Abandoned Bride of the Warzone Chapter 2

Pushing open the heavy mahogany doors, a wave of loud chatter and clinking glasses hit me.

The Rosewood Estate had been bought at a private auction. It was my personal property now. Why was there a cocktail party happening in the foyer?

I scanned the room in confusion.

My eyes locked onto a man sitting at the center of the VIP lounge, surrounded by a crowd of kissing-up executives. It was Jeffrey.

He looked much more polished now, wearing a bespoke suit, but he still carried that same aloof, self-righteous aura.

"Mr. Jeffrey, we really owe you. If you hadn't pulled strings with Mr. Castello's secretary, we never would have known the boss was flying back to the States tonight."

Mr. Jeffrey?

So Jeffrey had completely abandoned his diplomatic career just to play corporate lapdog for Bonnie's family.

Another guest chimed in.

"I heard the only reason Mr. Castello is shifting his syndicate's focus back to New York is because his wife missed home."

"Exactly! He literally dropped a hundred and fifty million on this Rosewood Estate just for her. I even brought a custom aquamarine jewelry set tonight. I just hope Mrs. Castello likes it."

"Who knows? Mr. Castello protects his wife like a hawk. Barely anyone knows what she looks like, let alone what she likes."

So this was a networking ambush. They were all trying to get a slice of the Castello Group's billions.

But Arthur, my husband's secretary, had really dropped the ball this time.

Silas and I had not even spent a single night in this house yet, and these vultures were already ruining the peace. I wondered exactly how much bribe money Arthur had pocketed to let them in.

Jeffrey's gaze drifted over the crowd and landed on me.

The moment he recognized my face, the charismatic smile froze on his lips. His expression shattered into absolute shock, followed by a storm of complicated emotions.

After a suffocating silence, he walked toward me like a man seeing a ghost.

"Harper... you are alive."

His tone was heavy with relief.

The guilt that must have been eating at him for years finally evaporated now that he knew I had not died in the dirt.

How hilariously pathetic.

A decade ago, Jeffrey and I were deployed to the Sahel region together.

Back then, I used to lean against the clinic window, secretly watching him run drills with the peacekeeping troops.

He would always invent terrible excuses just to walk past my medical tent.

Eventually, even his military dog would wag its tail frantically whenever it saw me, literally dragging Jeffrey by the pant leg to my triage station.

Then came the day the local militia surrounded the hospital.

To buy time for the critically wounded to evacuate, I volunteered to stay behind as a hostage. Suddenly, a hand grabbed my collar and yanked me backward.

Jeffrey, bleeding heavily from a shrapnel wound, stood tall and shielded me.

"I am a soldier. I am far more valuable to you than this medic."

The warlord did not care.

They tied us both up and threw us into a bombed-out trench.

When the machine-gun fire started, Jeffrey threw his body over mine without a second thought. Hot tears dripped from his face onto my neck.

"If we make it out of this alive... Harper, promise you will marry me."

Later, he was reassigned to a neighboring country as a lead diplomat. I stayed behind with the frontline medical unit.

I truly believed we were different from other long-distance couples. I thought we were bulletproof.

That was until Jeffrey was tasked with mentoring his superior's daughter, Bonnie.

He used to call me just to complain about her.

"Harper, she is seriously so incompetent. I have to stay up until 2 AM helping her fix her reports, and then she forces me to take her out for midnight snacks."

"Harper, she is nothing like you. She is so needy. She got a mild fever last night and cried until I sat with her in the ER."

Eventually, I called him out on Bonnie's blatant boundary-crossing.

At first, he apologized. But soon, his apologies turned into annoyance. He accused me of being paranoid and asked why I was so threatened by a harmless young girl.

I tried to swallow my doubts and keep the relationship alive.

But then the border conflict exploded. Bonnie and I were both trapped in the hot zone.

And Jeffrey, the man in charge of the evacuation chopper, physically shoved me away.