His tone shifted from anger, to helplessness, to something almost pleading.
“Emmy, sweetheart, I’ve been looking for you for so long. Please stop hiding from me, okay?”
Chloe’s smile froze instantly.
Realizing what she had done, she hurled the phone to the ground, smashing it to pieces.
“Emily Carter, you’re dead! How dare you still make him speak to you so tenderly? You don’t deserve it!”
I stood nearby, and for the first time in a long while, I felt a flicker of satisfaction.
Perhaps seeing Chloe so enraged was a form of revenge in itself.
That night, after failing to find me anywhere, Daniel drowned himself in liquor at a nightclub, drinking until he was senseless. For a fleeting moment, his eyes showed a trace of regret.
“Was I wrong?”
“I knew Ryan Brooks was no suitable match, but the marriage alliance had to happen. If Emily hadn’t gone, it would have been Chloe.”
“Chloe was raised like a pampered princess—how could she have endured such abuse?”
“So Emily was the better choice.”
He confessed this to his friends, and I hovered beside him silently, realizing he had always known what kind of man Ryan truly was.
When it came time to choose, he discarded me without a second thought.