My Fake Death Was The Punchline To His Cruel Joke Chapter 12
He flipped through them, his voice growing more desperate.
“It was real, wasn’t it? You loved me. It wasn’t all a lie.”
I almost laughed.
He had once treated my love like a game. Now he was trying to use it as a ticket back into my life.
Holding the hundredth card, Bennett’s eyes welled with tears.
“I know why you wrote ‘I choose myself.’ But I quit the club. I cut off Camille, all of them. I’m in therapy. I can change, Mara. I’ll do anything.”
“Mr. Shaw.”
I looked at him, my tone as detached as if I were discussing the weather.
“None of that means anything to me anymore.”
His entire body went rigid.
A tear splashed onto the card in his hand.
“You’re alive.”
As if the reality of it was just now hitting him, he began to sob, the words tumbling out in broken gasps.
“That’s… that’s so good… I thought I’d never see you again.”
He reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a dark blue velvet box.
When he opened it, an antique sapphire brooch lay nestled inside.
I recognized it instantly.
It was the Shaw family heirloom, the one his mother had taken back from me just before the wedding.
Bennett held it out to me, his posture so deferential it was almost a plea.
“It was my mother’s. I got it back for you.”
“It should have always been yours.”
I didn’t move.
His hand hung in the air, shaking violently.
“The marriage license—I hid it. The ninety-nine tests… I knew about all of them. I planned some of them. That night, with the walnut oil… I knew you were in trouble, and I just kept filming…”
He squeezed his eyes shut, his throat working.
“I was wrong, Mara.”
“I treated your love like it was an infinite resource.”
When he opened his eyes again, they held a terrifying resolve.
“I don’t want anything else.”
“I just want you back.”