Your Love Once Burned Fiery
On the day of my twenty-first birthday, I posted online: [I want a lollipop.]
My childhood rival, who was overseas, dropped everything there and flew back. He showered and showed up at my doorstep.
I vowed to savor lollipops more carefully from then on—they were simply too sweet.
From that moment, even after I was exposed as a fake heiress, everyone in high society knew: Jonathan Chase wanted to marry me.
When the Sterling family carried out their harsh punishment, the hundred lashes meant for me were almost entirely taken by him—ninety-nine of them, borne by his own body.
When they locked me in the basement, with darkness closing in from all sides, his shouts each day became my only light.
"Chloe, don't be afraid. I'll get you out," he promised.
And he did. He really saved me.
He also made me witness, with my own eyes, his magnificent wedding to the true heiress.
The man who once couldn't bear to make me wait had, "for my sake", told me to wait three times.
The first time was on his wedding day. Pain was etched into every line of his face.
"Chloe, if I don't marry Eleanor, they'll never let you go. Wait for me for three years. Three years from now, I'll marry you."
The second time was three years later. He looked at Eleanor's rounded belly, hesitation written all over his face.
"Chloe… she's carrying my child. You'll have to wait a little longer."
The third time was just yesterday. I was just a step away from his kid. He pushed me violently to the floor, his face tight with warning.
"Chloe, can't you just wait? Why do you have to take it out on a kid?"
Sunlight fell across the face that once loved me, now stripped of all its former warmth.
"If that's how it is… then maybe it's time for me to leave too." I said inwardly.