No More Yielding Chapter 09
All eyes in the room focused on this ragged intruder.
Isabella turned around.
The moment she saw Arthur, her face showed no surprise, no anger, and no hurt.
There was only a dead, stagnant calm.
As if she were looking at a rock on the side of the road.
“Sir, you are in the wrong place.”
Isabella turned to the nearby security.
“Someone is causing trouble here. Please escort him out.”
Arthur’s heart felt like it had been smashed by a sledgehammer.
His proudest daughter had called him “sir.”
“Isabella! It’s Dad!”
Tears burst from Arthur’s eyes as he fell to his knees on the marble floor of the exhibition hall with a thud.
Ignoring the pointing and whispering of the crowd, he stared dead at Isabella.
“I know I was wrong. Margaret and Isla have been lying to me all along. Isla was never sick!
“I have already gotten my retribution. I have nothing left now!
“Will you forgive Dad just this once? Adhara, please, come home with me!”
He was like a dog wagging its tail, begging for a single shred of pity.
Holding my wine glass, I slowly walked over to him.
I looked down at him from above.
Seeing him looking so pathetic, groveling in the dirt, not a single ripple stirred in my heart.
“Arthur, don’t you find it disgusting to say these things now?”
My voice was utterly calm.
“Do you think being deceived makes you innocent?
“No. You are just selfish and cold-blooded to the bone. You looked down on Isabella’s efforts, and you looked down on my endurance.
“You’re not trying to atone. You only remembered our worth because you’ve lost everything.”
I leaned in slightly, speaking in a voice only he could hear:
“I don’t hate you. Because hate takes energy, and you aren’t worth wasting a single ounce of my emotion on.”
Arthur shook his head desperately, reaching out to grab the hem of my dress.
“That’s not true, Adhara!
“I sleep in that dark wardrobe every single night. I’ve felt Isabella’s pain!
“I’m begging you, give me one more chance…”
The elegant man stepped forward, quietly shielding Isabella and me.
“Sir, please show some respect.”
He was Isabella’s mentor, and my current fiancé, Julian Prescott.
Isabella linked her arm through Julian’s, her gaze finally landing on Arthur.
But every word she spoke was piercing and soul-crushing.
“Mr. Pendelton, my claustrophobia was cured during my first year in Boston.
“Because Uncle Julian would stay with me in the studio every day, turning on all the lights, telling me that the door would never be locked.
“You don’t need to sleep in some wardrobe to play the martyr.
“Because that Isabella, who nearly choked herself to death on that stormy night, desperately wishing for her dad to save her…”
Isabella paused, her tone light and airy.
“Died completely on that very night.”
Arthur looked as if he had been struck by lightning, slumping paralyzed onto the floor.
All the blood in his body seemed to drain away in that instant.
The security guards stepped forward, grabbing him by the arms, one on each side.
And threw him out like a piece of trash into the freezing, snowy Boston night.
The doors of the exhibition hall slowly closed in front of him.
Completely severing the two worlds.