Memories surged like a rising tide. All those years, I’d secretly taken medication and injections, foolishly believing that if I just tried hard enough, I could carry Alaric’s child.
How ridiculous. He had never even touched me.
Tears streamed down my cheeks.
“I thought being with him would make you happy,” Bernard said softly, brushing away my tears. “But he hurt you this badly.”
“Eleanor, I meant what I said. I always will.”
We first met in high school. He was the rich kid everyone knew, the Bernard’s’ golden boy.
I once saved his life and ever since then, he would always joke about marrying me to repay the debt. But because of my engagement to the Middleton Family, I turned him down again and again.
On the day he transferred to another school, he stopped me at the gate.
“Remember,” he said, “no matter when, if you ever need help, come to me. Of course…”
His ears had flushed red.
“I’d rather you came to marry me and have my babies.”
I never thought, ten years later, he would still remember.
Under his careful care, I gradually recovered.
One day, I asked a maid where he was. She told me he was by the pool.
What I saw stunned me into stillness.