The Heiress's Choice: Walking Away from the Childhood Sweetheart Chapter 2

I looked at Carter's expression of sheer disbelief.

Thinking about how our relationship devolved to this point, perhaps it was fundamentally flawed from the very beginning.

When I was little.

The Vance, Hayes, and Sterling families were all very close.

So, I had known Carter Hayes and Ethan Sterling since childhood.

I was always a sickly child, so those two were incredibly attentive and protective of me.

Thanks to them, I rarely encountered any real danger or hardship.

But that kind of good luck doesn't last forever.

When I was in middle school, I was kidnapped by thugs hired by a rival corporation.

Because I was the only daughter of the Vance family, my ransom value was incredibly high.

The kidnappers used me as leverage to extort highly classified documents from my parents.

I don't know if it was a blessing or a curse, but while waiting to be rescued, I was so terrified that I passed out.

I drifted in and out of consciousness.

Because I was blindfolded, my hearing became hyper-sensitive.

I heard a familiar voice arguing with the kidnappers.

Then, the owner of that voice walked over to me and held me gently in his arms.

He kept whispering to me, telling me not to be afraid, that everything was going to be okay.

Feeling safe, I drifted back into a deep sleep.

When I woke up, I was lying in a hospital bed.

And Carter was asleep next to my bed, holding my hand.

Later, my parents told me that Carter was the one who got me out.

Carter also told me stories of how he bravely negotiated with the kidnappers to rescue me unharmed.

From that moment on, I devoted all my attention and affection to Carter.

I never bothered to investigate why Ethan, who disappeared that very day, was in a wheelchair the next time I saw him.

Not long after, the entire Sterling family moved abroad so Ethan could get treatment for his legs.

That was the last time I saw Ethan during our youth.

After that, my life revolved entirely around Carter.

I got into the same university as him and chose the same major, all just to be closer to him.

But after we officially started dating, Carter's possessiveness and temper escalated significantly.

He wouldn't let me interact with other guys.

He wouldn't let me wear nice clothes.

If anything didn't go his way, he would resort to emotional, and sometimes physical, abuse.

Every time I was on the verge of breaking up with him, he would pull me back in with sweet words and perfectly timed displays of vulnerability.

Even his friends joked that I loved him far too deeply.

Until the day I discovered that Carter had been secretly dating an underage freshman behind my back.

All the grievances and injustice I had swallowed over the years instantly broke the dam.

That day, I calmly and quietly broke up with him.

I was so calm that Carter genuinely thought I was joking.

He completely ignored me and went right back to reviewing some business documents on his laptop.

So, the very next day after I broke up with him, I packed a bag and moved abroad.