Chapter 8
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At the end of the party, my dad, Tamia, and Sheila could hardly maintain their smiles.
Only Leland kept staring at me.
He watched me pleasantly laugh, dance, and talk to all sorts of people with grape juice.
He witnessed me become the absolute center of attention and
of
queen wallroom.
After the banquet, Leland walked to me before Tamia walked towards him. “Do I have the honor to take you home?”
Amidst Tamia’s resentment, I nodded with a smile. “Sure.”
The night breeze was slightly cool, blowing the tips of my hair, and Leland was stunned by my beauty.
He opened the car door and let me get in.
As we first met, Leland would open the car door for me, too.
But later, he never walked side by side with me. He was always in the front while I trotted behind.
In addition, he never opened the door even once for me again.
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I got into the car and waved to Tamia behind the car. “Go home early and be careful not to catch a cold. After all, you’ve been pregnant longer than I have.”
Leland glanced at me silently.
After driving a few miles, he looked at me again. “I remember you used to rely on me a lot.”
Indeed.
I used to be a rich girl who clumsily learned online how to cook, then went to the Vanderbilt Group for Leland and sent him the lunch I made.
However, he refused me coldly.
He said, “I don’t want to see you in the workplace in case it affects my efficiency.”
But then, I recalled those days and found it was when Tamia got pregnant.
Tamia was at home every night, so when did she get pregnant?
I glanced at Leland’s side face.
He still looked sharp and cold, just like when he rejected me.
Although Leland rejected me, he got Tamia pregnant at hist workplace.
Chapter 8
1 forced a smile. “I didn’t have any opinions before. But later, someone taught me to be independent and self–reliant.”
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As I talked about that person, even my smile was sweet. But it seemed to hurt Leland. He slammed on the brakes, stopped the car, and looked into my eyes quietly at night. “Isn’t that man a criminal?
“Why are you so happy when you mention him?”
Under the dim light of the street lamp, he looked at me and sighed, “Are you trying to make me jealous? If so, you have succeeded…”
“No,” I interrupted him.
My smile grew even sweeler. “He is the best man in the world. You will never understand.”
I saw my reflection in the car window, my smiling eyes with sparkles, and myself speaking with red lips. I uttered the sweetest words, yet they turned into a sword, stabbing Leland hard. “I love him.
“Very much.”
It was so deathly silent in the car that I could hear it if a pin dropped.
There was deep pain in Leland’s eyes. “Don’t say that. Glinda, please.”
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He rubbed his temples. “I’ve heard of a condition called
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Stockholm syndrome, where hostages develop feelings for their captors, which is pathological and abnormal. Glinda, I’ll take.
you to a doctori
He was panicked, constantly making excuses for me to prove that I didn’t love Harold and that I was just sick.
I kept smiling, watching him explain. His Adam’s apple rolling, I didn’t refute or agree.
It was because I knew that the real pathology was that Leland had an affair with Tamia and pushed me toward the gun.
The real pathology was that my dad shared all the hardships with Delilah, his wife. But when they could share a better life, my dad brought his illegitimate daughter home, drove Delilah mad, and caused her death.
What’s more, my dad treated Delilah’s daughter, me, harshly.
The real pathology was that Tamia was not satisfied after taking away my father and still tried to steal my fiancé.
It was this group of people who were sick, not me or Harold.
Without speaking it, I just watched them act.
Feeling the show should be over, I would destroy this abnormal stage in one fell swoop.
Leland was still asking, “I guess he forced himself on you to get
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you pregnant, right? Glinda, I don’t care about this. But I keep thinking that if I didn’t leave you at that time…”
I smiled, not interested in arguing anymore, for he wouldn’t believe it.
However, Harold did force me.
He forced me to do something else, things that made me miserable but even more powerful.
He forced me to accept his training.
Harold said that when I had a strong body, my spirit would also become ferocious.
He taught me fighting, shooting, tracking, counter–tracking, and even hunting.
The child who fought to the death for a chicken leg grew up on the cruel streets and later became a mercenary.
After seeing him hunt, I realized how rare and gentle he was when he took me back to the mountains that day.
While hunting, Harold was the most ferocious existence at the top of the food chain.
I looked at his cruel eyes, watched him fight with wild beasts, and trained with him. Then, suddenly, I realized that the things I was crying about were nothing.
Chapter 8
They didn’t even deserve my tears.
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I secretly vowed never to shed a tear or let myself be weak again.
But a month before I separated from Harold, I still cried.
I dreamed of Delilah. She smiled and told me that she finally stopped worrying about me and could leave in peace.
No matter how I called her, she never looked back.
1 was heartbroken, woke up crying, and threw myself into the arms of Harold, who came to check me.
Harold stiffened, then held me in his arms and hummed nursery
rhymes to coax me.
That was the day I became pregnant with his child.
A child that I willingly conceived.
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