I Signed Away My First Love, Then Married Someone Else Chapter 04

I Signed Away My First Love, Then Married Someone Else Chapter 04

Madeline had only ever been the girl my parents took in.

When Grant and I were kids, we were kidnapped together.

Our parents thought we’d never come home, so they took Madeline in as their ward.

By the time Grant and I were found, she’d already lived with our family for three years.

After we came home, our parents worked things out with their close friends, the Hales, who formally adopted her.

Yet everyone in our circle said I’d stolen Madeline’s entire life.

That included the childhood understanding that she would someday marry Ethan.

When I met Ethan, I hadn’t even known about that understanding.

I refused to give him up without a fight, and one battle led to another.

Eventually, even my own brother and the boy I’d grown up with began to resent me.

That day, when I ran out of the house in slippers, I felt like nothing but a punch line.

Madeline only had to shed a couple of tears, and everyone acted as though she’d suffered some terrible injustice.

I didn’t know how to make myself look fragile. All I knew was how to fight for what was mine, and somehow that made me everyone’s villain.

Hotel security stopped me at the ballroom doors.

Grant rushed out and grabbed me. “What are you doing here? Go home!”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“What difference would telling you have made? All you ever do is cause a scene.”

A cheerful chant spilled out of the ballroom behind him.

“Kiss her! Kiss her!”

I shoved past him and rushed inside. Every head in the room turned.

Some people looked shocked. Some frowned. Others seemed delighted by the spectacle.

Ethan stood onstage with a diamond ring box in his hand.

Inside lay the engagement ring that should have been mine.

He didn’t look at me.

He lowered his head and slid the ring onto Madeline’s finger.

I smashed a glass beside the stage and closed my hand around a jagged shard.

“Ethan Caldwell, do you believe I’d die right here in front of you?”

Someone screamed. Several people tried to grab me.

I tore free, ran outside, and climbed to the hotel roof.

Wind tore across the rooftop as I stood beside the railing.

I took out my phone and texted Ethan. “Come up here.”

He replied, “Stop making a scene.”

“If you don’t come up, I’ll jump.”

“Claire, could you grow up for once?”

I raised my phone, photographed the street far below, and sent him the picture.

Ten minutes later, Ethan came onto the roof.

He stopped at the entrance, five paces away, still wearing the suit from the engagement party.

He didn’t come any closer.

“Come down,” he said.

“Are you still going to marry her?”

“Claire…”

“Are you still going to marry her?”

He was silent for several seconds before answering.

“Claire, I can’t spend the rest of my life being held hostage by threats to your life.”

The wind really was brutal that night.

It roared in my ears until I could barely hear him.

“But we were already engaged. You chased me. You proposed. And now you hide this from me and hold an engagement party with someone else in front of everyone. What does that make me?”

“Claire Whitmore.” His brows drew together. “Are you really going to make me say it in the cruelest way possible?”

“Her adoptive mother is dying. Her last wish is to see Madeline walk down the aisle.”

“The engagement and wedding are only symbolic. I’m giving her mother one last happy memory. Why do you have to turn it into a disaster?”

“And don’t forget, you were the one who took everything from Madeline. Susan Hale raised her, and this is the only thing she’s ever asked for. Helping Madeline grant that wish is your chance to make amends.”

“For once, can’t you show some grace and try to understand?”

The wind swallowed half his accusations.

I stood outside the railing with one hand wrapped around the freezing metal bars.

“What about our engagement?”

“Nothing has changed between us. We’ll deal with it later.”

“Later?” I laughed, but a gust cut the sound short. After coughing twice, I said, “All of you make favoritism sound noble. Why does my marriage always have to come after hers?”

He didn’t answer.

I looked at him and asked once more. “One last time. Are you going to marry her?”

He met my eyes. “Yes.”

“Then we’re over.”

“Suit yourself.”

Just those two words.

I stayed outside the railing all night, and he never once moved to pull me back.

Eventually Grant came up with Nate, and several people dragged me to safety.

But Ethan was already gone.

The last thing he said to me on that roof was, “Whether you jump is your choice. I’m going back downstairs to make a toast.”

When I finally climbed back over the railing,

I spotted a cuff link on the ground, the one I’d given him the night he proposed.

It must have snagged on something when he turned away.

I crouched to pick it up. In that moment, something inside me finally came loose.

The cuff link had fallen. So had our engagement.