Dead Before You Loved Me He Realized the Truth Only When My Grave Was Cold Chapter 04

Dead Before You Loved Me He Realized the Truth Only When My Grave Was Cold Chapter 04

Darien graduated three years before me. As soon as he finished college, he joined the Blackwood family business.

Mr. Blackwood’s health was failing. He’d handed control of the company to his favorite grandson early.

I worked on my final thesis. He was busy. I was busy too.

When I graduated and got my diploma, I ran to the Blackwood building, excited to pick out wedding dresses with him.

He went quiet for a long time.

“Elara, I’m sorry. I can’t marry you.”

“I thought I loved you. But when I met the right person, I realized… what I felt for you was just habit. Just duty, because of the engagement.”

I’d loved him more than anything. I never thought he could change so suddenly, after months of seeming fine.

I begged Mr. Blackwood to make him stay.

The old man ordered Darien to leave his lover. Darien refused.

“Grandpa, I don’t love her. I was wrong. I can’t hurt the person I really love. Even if I marry Elara, I’ll divorce her later.”

After that, Mr. Blackwood had a stroke from anger.

Darien walked past me without even glancing my way.

“Elara, I can’t believe you’d stoop so low.”

I looked at Mr. Blackwood, pale and weak in the hospital bed. I knew I had to let go.

The last time I saw Darien five years ago was at the Blackwood building.

Seraphina Cole was on his arm. They looked perfect together. She leaned against him, and he looked at her with softness.

Then he saw me. The warmth in his eyes vanished. He frowned.

I was just an annoyance to him now.

“Elara, are you still not giving up?”

He pulled Seraphina behind him.

“I don’t let you see her because I’m afraid you’ll hurt her. I won’t let people call her the other woman.”

So that’s how it was.

I watched him walk away with Seraphina.

It was over.

I left the Blackwood building in a daze. Then Seraphina ran after me.

“You don’t recognize me, do you, Elara?”

She smiled, sharp and triumphant.

“You kept him for years. He sent me abroad. So what?”

“What’s mine will always be mine.”

Her?

I stared at her familiar face—It was her, the girl I’d fought in school.

The only daughter of the Cole family.

I’d seen news about her coming back to town—elegant, beautiful, turning all the wealthy young men in Havenbrook upside down.

Within days, she’d been taken by a powerful heir. They’d been secretly dating.

I never thought it mattered.I never guessed that a party I didn’t attend would make Darien fall for her.

Love really didn’t make sense.

I gave up.

Old memories weighed on me.

Darien’s voice pulled me back.

“Fine. I’ll take you to Willow Creek Estates first. After you finalize the divorce with Kael, you can come home.”