊ณ ๊บผ์ง๋ผ๋ ๊ฑฐ์ผ?" ์๋จ์ ๊ฒ์์ ์คํฌ ์ฌ๋ฆฝ ๋๋ ์ค๋ฅผ ์ ๊ณ ๊ฐ๋๋ค๋ ๋ค๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ์ฐ์ํ๊ฒ ๊ผฌ๊ณ ์์ ์์๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ์ ํ ์ก์ ๋ฐ ์๋ ํผ๋ถ์ ๋๊ธธ์ ๋๋ ์ด๋ชฉ๊ตฌ๋น๋ ์์ฒญ๋ ๋งค๋ ฅ์ ์ ์ฌํ๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ์ ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๋ ํ๋ค๋ฆผ ์์ด ์ฐจ๋ถํ์ง๋ง, ์จ๋ชธ์์ ์ฐจ๊ฐ์ด ๋ถ์๊ธฐ๋ฅผ ๋ด๋ฟ๊ณ ์์๋ค. ์๋ฐ๊ฐ์ด ๊ธ์ตํด์๋ค. ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ ๊ฐ์์ค๋ฝ๊ฒ ๋ณํ ๋ถ์๊ธฐ์ ๋นํฉํ ์ฑ ์ ์ ์ผ์ด๋ถ์๋ค. ์ด ์ฌ์๊ฐ ์ ๋ง๋ก ์์ข ์ ์ด๊ธฐ๋ง ํ๋ ๊ทธ์ ์๋ด๋ผ๋! ์ง์ฆ์ด ๋ ํ์ง์ฐ๋ ๋์ด์ ์ฐํธ๋ ธ๋ค. ๋ง์ง๋ง์ผ๋ก ์๋จ์ ๋ง๋ฌ์ ๋, ํ์ง์ฐ๋ ๊ทธ๋ ๊ฐ ์ ์ ์ด ๋๊ฐ ์ค ์์๋ค. ํ์ง์ฐ๋ ์๋จ์ด ๋ ๋ค์ ๋๋์ ๋ถ๋ ค ์์ ์ด ๋ง์ ๋นํ๊ฒ ๋ ๊น ๋ด ๊ฑฑ์ ๋์ด ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ๋๊ทธ๋ฌ๋จ๋ฆฌ๊ณ ์์งํ ์ฒ ์ฐ๊ธฐํ๋ค. "์๋จ ์จ, ์ด๋ง ๊ฐ ๋ณด์ธ์. ์ด๋์ฅ์ ํ๋ ๋ฐ์ ์๊ณ , ์์ฐ ์จ๋ ๋๋ฅผ ๋ฐ๋ฆฌ๊ณ ๋ค์ด๊ฐ๊ธฐ๋ก ํ์ด์. ์๋จ ์จ๊ฐ ์ฌ๊ธฐ์์ ๋ฒํฐ๊ณ ์๋๋ค๊ณ ํด์ ๋ค์ด๊ฐ ์ ์๋ ์ฐํ๊ฐ ์๋์์. ๊ฒ๋ค๊ฐ ์๋จ ์จ๋ ๋ฌธ์ ๋ง ์ผ์ผํค์์์. ์ ์๊พธ ์ผ์ ์ด๋ ต๊ฒ ๋ง๋๋ ๊ฑฐ์์?" ์๋จ์ ํ์ง์ฐ๋ฅผ ์ฐจ๊ฐ์ด ์์ ์ผ๋ก ์ณ๋ค๋ดค๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ์ด๋ฏธ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ์ง์ง ๋ชจ์ต์ ํคํ ์ ์๊ณ ์๋ค. ์ด์ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์๊ฒ๋, ์ด ๊ฒฐํผ ์ํ๋ ์ฒ ์ ํ ํฌ๋ง์ ์์๋ค. ์ด์ ํ์ง์ฐ์ ํ๋๋ ๋ง์ ๊ทธ๋ ์๊ฒ ์๋ฌด๋ฐ ์ํฅ์ ๋ฏธ์น์ง ๋ชปํ๋ค. "๋น์ ์ด ๋ฌด์จ ์๊ด์ด์์?" ์๋จ์ ํ์ง์ฐ์ ๋ง์ ์ ํ ๋์ํ์ง ์๊ณ ์ฐจ๋ถํ๊ฒ ๋๋ตํ๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๋ ๋ฌด์ฌ์ฝ ์์ ๋ค์ด ๋นจ๋๋ก ํฌ๋์ฃผ์ค๋ฅผ ์ชผ๋ฅด๋ฅต ๋ง์ จ๋ค. "์ ๊ฐ๊ฒ ๋ค, ์ด๊ฑฐ์ผ? ๊ธฐ์ด์ด ์์ ๋๊ฒ ๋ง๋ค๋ ค๋ ๊ฑฐ์ผ!" ๊ณ ์์ฐ๊ฐ ์๋ฆฌ์ณค๋ค. ์๋จ์ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ๋ถ๋ ธ ํญ๋ฐํ ๋ฐ์์ ์ ํ ๋์ํ์ง ์์๊ณ , ๊ทธ๋ฅผ ์๋ ์ฌ๋ ์ทจ๊ธํ๋ค. ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ํ์ ์ด ๋์ฑ ์ด๋์์ก๋ค. ์๋จ์ด ๊ผผ์ง๋ ํ์ง ์์ ์ง์ฆ์ด ๋ ๊ทธ๋ ๊ทธ๋ ๋ฅผ ๋์ด๋ด๊ธฐ ์ํด ํ ๊ฑธ์ ๋ค๊ฐ์ฐ๋ค. ์๋จ์ ๋์ด์ ์ฐํธ๋ ธ๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๊ฐ ๋ชธ์ ์์ง์ด๋ ค๋ ๊ทธ๋, ๊ณ ์์ฐ์ ๋ค์์ ํ ๋จ์์ ์จ ๊ฐ์ ๋ชฉ์๋ฆฌ๊ฐ ๋ค๋ ค์๋ค. "๋น์ผ!" ์ด๋์ต์ ์ฃผ์ ํ์ง ์๊ณ ๊ณ ์์ฐ์๊ฒ ๋ฌ๋ ค๋ค์ด ๋ง์น ์ฅ๋๊ฐ์ ์ก๋ฏ์ด ๊ทธ์ ์ท๊น์ ์์ผ์ฅ๊ณ ์์ผ๋ก ๋ด๋์ง ๋ค, ์๋จ์ ์์ ๊ฐ๋ก๋ง๊ณ ์์ ๋ณดํธ ํ์ธ๋ฅผ ์ทจํ๋ค. ํค๊ฐ 195์ผํฐ๋ฏธํฐ ๋๋ ์ด๋์์ ๋ชธ์ง์ด ๊ฑด์ฅํ๊ณ , ๊ทธ์ ๊ทผ์ก์ง ํ์ ๋ฌด์ฒ ํ์ธ ๋ณด์๋ค. "์ด๊ฒ ๋ญ ํ๋ ์ง์ ๋๊น?" ์ด๋์์ ๊ณ ์์ฐ๋ฅผ ์ฌ๋์ด ๋๋น์ผ๋ก ์์๋ณด๋ฉฐ ์๊ฐ๋ฝ ๊ด์ ์ด ๋ฑ๋ฑ ์๋ฆฌ๊ฐ ๋ ์ ๋๋ก ์ฃผ๋จน์ ๊ฝ ์ฅ๊ณ ๋งํ๋ค. "์ ์ฐ๋ฆฌ ๋๋๋ฅผ ๊ดด๋กญํ๋ ๊ฑฐ์ผ? ์ฃฝ๊ณ ์ถ์ด ํ์ฅํ์ด?" "๋๋ ๋๊ตฌ์ผ?" ์กฐ๊ธ ์ , ์ฐ๋ ๊ธฐ์ฒ๋ผ ๋ดํฝ๊ฐ์ณ์ก๋ ๊ณ ์์ฐ๊ฐ ์๋ฆฌ์ณค๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ ๋นํ๊ฑฐ๋ฆฌ๋ฉฐ ์ผ์ด๋์ ์ฑ๋ ๋๋น์ผ๋ก ์ด๋์์ ๋ ธ๋ ค๋ดค๋ค. ...... ์์ผ๋ก๋ ์ด๋ค ์ ๊ฐ๊ฐ ํผ์ณ์ง๊น์? ์์ ํ ์คํ ๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ์ฆ๊ธฐ๊ณ ์ถ์ผ์๋ค๋ฉด ์๋์ ๋ฒํผ์ ๋๋ฌ App์ ๋ค์ด๋ก๋ ๋ฐ์ผ์ธ์. (App์ ์คํ ์ ์๋์ผ๋ก ์ด๋ ์ค์ธ ์ด ์ํ์ผ๋ก ์คํตํฉ๋๋ค) &9& | LEARN_MORE | https://fbweb.moboreader.net/65152436-fb_contact-k | Happy reading | https://www.facebook.com/61566043183664/ | 470 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Learn more | 0 | fbweb.moboreader.net | IMAGE | https://fbweb.moboreader.net/65152436-fb_contact-kra210_2-1203-core1.html?adid={{ad.id}}&char=124213&accid=1085029615921206&jump=1&rawadid=120213598978930274 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/469121724_1121901712651908_4552733564983120531_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=vDIk6mvItpEQ7kNvgGRnWkT&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&_nc_gid=A-S5ypENxYRx8b-B5ZaJhaS&oh=00_AYAlw_Kc8FrV7Lina01RP_Rafx7f87paWS7nqrOQmPWjyg&oe=676140FE | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Happy reading | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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๐Attention! Do not read in public๏ผ๐ | "Carissa, the king has issued a decree allowing Aurora to marry into our general's house. I hope you can accept and respect this fact." The person who said this is Carissa Sinclair's husband, Barrett Warren. A year ago, on the night of their wedding, Barrett set out to lead his army into battle. Now, after finally returning victorious, he brings Carissa this kind of "good news." Carissa's eyes clouded with confusion. "The queen dowager has said that General Yates is a model for all women in the kingdom. Would she be willing to be a concubine?" Barrett's eyes flashed with a hint of annoyance. "No, she won't be a concubine. She'll be my legal wife and equal to you." Carissa smiled mockingly. "Equal to me, huh? Do you remember what you said to me before you left for war?" On the wedding night a year ago, he personally lifted Carissa's veil and promised affectionately: "Carrisa Sinclair, you're the only woman I'll ever love in my life. I will never take a concubine!" Feeling awkward, Barrett turned away. "Forget what I said. When I married you, I didn't understand love. I thought you were a suitable match for a wife until I met Rory." Talking about the woman he loved, his eyes softened and filled with deep affection. He turned back to Carissa and added, "She's unlike any woman I've ever met. I love her deeply. I hope you'll agree to this." Carissa felt a lump in her throat. Despite feeling a mix of disgust and unwillingness, she still asked, "What about your parents? Do they agree?" "They do. It was a royal edict. Besides, Aurora is straightforward, cheerful, and lovable. She visited my mother a while ago." They agreed? Hah... How ironic! When Barrett left, the general's mansion had already fallen into decline. All the expenses were supported by the dowry Carissa had brought. Barrett's mother, Rebecca, was suffering from a strange illness, and she had invited a reclusive divine doctor to treat her. Each month, dozens of silver coins were spent on exorbitant medical fees, not to mention Carissa's constant care by Rebecca's bedside. In the end, she got such a reward. So, the kindness that this family shows is merely because they are relying on Carissa's dowry. If Barrett's betrayal was like a sharp sword, then Rebecca's hypocrisy was like thousands of silver needles, piercing deeply into Carissa's heart. Carissa pressed her lips into a thin line as she blinked away the tears in her eyes and sharpened her gaze. "Invite General Yates over. I have a few things to ask her." "There's no need for that. Carissa, she's different from any woman you know. She's a general, and she's above the usual household squabbles. She wouldn't want to meet you," Barrett refused instantly. Carissa retorted, "What kind of women do I know? What kind of woman am I to you? Have you forgotten? I'm also the daughter of a noble family. My father and my six brothers died on the Southern Frontier three years ago-" "That's them," Barrett interrupted. "But you're a delicate woman suited for the comforts of home. Aurora has no respect for such women. She's straightforward and unrestrained. If she meets you, she might say things you won't like. Why put yourself through that?" As Carissa looked up, the striking beauty mark under the corner of her eye became more evident in the light. She calmly said, "It's fine. If she says anything unpleasant, I'll ignore it. Understanding the bigger picture and acting with dignity are essential virtues for any matriarch. Don't you trust me?" "Never mind. I don't want to argue with you. I just needed to inform you. Whether you agree or not changes nothing,"said Barrett, his patience wearing thin. As Carissa watched him leave in a huff, she felt even more bitter. "My lady, my lord was too much!" said Lulu, Carissa's maid, wiping her tears away. "Don't call him that!" Carissa gave her a stern look. "We never consummated the marriage. He's not your lord. Go fetch my dowry list." "Why the dowry list?" Lulu asked, puzzled. Carissa tapped her on the forehead. "Silly girl, why would we stay in this house any longer?" Lulu held her forehead and gasped. "But your mother arranged this marriage, and your father wanted you to marry and have children." Tears finally welled up in Carissa's eyes at the mention of her parents. Carissa actually came from a family of warriors, and she had been training in martial arts since she was young, showing great talent. However, when she was 15, her father and several brothers died on the battlefield. Since then, her usually open-minded mother advised Carissa to hide her skills and, like other noble girls, find a husband to live a stable life. But now it seems she has betrayed her mother's expectations. Lulu brought over the dowry list and explained, "This year alone, you've spent over six thousand silver coins to support the household. However, the shops, houses, and estates remain untouched. All the bank savings, along with the property deeds and land titles your mother left, are locked up in the chest." Carissa glanced at the list, narrowed her eyes, and sneered, "No wonder they covet my dowry so much." The dowry her mother provided was quite substantial; she hadn't paid much attention to it before. Now she realized how much effort her mother had put in for her. "Then, my lady, what shall we do now?" Carissa's eyes grew cold. "I could confront the king and use my family's achievements to force him to reverse his edict. If he refuses, I'll kill myself in protest." Lulu was terrified and immediately protested, "My lady, you can't!" Carissa's expression softened, and a sly smile appeared on her face. "Do you think I'm that foolish? If I manage to reach the king, I'll only request an edict for an amicable divorce." Barrett was able to marry Aurora because of a royal edict. So, Carissa should also be issued an official edict to leave. She shouldn't have to sneak away like she was being cast out. In addition, the law states that if a woman is divorced, her husband has the right to keep all her dowry. Right now, Barrett doesn't dare to divorce her, mindful of his reputation, but who knows what will happen in the future? Carissa no longer wanted to believe in this hypocritical man, nor did she want to live under the same roof with him. She once hoped to build a life with Barrett, so naturally she would not be stingy with her dowry. However, circumstances had changed. She intended to leave the general's residence with dignity and take every last coin of her dowry back home! | LEARN_MORE | https://shgjfh.com/market/meganovel/13?lpid=13831& | Random Reading | https://www.facebook.com/61559743679549/ | 321 | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Learn More | 0 | shgjfh.com | DCO | https://shgjfh.com/market/meganovel/13?lpid=13831&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{campaign.id}}&adset_name={{adset.name}}&adset_id={{adset.id}}&ad_id={{ad.id}}&ad_name={{ad.name}}&placement={{placement}} | 1969-12-31 18:00 | https://scontent-atl3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.35426-6/464183718_1608087840126342_8310047084193887164_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s60x60_tt6&_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c53f8f&_nc_ohc=SSAS-lpYJ2cQ7kNvgEUNVzm&_nc_zt=14&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-2.xx&_nc_gid=AYQdCUmweI_8CGQAGGzHbOK&oh=00_AYC6Ly0baSq0O88BaSJYLqTgKiPaSPabiyxrjnizU6Ao4Q&oe=676153DB | PERSON_PROFILE | 0 | 0 | 0 | Random Reading | 0 | 0 | 1969-12-31 18:00 | View Edit Delete |
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