All Chapters of I Made a Deal With the Devil: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Henry asked, his voice breaking, "You two were once so perfect together. How did it ever come to this?"Julian's hand around the soup bowl clenched tight, the scalding broth splashing onto the back of it, and he didn't seem to feel it.His phone rang. It was a friend. A few people wanted to hold a small memorial for Eleanor, to see her off one last time. Julian was silent for a long moment, then agreed, his voice dry. "All right. Thank you."He suggested holding it at the sunflower field on the city's edge. She had loved sunflowers most. He remembered what she'd said the first time she dragged him to see them. "Look how good they are. Always facing the sun. I'm going to be like a sunflower too, always facing you."And later, he had become precisely the dark cloud that blocked out her sun.He hung up and didn't sleep all night. At daybreak, Henry brought in an old rattan basket of Eleanor's sewing things. On top was a half-knitted dark-gray wool scarf, the needles still pinned in the ya

Julian turned back, his hands shaking. He reached the lines a few entries before the pregnancy. "My stomach hurts a little. Went to the hospital for a check, and the doctor told me to stay in bed and rest. Julian, I'm a little scared. Could you come home and be with me?"The date was just a few days before the miscarriage.He remembered how he had treated her in those days. She'd wanted to talk to him, and he had impatiently thrown out "don't bother me with this garbage" and slammed the door on his way out. The day she miscarried, he had been out entertaining with Vivienne, photographed, the pictures spreading all over town.He held the journal, his back against the wall, and slowly slid down to the floor, murmuring over and over. "I'm sorry. Eleanor."Just then, his phone rang. Word had come, relayed through an old subordinate from inside Viktor Cain's scheme back then. The old case had taken a new turn.Julian stared at the screen, not a ripple of feeling in his eyes, only a still, s

Settling with his rival, buying back the holdings, funding the foundation, one matter after another concluded, and more time passed.One morning at first light, Julian didn't go to the office. He drove alone to the cemetery on the city's edge. With her belongings, he had raised a cenotaph for her. Five words were carved on the headstone. "Wife of Julian Ashford."He laid down a bunch of sunflowers and slowly sat down before the stone. He wasn't rushed the way he'd been at the funeral. Instead, like keeping an appointment long overdue, he told their story from the beginning.The seat by the window in the college library that she used to save for him. Their first date, when he was late and she didn't get angry. The day they registered, when she smiled and said, "We're finally married." And how, step by step, they had drifted apart afterward.He talked on and on, talked the whole day, from sunrise to sunset."I'm sorry, Eleanor. That trap back then, I should have told you about it sooner.

In the days after, Julian buried himself entirely in work. First to arrive, last to leave, the office light often burning past midnight.A partner muttered privately, "What's gotten into Ashford lately, working like his life depends on it." The words reached his ears, and he only gave a faint smile. Only he knew he was using the round-the-clock busyness to fill the hole in him that couldn't be filled. As long as he was tired enough, he wouldn't be jolted awake at night by the sheer weight of regret.One pre-dawn, he walked out of the office building and saw Henry waiting at the door, a thermos in his hand."Sir, I made you some soup."He took it and drank. Henry said softly, "Madam told us long ago to look after you well."He drank it down in silence and handed the thermos back. "You don't need to make this special trip anymore. I can just grab something to eat at the office."He looked up at the night sky. The moon was bright, the kind of full moon she used to love.He said softly, "E

Julian received the recent photo of Sunny, his fingertip moving over the screen again and again. He thought of the day Sunny went missing, when she had called in tears begging him to help find it, and all he'd said was "are you done."He drove home. The car had barely stopped when a furry shape darted out the door and circled it twice. He pushed the door open, and an old orange cat immediately rubbed up against him, butting at his leg, knocking its head into his palm again and again.He lifted it up and called out "Sunny," his voice hoarse. In a daze he thought of Eleanor years ago, holding this cat in the sun on the balcony, smiling as she said, "Julian, when we have a child someday, let's have Sunny grow up right alongside it, okay?"He'd agreed offhand at the time. But now the child was gone, and she was gone, and only this cat was left.He settled Sunny back into its old room and dug out the little ball she'd bought it years ago. But Sunny carried the ball to the spot on the balcon