Take Him Chapter 2

The wedding venue was a resort hotel built halfway up a mountain.

There was no cell signal to call a cab.

A kind server took pity on me and handed me an umbrella.

I thanked her, then, holding the umbrella with one hand and the heavy train of my dress with the other, I started the long, difficult walk down the mountain.

The slanted rain soaked through my dress, a bitter cold seeping into my bones. The back of my heels were rubbed raw, a bloody mess.

When my phone finally buzzed with a signal, a dozen messages flooded in.

All from Julian.

Every single one was an accusation. He’d already explained that Lily was just like a sister to him, so why did I have to keep targeting her?

I ignored him. A second later, a video came through from an unknown number.

It showed Julian at the hospital, holding Lily’s hand tightly as she went through some tests, periodically kissing her fingertips, his eyes red as he begged her to be okay.

I thought back to when I first found out I was pregnant. I had fainted in the bathroom from low blood sugar. I broke my leg in the fall, and a sharp pain radiated from my stomach. Terrified, my first instinct was to call him, to seek his comfort.

He had just barked at me over the phone, “I’m not a doctor, what good is calling me?”

I was in the hospital for two weeks. He never showed up once.

I found out later that on the same day I fell, Lily had cut her hand while cooking. The doctor told her it might leave a scar, and she cried hysterically.

So Julian had vented all his worry and frustration on me.

I stopped walking and laughed, a hollow, bitter sound.

It had taken me far too long to wake up. That’s why I was in this humiliating mess.

As I was trying to hail a cab, Julian called.

After a barrage of insults, he was breathing heavily. He told me I’d scared Lily so badly she was having heart palpitations, and that I needed to get my ass over to the hospital and apologize.

I struggled to keep the flimsy umbrella steady. “I’m still at the hotel,” I said calmly.

Just then, a bolt of lightning split the dark sky, followed by a deafening clap of thunder.

Julian’s tone shifted. “It’s pouring out there. They didn’t take you home? I’ll come get…”

He was cut off by Lily’s sobbing in the background. “Is Grace angry? It’s all my fault. Maybe I should have just died when I was abroad…”

Julian’s voice immediately softened as he soothed her.

Then he turned his anger back on me. “You brought this on yourself. What do you have to be upset about? It was five minutes, Grace. If you had just been a little more gracious, I wouldn’t have left you…”

The last thread of hope inside me snapped. I cut him off, a ghost of a smile on my lips. “Let’s get a divorce. I’m not apologizing to Lily. I was never the one in the wrong. You two were.”

If they couldn’t let each other go, why did he ever come into my life in the first place?

He was the one who confessed his feelings first. He was the one who promised me forever. That’s why I chose him without hesitation.

Ten years. Were their feelings and their history so precious, while mine were worthless?

After hanging up, I finally got a cab.

As I sat in the back seat, another text from Julian arrived: 【Grace, when you do something wrong, you admit it. You've been mine for ten years. You're used goods. Who else would want you? Especially now that you’ve schemed your way into getting pregnant with my child.】

I stared at the screen, numb.

I thought nothing could possibly hurt more than what had already happened today. I was wrong.

I rolled down the window, letting the cold wind whip against my face, the sting slowly clearing my chaotic mind.

I told the driver to turn around. We were going to the hospital.