After I Finally Became His Perfect Donna Chapter 15

After I Finally Became His Perfect Donna Chapter 15

I was charging toward the shop when a hand seized my arm.

Julian had appeared out of nowhere, trying to stop me. “Don’t go in there. It’s too dangerous!”

“My parents are still inside!” I wrenched free.

He clenched his jaw, his expression hardening. “Stay here. I’ll go.”

“No!”

Before I could finish, the shop’s sign tore loose and crashed down between us.

I stumbled back several steps. When I looked up, a figure was already streaking past me, plunging through

the doorway.

“Dorian!” The name tore out of me.

Julian rushed over and wrapped his arms around me, dragging me toward safety. I fought him, tears blurring

everything.

Dorian came out the back door carrying my mother. Blood dripped from his arm.

He set her down, then spun around to go back in. “Wait for me. I’m getting your father out too.”

I crouched on the ground, shaking all over.

Julian’s hand was on my shoulder, saying something. I couldn’t hear him.

A few minutes later, Dorian emerged with my father.

He was a wreck. Dust and blood covered his face. His right leg was clearly giving out beneath him.

He laid my father down somewhere safe, then turned to look at me. His lips moved.

I read them. He said, “It’s okay now.”

Just like all those years ago, lying face-down on the bed with his back torn open, smiling and telling me,

doesn’t hurt.”

The same tone. The same eyes.

I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I broke down and sobbed.

“It

“So, from the moment you rescued your wife’s adoptive parents in that earthquake, she forgave you?”

The reporter across the table set down her pen and pushed her glasses up, her gaze skeptical.

The man across from her nodded. “Yes.”

The conference room was quiet for a few seconds. The reporter looked down and flipped through several

pages of notes.

She didn’t raise her head. She just kept her voice steady. “Don, I have a question.”

“Your wife was terrified of you. You personally sent her to that place where she was tortured for five years.

How could a single rescue during an earthquake possibly be enough for her to reconcile with you?”

The man didn’t answer.

The reporter looked up and met his gaze. She couldn’t read a single emotion in it.

“Sir, I’m interviewing you because you’ve built forty-seven charity schools in your wife’s name. We want the

real story. Not a polished version.”

The man was silent for a long time. Finally, he spoke. “Then what do you think the real story is?”

The reporter tightened her grip on the pen. “I believe your wife… may not exist.”

The man’s expression didn’t change. He simply sat there, quiet.

The reporter continued. “Either she never forgave you and ended up with Mr. Rivers, living a normal life. Or…”

She paused, looking into his eyes.

“Or she died in that earthquake.”

“And you invented this story because you couldn’t accept how it really ended.”

The man suddenly smiled. A faint, thin smile.

He stood, buttoned his suit jacket, and said, “I think we’re done for today.”

“Sir…”

But he was already walking out of the conference room, and he didn’t look back.

After work, the reporter ran into a colleague in the break room.

“You got it wrong.” The colleague held a cup of coffee, her tone certain.

The reporter raised an eyebrow. “How? His reaction was textbook deflection.”

“His wife is dead.” The colleague took a sip. “But she didn’t die in the earthquake.”

She set the cup down. The look she gave the reporter turned complicated.

“Do you remember that story from five years ago in Manhattan? The wife of the Vane family’s Don jumped

into the river. They never recovered the body.”

The reporter’s hand went rigid. “Wait…”

“They eventually pulled an unidentified woman from the water. DNA confirmed it was Lyra.”

The colleague’s voice dropped low. “But the Vane family buried the story. Officially, they said the Donna was

in poor health and recuperating overseas.”

“But the charity schools…”

“All donated in her name.” The colleague sighed. “Forty-seven of them.”

“Every time he makes one of those massive donations, the press swarms him, and someone always asks about his wife. He tells the story to every single person who asks, patiently, every time. Someone even turned

it into a novel.”

“But the truth is, the woman at the center of that story has been dead for years.”

“She died a long time ago.”

The reporter opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

The cemetery sat on a hillside at the edge of the city. At sunset, the wind was strong.

Dorian carried the bouquet slowly, stopping before a headstone. He laid the flowers down.

“Lyra,” he began, his voice slightly hoarse. “A reporter came to interview me today. She asked if you really

forgave me.”

He paused. The corner of his mouth twitched upward. “I told her yes.”

“She didn’t believe me.”

He lowered his head and looked at his hands.

Those hands had gripped Lyra’s chin. Had slapped her across the face. Had also held her broken body at the

bottom of a staircase in the middle of the night, shaking so hard he couldn’t stop.

“She said either you ended up with Julian, or you died in the earthquake.”

His voice was very soft, almost lost in the wind. “She doesn’t know you were already gone.”

“Gone the night I told you to choose.”

He closed his eyes and leaned the back of his head against the headstone, the way you’d lean against a

person.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pill bottle.

“Lyra, for five years I’ve thought about it every single day. If I hadn’t said those words that night, would you

still have jumped?”

“If I’d never sent you to that place, would you still be the Lyra who laughed and fought and chased me around

with a gun?”

“If I’d never believed Mireille. If I’d never needed that child. If I’d never… never married you. Would your life

have been better?”

He twisted off the cap. The pills rattled inside.

“But there are noifs.”

“You died. You were twenty-two.”

“I built forty-seven schools in your name. I thought if I did enough good, maybe I’d find you again in the next

life.”.

“But Lyra, I don’t want to wait for the next life anymore.”

He poured the pills into his palm. White. So many of them.

“It’s been too long.”

“Five years was already too long.”

“I can’t wait another fifty.”

He put the pills in his mouth. No water. He swallowed them dry.

Then he leaned back against the headstone and closed his eyes.

“Lyra, I’m coming.”

Prologue

Not far away, people walked down the hill. Others walked up. Children played in the fading light. Life in all its

ordinary shapes moved on.

Five years after Lyra died, Dorian swallowed a bottle of pills and followed her.