First Love or Husband? I Choose Neither Chapter 06

First Love or Husband? I Choose Neither Chapter 06

I turned back to look at him.

“When I first told Adrian to keep her, I had already flagged the anomalies in her background. The subtle breadcrumbs leading back to you.”

I gave a faint, humorless smile. “If it hadn’t been for me, she probably never would’ve gotten close enough to him in the first place.”

Then I added, “And if it hadn’t been for you, she never would’ve had a shot with him at all.”

Declan said nothing.

“Adrian’s loved me since we were kids,” I went on. “Our marriage was a game of shadows. He used Sienna to hurt me, to see if I’d finally bleed for him. She was a weapon, Declan. Nothing more.”

I let my fingers tighten slowly around the edge of the seat.

“The Mercers don’t do messy divorces unless there’s a reason.”

I looked at him steadily.

“Sienna thought I was the one dragging my feet all these years, refusing to let Adrian go. But you saw what happened in there. If I really signed those papers, Adrian would be the one losing his mind.”

I had said too much all at once.

By the time I finished, I pushed myself upright and sat straighter in my seat.

“Declan,” I said, “maybe we really were never meant to make it.”

Then I opened the door and stepped out into the rain.

The downpour hit me instantly. I leaned down toward the open window and said, “I’ll wire your retainer like we agreed.”

Then I looked at him one last time.

“Goodbye.”

Declan watched me walk away in my heels through the rain, and in that moment his heart seemed to seize.

Maybe we really were never meant to make it.

The line kept echoing in his ears.

Just like the one from five years ago.

Declan, we should break up.

I was only having fun. I’ve got an empire to marry. You were just a summer distraction.

He had never understood how someone could say things that cold so easily, how someone could cut a person out of her life that completely.

He got out of the car and strode after me in a few quick steps, then caught my wrist.

Rain lashed across my face. I couldn’t tell anymore whether the wet on my skin was rain or tears.

“Celeste, talk to me.”

I jerked my hand free. “There’s no point. If you’ve got something to say, say it here.”

Declan looked down at his empty hand, then slowly curled it into a fist and pulled it back to his side.

“When we broke up,” he said, his voice low, “why did you do it?”

Finally, after five years, he had asked the one question he had never let go of.

He had spent years hung up on being the one left behind.

He had clawed his way up from nothing, thinking he could win me back, only to watch me walk down the aisle toward a Mercer.

The bride had been his ex-girlfriend of less than two weeks.

The groom had been the heir to one of the city’s most powerful old-money families.

“Declan,” I said, “that was a lifetime ago. There’s no point dragging it back up now.”

I held his gaze for a second.

“If all this is about your pride, if you just can’t get over the fact that I was the one who chased you and then dumped you, then fine.”

A bitter little smile touched my lips.

“This time, you can tell yourself you were the one who left me.”

His brows lowered, the weariness in his face suddenly impossible to hide.

“Celeste,” he said quietly, “you asked what Sienna is to me.”

He paused.

“She’s my sister. My mother’s daughter..”

The rain kept falling between us.

“She got close to Adrian to break the two of you apart,” he said. “She did it for me.”

I stood frozen in the rain, shivering so hard it felt like the cold had reached my bones.

So that was the truth.

“But then she fell for him,” I said. “For real.”

My voice came out calmer than I felt. “And you took my case to help clear the road for her, didn’t you?”

Declan didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

I lifted a hand and wiped the water from the corner of my eye, then laughed under my breath, small and helpless.

“Okay,” I said. “Now I understand.”

I looked at him through the rain.

“Then do your sister a favor, Declan.”

My voice was quiet, but it landed clean.

“Even if I divorce Adrian, she’s still never getting through the Mercer family’s front door.”

Like I said. I hate being manipulated.