Chapter 10
Ethan Cole collapsed on the ground, howling in pain.
The people in the hall were terrified by the scene and rushed out in a panic.
Watching it unfold, I couldn’t help but feel a cold sadness.
So it turns out people only go mad when their own interests are threatened.
Adrian West gently covered my eyes with his hand and whispered, “Don’t look.”
The sound of sirens grew louder. Adrian pulled me toward the exit, but Ethan suddenly staggered to his feet and lurched after me.
He stumbled forward despite the agony, even slamming his leg against a table corner without caring.
‘Lily, wait!”
Adrian instinctively shielded me behind him.
When Ethan reached us, he froze, then pulled something from his pocket-it was the Blue Tear Sapphire necklace.
Blood from his hand had stained the jewel, and he clumsily wiped it on his suit jacket.
‘Lily, I meant to return this long ago, but I never found the chance.
Now that you’re here, I want you to have it back.”
‘I’m sorry, Lily. Everything before was my fault. I don’t ask you to come back to me-I only ask hat you don’t hate me.”
How could I not hate him?
The child I lost, the torment I endured-nothing could ever make up for that.
Adrian took the necklace from him.
I’ll clean it before giving it back to Lily. After all, it’s her mother’s keepsake. You’ve already sullied it enough.”
Ethan didn’t resist, letting Adrian slip the necklace into his pocket.
Lily, the truth is… Sophia was just a moment’s novelty. The place in my heart has always been
‘ours.
But I hurt you over and over again, blinded by my own stupidity.”
Lily…”
Before he could finish, the police swarmed in.
When the cuffs clicked around his wrists, Ethan thrashed violently, his eyes locked desperately
on me.
‘I know I was wrong! I really know now!”
But it was far too late. Without a backward glance, I walked out of the Banquet Hall.
The End
A month later, back in France, Adrian launched an aggressive campaign against Cole
Enterprises.
After government investigations and relentless competition, the company quickly crumbled.
The clients who once trusted me abandoned Cole Enterprises and turned to the West family instead.
Hollowed from the inside out, Cole Enterprises became nothing more than an empty shell on the brink of bankruptcy.
Ethan was arrested. With his right eye blinded, he would spend the rest of his life behind bars. his fitting retribution.
Sophia lost her child. The trauma left her infertile, and her plagiarism scandal spread throughou the design industry. No one would hire her again.
Aged beyond her years, she left New York City in disgrace.
Word had it her family disowned her when they learned of her pregnancy out of wedlock. Cas out, she ended up living under bridges, scavenging leftovers-her punishment come full circle.
‘What are you thinking about?”
Adrian set a cup of coffee in front of me, breaking my thoughts.
‘Nothing,” I murmured.
From behind his back, he revealed the Blue Tear Sapphire. After being cleaned, it gleame brilliantly, scattering firelight across the room.
And just like the necklace-lost, then found again-my life, too, shone with renewed hope.
