The Night He Chose Her, I Chose My Revenge Chapter 16

The Night He Chose Her, I Chose My Revenge Chapter 16

I looked at him, my face a blank mask.

“Julian, why did you think you needed to teach me anything?”

He froze.

The panic on his face congealed. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

Julian Croft, always so elegant, always with an excuse for his cruelty, was speechless for the first time.

I slowly pulled my hand—the hand that had just been handed a professional death sentence—out of his grasp.

“Teach me what? How to survive a hurricane?”

I looked at him calmly. “You locked me in that old house with no signal. No food. No water. I watched the seawater rise over the garden, then flood the first floor. Do you have any idea how close I came to dying?”

Julian listened, and his eyes began to redden.

“I’m sorry… Elara, I’m sorry. I never thought it would be like that…” His apology came in broken fragments, his voice thick with real fear.

“Of course you never thought,” I interrupted. “Just like you never thought about what it felt like for the last five years, every time I had to stand in the crowd and watch another woman wear the brooch that should have been mine while standing next to you.”

I looked him straight in the eye. “Julian, let’s get a divorce.”

“To you, this marriage was a tool to preserve your ridiculous legacy. To me, it was five years of being sliced apart, piece by piece. Once we’re divorced, we’ll both be free.”

Those words were a bullet, shattering the last of his composure.

Julian suddenly slid from the chair to the floor, his hands clutching the bedframe. His injured leg hit the ground, and the pain turned his face white, but he didn’t seem to care.

“No. We can’t get a divorce.”

He sobbed and begged, all the dignity of the Croft heir gone.

“Elara, I don’t want a divorce. I’m begging you. Give me one more chance. I’ll change, I swear. Please?”

I sighed and pressed the call button by the bed.

A moment later, two tall security guards came in.

Under Julian’s despairing gaze, they took him by the arms and hauled him to his feet.

He was dragged out like a piece of unwanted furniture, cleared completely from my world.