I Signed Away Eight Million To Leave Him Chapter 15
I closed my eyes briefly.
“Thank you.”
She seemed to let out a breath, then asked carefully, “When this is over… can we still see each other?”
I didn’t answer right away.
The care she had shown me all those years was real.
She had taken me out of the staff cottage, arranged for my schooling, and smoothed down my skirt with her own hands before my first formal dinner. That was real, too.
But inside that estate, every act of kindness had eventually turned into a rope.
I couldn’t go back.
“Mrs. Vale, this is where our relationship ends, too.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
At last she said, her voice small, “All right.”
After the call ended, I sat on the sofa for a very long time.
I didn’t delete her number, but I knew I would never dial it again.
Some goodbyes don’t need bitterness.
They only mean that from now on, you walk a different road.
As dusk fell, Eli called.
“I’m downstairs.”
After a pause, he added, “I just saw the court vehicle leave. Are you okay?”
He didn’t come up on his own. He didn’t presume to knock.
He was still waiting for my permission.
“Come up.”
A few minutes later, the doorbell rang.
Eli came in with a paper bag in his hand and looked me over first.