Chapter 4

On the day of the Moretti family banquet.

I attended with Ethan as agreed.

The reason was that I wanted to get my mother’s manuscripts back.

At the banquet that evening, Ethan held my hand and stood among the crowd, introducing me to the entire Moretti family.

“This is my fiancée, Clara Nolan.”

Ethan said that he and I would be getting married soon.

He promised to give me the most grand wedding in history.

The people of the Moretti family looked at me with envy, sighing over Ethan’s extreme favoritism toward me.

I stood in the center of attention, coldly listening to Ethan declare his love for me.

On the other side, the jealous Bianca had already drunk several glasses of red wine.

She looked as if she wanted to kill me.

After the introduction, Ethan was called away by the family elders.

I went to find Bianca to retrieve my mother’s manuscripts.

Bianca led me to the stairwell.

She took out my mother’s manuscripts.

I was about to step forward to take them.

Then I heard a series of tearing sounds.

Bianca actually tore my mother’s manuscripts apart right in front of me!

“Bianca, stop!”

I lost control of my emotions and rushed forward to stop her.

But Bianca had already lost it and shouted loudly.

“Clara, do you think you’ve won?”

“No! Even if Ethan marries you, the person he cares about most will still be me!”

“The moment anything happens to me, he’ll drop everything and rush to my side. You’re just his backup—someone who can be there or not!”

“Clara, in his heart, you’re not even worthy of carrying my shoes!”

I couldn’t be bothered with her crazed ranting and reached out to snatch the design manuscripts from her hands.

But before I could grab them, Ethan’s voice came from behind me.

“What are you two doing?”

I turned to look at Ethan and was about to explain, “She…”

I had just opened my mouth when Bianca’s scream rang in my ears.

Bianca “accidentally” fell down the stairs.

Ethan reacted lightning-fast and caught Bianca!

Bianca immediately threw herself into Ethan’s arms and tearfully accused Clara.

“Clara, I know you’ve never liked how close Ethan and I are.”

“But even if you don’t like it, you can’t push me down the stairs!”

After the accusation, Bianca looked pitifully at Ethan.

And Ethan didn’t even bother to investigate. He just looked at me with a cold face and scolded, “Clara, what have you done!”

I retorted, “She tore my—”

Bianca interrupted, “Ethan, don’t blame her. It was my carelessness.”

“Ethan, my foot hurts so much. I think I sprained it.”

Ethan looked down at Bianca, then looked at me with disappointment. “Clara, you’ve really disappointed me. I shouldn’t have brought you to the family banquet.”

Such a clumsy frame-up, and he believed it so easily.

He supported the pretending-to-be-injured Bianca and left.

Every time, Ethan never gave me even a moment to defend myself.

The floor was covered with the messy manuscripts. I crouched down and picked them up one by one.

I held the manuscripts in my arms as if embracing my mother once more across time and space.

After gathering the manuscripts, I planned to leave alone.

When I reached the banquet hall, I suddenly heard gunshots. The crowd became chaotic.

“Hurry! There’s a gunfight outside!”

“It’s the traitors coming for revenge.”

Gunshots rang out one after another around me. I was pushed and jostled in the panicked crowd.

On top of that, I was wearing a long evening gown, which made running difficult.

With a “bang,” a bullet hit the crystal chandelier.

I didn’t have time to dodge. The entire chandelier came crashing down toward me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ethan charging through the hail of bullets, desperately rushing toward Bianca.

Ethan scooped up the panicked Bianca and strode outward without ever looking back at me.

I clutched my mother’s manuscripts and hid under a banquet table until the gunfight ended.

After Ethan chose his childhood sweetheart once again, I went home, took the suitcase I had packed in advance, and prepared to leave.

The plane soared into the clouds.

Goodbye, Ethan. I will never love you again.

It wasn’t until the next day that Ethan suddenly realized it was the day of the wedding he and Clara had scheduled.

He still hadn’t managed to get the marriage certificate before the wedding.

But he thought that even if there was only a wedding and no flimsy piece of paper, the Clara who loved him so deeply would still be very happy.

He never expected this.

At the wedding venue, the staff said to him in confusion: “Miss Nolan already canceled the wedding. Didn’t she tell you?”