Chapter 17

Emily’s POV

“Wait, what?” he yelled. “Are you crazy?”

I froze. Uh? He had never spoken to me like this before. I was caught completely off guard.

“No… wait… baby, I’m sorry, I just—I can’t lose you, babe.” His voice softened again, desperation bleeding through. “What about me? Your father would kill me if he found out you ran away with me.”

“But I’m set to wed in the coming week,” I shot back. “Is that okay with you, or don’t you understand? I can’t change his mind, but what I can do is change my situation.”

He sighed heavily. “Okay… if we were to do this. Big If.”

“Where do we go? How do we survive? I don’t…I can’t support you, baby. You know that. You’ve always been the one supporting me. You know my situation… I can’t even get a job. I don’t have the money.”

“That won’t be a problem,” I said quickly. “I have my cards. I can get some cash for us—enough so they don’t trace it for a while. They won’t suspect a thing. They’ll be none the wiser until I leave. And I leave in two days. Are you in?”

“Fuck… shit. I’m in.”

“Great,” I said. “Pack your things. We meet at Lloyd Station in two days, by 5 a.m.”

And so I bided my time, acting normal. I even went dress shopping with my mother, not letting anything slip about my escape. I found the perfect dress—one that would have been perfect if I was marrying my true love.

Everyone had come to terms with me being married off. No one questioned it, no one cared.

Only Brianna showed a flicker of concern. She sent me worried glances from across the dining table, silent but heavy with unspoken questions. Despite our not-so-great relationship, I knew she cared. I knew she was worried about me.

An angel, that one.

By the D-day, I’d woken extremely early, not that I slept that long even. My bags were packed and tucked underneath my bed. I don’t take much, just light clothing for now, a few jewelry pieces that I could trade for cash if needed. Danny had suggested that I took anything that we could trade for cash.

Closing my room door with a soft thud, I walk stealthily out the door, and eventually out of the house. No one was up, not even Elsa who had a weird habit of waking at ungodly hours for Pilates.

In no time, I left the estate without a result behind me. I got to the Lloyd station, met Danny and we set off.

Then, I thought I’d successfully escaped my unfortunate fate, I thought I had found my perfect ending. Oh, I couldn’t be more wrong.

After the first day, my cards were blocked, account frozen. Even my cellphone got cut. My father really wasted no time.

And that was when things went to shit. Danny and I struggled to find a place to sleep or rent and we kept getting denied. It was almost like every place had been informed to reject us.

My father couldn’t have found out where…

“Let’s just go back, Emily.” Danny whined. “It’s Claire our father has found us, the fact that he isn’t doing anything scares me shitless.”

“No!,” I spat, “I’m not going back there, I’m not going to get married to that devil man.”

Danny agreed after a while, w sound a small motel room and settled for a while. After two days of spending all the cash I came with, we were now broke with only the jewelries and pearls left to trade.

“So how are we going to survive now?” Danny asked, his voice tight. “The cash is finished. All we have left is this jewelry and once we start trading it, when it’s gone, we’ll have nothing left. How do we keep going after that?”

“We’ll find a way,” I said quickly. “We’ll find a way. Let’s just take it day by day. But I’m not going back there, Danny. I’m not going back home.”

For a moment, he was quiet… and then he nodded. It seemed like he agreed.

That night, we slept. I could only hope that things would look up from there and that we could weather any storm together.

But when I woke up the next morning, Danny was gone.

And so were all our things.

The jewelry box—gone. The pearls. Every last piece of gold and diamond I had brought with me, carefully packed into different boxes… all of it disappeared.

No note. No goodbye. Not even the decency of a farewell. Not that I should’ve expected one from a thief.

And that was when it became painfully clear who Danny really was.

I had always suspected it, a quiet inkling at the back of my mind—that he was using me for money. But I chose to ignore it. I told myself it didn’t matter, that I could help him because I had the means… and because I loved him and he just love me also.

But now I saw it with unmistakable clarity. Danny was gone. He was never here with me though. He never cared if I married another, he wasn’t with me at all.

Still, clinging to a sliver of denial, I called him. I texted him. No response.

I sat in that motel room until my day’s payment ran out, the space slowly becoming colder, emptier. And when I finally called him one last time—miraculously, he picked up.

“Danny… where are you?”

Silence.

“Danny, where are you?” I asked again, my voice breaking.

And then he spoke.

“I’ve gone back. I’m leaving. I can’t do this anymore.”

My breath caught.

“I don’t love you enough to go through this runaway bride fantasy with you,” he continued. “We’re from two different worlds, Emily. And to be honest… I never truly loved you. I liked you but the love part never really came in for me.”

Something in me shattered. All my hopes, my dreams, my plans with him in my future, it all fell down, breaking into tiny unrepairable pieces.

I sat there, frozen, and then I broke. I cried until my chest hurt, until there was nothing left in me but grief and humiliation. The illusion of an escape now broken. I had nothing left, no reason to remain here.

Then came the knock. The motel staff—my payment had expired. Renewal was due.

I wiped my face with shaking hands, stood up, and changed my clothes in silence.

With nowhere left to go, I sent one final text to my father.

*I’m coming home. Unblock my card, please.*

And with that, I booked a ticket… and went back home.

I was the prodigal daughter, coming home to reclaim the place I had once run away from. Except what I didn’t know was that in my absence, I had already been replaced—and the only chance I had left to escape the humiliation I was heading back into had already been taken from me.