The Night He Chose Her, I Chose My Revenge Chapter 12

The Night He Chose Her, I Chose My Revenge Chapter 12

When Julian returned to Croft Manor, exhausted, the party was still in full swing. The noise wrapped around his cold panic like a warm blanket.

Penelope came to him at once, her soft hands resting on his shoulders, massaging his tense muscles with practiced ease.

“You look exhausted,” she said gently. “The guests are all praising you. They’re saying this is the most successful gala in years.”

The flattery swirling around him was a balm, helping him recover his familiar sense of lofty control.

Elara was just throwing a tantrum, he told himself.

She was from Texas. Where could she possibly go in Charleston?

Once she calmed down, she would come back.

He chose to stay at the party, to bask in the admiration of his peers.

It wasn’t until midnight, a little drunk, that he returned to the study—the seat of Croft family power.

The moment the door closed, a polo mallet cut through the air and slammed into his knee.

Agony shot up his leg. Julian screamed and collapsed to the floor.

Even the expensive Persian rug couldn’t soften the feeling of his bone shattering.

He roared and looked up to see a figure sitting behind his eighteenth-century desk.

It was Elara’s brother, Liam Vance.

He wore a sharply tailored suit that looked completely out of place, his face as cold as ice. Behind him stood two imposing bodyguards.

I woke up on the third day after the hurricane.

Not in Charleston, but in the top-floor suite of a private hospital in Austin.

Sunlight poured through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, warm and dry.

My brother Liam was sitting beside my bed. His jaw was covered in stubble, his eyes bloodshot.

When I spoke, my voice was a painful rasp.

“Liam, I’m sorry.”

“I made you come all this way. I ruined your vacation.”

Liam reached out and stroked my hair. His eyes instantly reddened.

“Silly girl,” he said, his own voice choked with emotion. “Nothing matters more than you.”

I looked at his exhausted face and suddenly remembered how, when I had insisted on marrying Julian, he had been the first to object.

Back then, for one man, I had nearly turned my back on all of Texas.