Chapter 4

When our Ripley family went bankrupt, Mom sold her only heirloom, an emerald bracelet. When she passed, it became her single unfulfilled wish to get it back.

After Declan learned the story, he reached out to every contact he had, tracked the bracelet down, and paid a fortune to buy it back. I had been so moved that I could not stop crying. I told him I did not know how to ever repay him.

His tone was calm, but his eyes were full of love. "Just give yourself to me. That's payment enough.

"Wren, I want to marry you."

He used the bracelet in place of a ring, sliding the only thing Mom had left me onto my wrist to ask me to marry him.

Now, he held that same bracelet and said, "I gave this to you because I was going to marry you. Now, you’re asking for a divorce. You won't even be my wife anymore, so what right do you have to take it with you?

"You don't actually think you're worth $30 million, do you?"

The cruelty of his words shattered whatever was left of my dignity. I swallowed the pain and the sob rising in my throat.

"The $30 million... I'll find a way to pay you back."

"I don't want the money!" Declan cut me off, barely containing his rage. "Wren, do you think this is about money?

"You're the one abandoning this family. You're the one walking away. The bracelet stays, and I'll give it to someone who actually wants to be my wife."

He grabbed Petra's hand and slid the bracelet onto her wrist. The gesture was identical to the one from six years ago, the day he told me he wanted to marry me.

Petra mouthed something at me from where Declan could not see.

“A dead woman's junk? How disgusting."

Something snapped in me. I lunged forward to grab it back.

"If you think it's disgusting, then give it back!"

The moment I reached Petra, she let out a piercing scream and threw herself to the ground. Her wrist struck the tile on the way down, and the bracelet exploded into pieces.

My mind went blank, and so did Declan's.

Petra held up her scratched arm, sobbing uncontrollably. "Declan, it hurts."

Declan snapped back to reality and shoved me away. "Wren, have you lost your mind? That was the only thing your mother left you, yet you'd destroy it just to hurt Petra?"

I hit the ground hard. The impact sent a strange, sharp pain tearing through my lower abdomen. I sat there shaking, fighting through the pain to get my words out.

"I didn't push her. Petra threw herself down on purpose to break the bracelet."

"Enough!" Declan's jaw tightened, a vein standing out in his neck. "Attacking someone and then trying to blame it on her? If you hadn't charged at her, the bracelet would never have—"

A flash of panic crossed his eyes, and his inner voice broke through.

‘What do I do? The bracelet was the only thing she cared about, and now, it's gone.

‘I don't even have a way to make her stay anymore.

‘I can't just stand here and watch her leave.’

In the next instant, Declan hauled me up from the floor. Before I could process what was happening, he threw me into the storage room and slammed the door shut.

"You hurt Petra, and you're clearly not thinking straight. Stay in here for a day and cool off."

The pain in my abdomen was growing worse by the second. Suddenly, I felt something warm and wet spreading between my legs. Pure terror seized every part of me.