He Took My Love 99 Times. The 100th Time, He Lost Me Forever. Chapter 08

He Took My Love 99 Times. The 100th Time, He Lost Me Forever. Chapter 08

Three weeks after the tribunal, the ballet company the Castellano Family sponsored lost its last

remaining patron.

Serena’s titles were stripped, her tour canceled.

The purchased emotions had long since been spent, competition after competition, but the dependency they left behind had not gone away.

Now, whenever she stood before a camera, she remembered exactly where every ounce of her courage had come from.

She began to lose sleep, to lose control.

She could no longer dance a full piece from start to finish.

Donna Isabella blamed it all on me.

She stormed into the publishing house and cursed me for my ingratitude in front of my

coworkers.

“Without the Castellano Family, you’d be nothing but a junior proofreader!”

“Dante married you and has supported you all these years, and you’ve ruined his work!”

Margaret pulled out the payroll records.

“Annalise has been here eight years and has never taken a cent from the Castellanos.”

“In fact, half of her salary goes into the Arts Foundation under Dante’s name every month.”

The Donna froze.

So did I.

Those transfers, too, were buried in the memory that had been wiped.

When Dante arrived, his mother was sweeping my manuscripts off the desk.

He stopped her and said quietly, “That’s enough.”

She slapped him across the face.

“What good does it do to protect her now?”

“When you were extracting her love, which time was it that you didn’t press the button?”

The office went still.

Dante bent down and picked up the pages one by one.

“I’m sorry.”

I took the papers from his hand and did not answer.

He followed me downstairs and produced a property transfer deed.

“The house, the savings, my shares in the Foundation and the company, all yours. Just withdraw the divorce petition.”

“Why?”

“I’ll send Serena away. I’ll repay every dollar you transferred to the Foundation.”

“Wherever you want to go, I’ll go with you. If you want a child, we can still

“Mr. Castellano.”

I cut him off.

“My journal says that after the miscarriage, I can never conceive again.”

All the blood drained from his face.

“Did you forget?”

His lips moved several times. No sound came out.

Of course he hadn’t forgotten.

It was only that one call from Serena had been enough to make him leave his wife on the operating table.

And now, to win me back, he could step over that surgery as if it were nothing.

“Annalise, that’s not what I meant.’

“What you meant doesn’t matter anymore.”

“But I love you.”

“The system says eight point seven percent.”

His eyes went red.

“A number can’t capture everything.”

“Then why did you measure me by numbers for ten years?”

He stood frozen.

I handed the transfer deed back.

“The final divorce hearing is next Monday. Don’t be late.”

I had taken only a few steps when he called after me:

“What if I give you all of that eight point seven percent?”

I didn’t turn around.

“That’s yours. You decide.”