First Love or Husband? I Choose Neither Chapter 08

First Love or Husband? I Choose Neither Chapter 08

“Celeste, I’ve loved you since I was eight years old. That never changed.”

Adrian was crouched by my knees now, looking up at me with naked desperation.

“I shouldn’t have used something like this to get your attention. I know I was wrong. I really do.”

His voice dropped lower. “Can you forgive me?”

I looked down at him.

“And Sienna?” I asked. “Adrian, what about the life she’s carrying? Or is that just more collateral damage?”

At once, his expression hardened into something cold and transactional.

“Abort it,” he said.

He lifted his head and spoke with brutal certainty. “As long as you agree not to divorce me, I won’t let her keep the child.”

My chest jolted hard.

“Adrian…” I stared at him. “What the hell are you saying?”

A shaking voice rose from the doorway.

“So that’s what this was?”

It was Sienna.

“Were you using me this whole time?” she demanded, her voice trembling. “Everything you did, all of it, was

just to keep her?”

Only then did she finally realize her true worth in the Mercer world.

A pawn in a rich man’s psychodrama.

A disposable piece on someone else’s board.

Adrian turned to look at her, and his gaze was as sharp as a razor.

“Using you?” he repeated coldly. “Sienna, didn’t you come after me in the first place to break Celeste and me

apart?”

His eyes narrowed. “You wanted me to divorce her so Declan could swoop in and get her back. Wasn’t that the plan?”

All the ugly, impossible knots between them were dumped in front of me again.

I pressed two fingers to my temple.

“Celeste, weren’t you the one who wanted a divorce?” she screamed.

“Then why won’t you let either of them go? Why do you have to keep them both tied to you?”

I had no strength left. Their voices blurred at the edges, drifting around my head like static.

When I didn’t answer, Sienna charged at me.

She was five months pregnant, but somehow she still had the strength to grab me and yank me upright.

“Say something!” she shouted. “Stop playing the martyr!”

I shoved her off, my temper finally snapping. “I’m sick of this. If you want to play out your melodrama, do it somewhere else.”

I steadied myself on the back of the sofa. “I already said I’ll agree to the divorce.”

Then I turned and started toward the bedroom, my steps unsteady.

I had barely made it a few feet when a sudden pain tore through my side, sharp enough to jolt me fully

awake.

“Why?” Sienna screamed behind me. “Why does everything always have to revolve around you?”

Her voice went wild. “Why do they both only see you?”

Then came the final scream.

“Go to hell! If you die, everything will finally be peaceful!”

I turned just in time to see the knife in her hand.

Blood dripped from the blade onto the floor.

Then I looked down at my right side.

Bright red blood was pouring out.

“You…”

I didn’t even finish the word before the world tipped out from under me.

“Celeste!”

Right before everything went black, I thought I heard Declan’s voice.