The Arrogant Young Lady’s Awakening Chapter 07

The Arrogant Young Lady’s Awakening Chapter 07

I slept badly. 

Kept thinking someone was calling my name. 

When I came down the next morning, the housekeeper 

said Adrian was here. 

I froze. 

He came back? 

I went downstairs and found him in the kitchen. 

Making me breakfast. 

He looked like he hadn’t slept all night. 

He set a plate in front of me. Toast. 

His eyes were bloodshot. 

“Do we have to get divorced?” 

I had never been more certain of anything. 

“Yes.” 

After all those years of chasing. After all that obsession. 

In the moment of letting go, I was unexpectedly calm. 

I sat across from him and started speaking, slowly. 

“Adrian. Do you know what the biggest regret of my life 

is? Forcing you to marry me.” 

I startled myself when I said it. 

Pearl Langford never regrets. Pearl Langford swallows broken teeth and keeps moving. Pearl Langford burns. down the world to take what she wants. Pearl Langford runs full speed at brick walls without flinching. 

That’s how I’d lived. 

But sitting across from him now, I really did believe I’d 

been wrong. 

Wrong because I’d known he didn’t love me, and I’d 

tied him down anyway. 

I’d trapped him in a marriage he never wanted. Made 

him come home every night to a face he didn’t want to 

see. Made him watch the woman he actually cared 

about from a distance he wasn’t allowed to cross. 

I was the executioner. 

The blade was my father’s old kindness to him. The 

chains were our marriage. I’d used both to hold him 

hostage. 

For the first time, I asked him, dead serious: 

“Do you hate me?” 

He frowned. 

“No.” 

“You should.” I lowered my head. “I wasted three years of your life.” 

“You didn’t.” 

“I did!” My voice rose, three years of swallowed grief finally breaking loose. “You could have been with the person you actually love. You could have done what you actually wanted. You wouldn’t have had to come home every day to a crazy woman tearing the house apart.” 

“It was me! I ruined your life!” 

I stood up. Bashed my knee against the coffee table corner. The pain made me suck in a breath, but I didn’t 

care. 

“Do you know how I got those papers?” I looked at him, eyes burning red. “I begged my father. I begged him to pull strings. I went around begging every single person I could think of, like a beggar. My dad asked if I’d lost 

my mind, and I said yes. Yes, I’m crazy. I have no shame. I don’t care about anything anymore. I just 

want him.” 

My voice was shaking. 

“But you, Adrian.” 

“You don’t love me, but after we got married, you let 

me have everything. No matter how out of line I got, you never said a word. You let me believe–let me actually believe that maybe you cared about me, just a little.” 

“You always gave me the smallest flicker of hope.” 

“And it made me think–okay, fine, you don’t love me yet, but I can wait. I’ll wait until the day you do.” 

But the truth had finally surfaced. 

It had only ever been wishful thinking. 

I shoved the breakfast off the table. My chest heaved. 

Adrian saw something in my face and shot up. 

“Pearl, I —” 

“Get out.” 

I cut him off. 

“Adrian. I don’t want you anymore.” 

The tears came finally. 

“I’m done thinking. I figured it out.” 

“I, Pearl Langford, don’t want you anymore.” 

The last shred of pride and self–respect made me say it again. 

“Remember this, Adrian. I’m the one rejecting you.” 

The air froze. 

Adrian clearly hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t expected to 

make me this angry. 

I pressed a hand over my chest, turned, and didn’t look 

back. 

“I’ll send you the divorce agreement as soon as I can.”