ログイン共有
Chapter 8
最新チャプター
The Seventh Casing Chapter 12
The years passed in a blink.Three years on, the world's top design competition opened, and I entered under my own name, Ava, with an entirely new couture collection, and took the international gold in one stroke, reaching the summit of global design.The small designer who'd once hidden behind Dean, edges filed down, had long since broken free of everything love had bound her with, standing now at the top of the world, living as something truly dazzling, beyond anyone's reach.The ceremony was held in a glittering international capital, red carpet underfoot, celebrities everywhere, the spotlights flashing for me through the whole night.Afterward I rode alone through the city's old quarter on my way to the airport. Passing a dim, noisy intersection, gaudy neon, a messy crush of people, traffic everywhere, I caught sight, by chance, of a figure both familiar and strange.It was Lena.She was in a cheap, revealing dress, her makeup patchy and worn, her hair a dry, tangled yellow, hunche
The Seventh Casing Chapter 11
Dean went back to Westport alone, travel-worn, the regret bone-deep.Once there, he let go of most of his inner circle, shed half the power of the Don's seat, and never again looked like the decisive, high-spirited man he'd been.He bought back the apartment I'd put up for sale.With his own hands he painted the walls back to the greige I loved, cleared out every cheap toy and bit of clutter piece by piece, tracked down the antique paintings and treasured objects I'd gathered across countries, and carefully restored every detail I'd designed with such care.He threw out every trace of Lena, burned the gaudy portrait of the two of them, emptied the place of everything that wasn't me.But the cleaner and more ordered the home got, the more empty and cold it felt.In all that space, there was no more Ava, warm with love, always waiting for him.Every bit of warmth and hope, he'd destroyed with his own hands, past any restoring.After that, Dean became another man entirely.He stopped work
The Seventh Casing Chapter 10
"Ava?" Evan frowned. "You're not about to forgive this man, are you?""Of course not." I let out a small laugh. "But some things are better said plainly."Dean paid no mind to the stares, the pressure of the room. Step by step, he came through the crowd toward me.Every step came down on a bottomless regret.He lifted his eyes to mine and held them, his voice hoarse and broken, trembling on the edge of something close to begging."Ava. It was me who was never good enough for you. All along.""You did all of it for me. Why did you never tell me?"I took a step forward, no grief or joy in my voice. "I've never once regretted anything I did, Dean. Those seven casings came from the day we met, when you stood in front of me amid the riot and bore all the danger for me.""What I gave you was never just casings. It was my promise. My vow. My love.""But you didn't deserve it!"Dean froze. The noise and light around him blurred into nothing behind me.Evan stood tall and severe in front of me,
The Seventh Casing Chapter 9
Three days later, Marwick. The year's top gathering of international high society.This banquet, drawing the world's powerful, its business titans, its underworld names, was hosted entirely by the Ellison family, the grandest event the upper circles had.The hall blazed with light, the crystal chandeliers throwing color everywhere, perfume and silk, the clink of glasses.I wore a custom couture gown in snow white, the hem scattered with fine starlight crystals, my face cool and striking, my carriage straight and easy.The old softness and forbearance gone, I carried a cool, highborn poise now, every movement the composure of Miss Ava at her highest.Evan took my hand and led me to the center of the hall, and said, low, to every powerful person there, "This is my sister. Ava. The brightest treasure the Ellison family has. And the designer you all know as Zola, that's another name of hers."The moment the words left his mouth, the whole room erupted in shock.Everyone bowed in turn, thei
The Seventh Casing Chapter 8
Meanwhile, a thousand miles away, Westport had fallen into chaos and unrest.Dean pulled the footage from every camera in the city, put every man he had on it, tore the place apart, and still found not a trace of me.Lena was thrown out of the apartment for good, her name in ruins, her degree void, the laughingstock of the whole industry.She reached out to Dean countless times and got nothing back but a cold block and silence.Dean finally came all the way awake: his years of favoritism and indulgence had, with his own hands, driven away the person who loved him most and whom he loved most.He bought back the home that no longer had a bride in it, and sat there alone every night, staring at nothing, numbing himself over and over with memories of how sweet and warm it had once been.But each time he snapped out of his reverie, the huge place stood empty. No trace of me, none of the old warmth, only an endless desolation and a cold that went to the bone.Every corner of it reminded him,
The Seventh Casing Chapter 7
And at that moment, on the private yacht headed for the harbor outside the city, I stood on deck with the sea wind in my hair.It carried a warm, salt-damp weight as it moved through the ends of my hair, and it took with it the exhaustion and hurt I'd carried so long.All of it, the deliberate favoritism, the clumsy performances, the love that had broken apart, slipped into the past with the receding shore.The yacht cut through the swells, pulling clear of Westport's shadow for good.I looked back at the city's blurred outline. It had once held ten years of my love and hope. Now there was only the emptiness left after seven casings had been spent.The yacht eased away from the dock. This city, the one with Dean in it, I would never look back at again.Twenty hours on the water came to an end as the yacht settled smoothly into Marwick's private harbor.Black cars lined both sides of the dock for hundreds of meters. The Ellison guards stood in their dark suits, straight and sharp, the b
あなたも気に入るかもしれません
A Tainted Bloodline
Shirley8.8K ビューThe Don’s Favorite Lover Vanished
Melissa Z81.4K ビューThe Don’s Regret After My Departure
Miss Smoke16.4K ビューThe Lottery of Fate
Sea One10.6K ビューThe Don Went Crazy After Killing My Mother at My Wedding
Flowering Tree3.5K ビューThe Wedding of a Lifetime
Snail5.6K ビューThe Day I Stopped Saving Her
Rui Rui2.1K ビューWhen Lina Vale Became Elena Valenti Again
September2.8K ビュー
