I Signed Away Eight Million To Leave Him Chapter 23
His voice was so hoarse it was almost hard to understand.
“Mara, come back.”
“I know I was wrong. I shouldn’t have used Sloane to provoke you. I shouldn’t have humiliated you. I never should have turned you into a weapon to fight my mother.”
His breathing was ragged, as if he were crying.
“I can give up everything. The trust, the house, everything that comes with the Vale name—I don’t want any of it. Just come back. We can start over.”
I was silent for a moment.
Once, I had waited three years just to hear him admit all this.
Now that he finally had, all I felt was a deep, bone-weary exhaustion.
“Graham.”
I cut him off calmly.
“Our relationship ended the moment I walked into my lawyer’s office and signed that waiver.”
The line went silent.
“Not when you proposed to Sloane. Not when you saw my marriage record.”
I turned to look at Eli beside me.
He didn’t snatch the phone away or try to answer for me. He just sat there quietly, leaving me the right to end this myself.
Word by word, I said, “It ended the moment I decided I didn’t love you anymore.”
“No, no—that’s not true…”
Graham suddenly broke down, his voice dissolving into sobs.
“You loved me. You loved me so much. Mara, I’m sorry. I really am. Please, just give me one more chance. Just one…”
His apologies poured out, desperate and humiliating.
There were shadows under Eli’s eyes. Every time an unknown number had called these past few months, he had stayed awake with me deep into the night. He never urged me to forgive, and never demanded I justify my past to him.
I didn’t want Graham’s voice in our home anymore.
“Eli.”
I handed him the phone.
“Block this number.”
He took it and added the number to the blacklist without a word.
On the other end, Graham’s shattered wail cut off abruptly.