I Heard His Heart But Lost Mine Chapter 04

I Heard His Heart But Lost Mine Chapter 04

When my family’s company went under, my mother was forced to sell the bracelet — the only heirloom we had.

When she passed away, failing to get it back was her only dying regret.

Julian tracked it down. It took months and cost him a fortune, but he got it back.

I cried so hard I couldn’t speak. I kept saying I’d never be able to repay him.

His voice was rigidly controlled, but the intense way he looked at me — that was anything but calm. “Then give me yourself. Marry me, Audrey.”

He slid the bracelet onto my wrist like it was a ring — my mother’s last gift, and his promise, all at once.

But that was then. Now, he stood towering over me, his voice like ice —

“I gave you that bracelet because I wanted you to be my wife. You don’t want that anymore? Then you don’t get to keep it. You don’t actually think you’re worth four million dollars, do you?”

Something inside me caved in.

I swallowed the thick sob rising in my throat. “I’ll get you the four million. Somehow, I’ll—”

“I don’t want your money!” Julian’s voice cracked, raw with fury. “You think this is about money, Audrey? You’re the one throwing this away. You’re the one who doesn’t want this family. So the bracelet goes to someone who actually wants to stay.”

He snatched Chloe’s hand and roughly shoved the bracelet onto her wrist.

The same gesture. A different wrist. The same promise — made to someone else.

Chloe turned her head — just enough so Julian couldn’t see — and mouthed the words to me.

[A dead woman’s jewelry. How morbid.]

Blinding rage hit me like a physical blow. I lunged for her wrist. “If you don’t want it, give it back!”

The second my hand touched her, Chloe screamed and threw herself back onto the floor. Her wrist hit the tile. The bracelet shattered into jagged pieces on impact.

My mind went blank. So did Julian’s.

Chloe held up her arm — barely scratched — and burst into tears. “Julian, my wrist! It hurts so much…”

Julian snapped out of his daze and shoved me backward, hard.

“What is wrong with you? That was your mother’s — the only thing you had left of her — and you smashed it just to get at Chloe?”

I hit the hard tile floor. A sudden, terrifying pain tore through my lower abdomen.

I was shaking. I bit the inside of my cheek against the pain and tried to explain. “I didn’t push her — she threw herself down on purpose. She broke it on purpose—”

“Enough!” A vein pulsed in Julian’s neck. “You’re out of your mind. Now you want to blame Chloe? If you hadn’t charged at her, that bracelet would still be in one piece.”

But beneath the rage, panic flickered in his eyes. His inner voice broke through.

[What do I do? The bracelet — her mother’s bracelet — it’s gone.]

[That was the only thing keeping her here. And now it’s gone.]

[I don’t want this. I can’t just watch her leave. I can’t.]

Julian hauled me off the floor. Before I could process what was happening, he shoved me into the dark storage room and slammed the door shut, plunging me into darkness.

“You hurt Chloe, and now you’ve completely lost it. Stay in there until you calm down.”

The pain in my abdomen was getting worse — sharper, deeper, wrong.

Then I felt it — warmth, spreading between my legs. Blood. Panic swallowed me whole.