After the Last Tear: Rising from the Ashes of a Broken Marriage By Cassila K

Chapter 78

If you looked at it from another angle, Nina was pathetic in her own way. She had spent years believing in an illusion.

Convinced that she and Pax were something more than childhood friends. That their bond was built on mutual affection, not just habit.

She had left the country thinking she had a place in his heart-a permanent one.

And when she returned, the boy who had once braved storms to pick her up at the airport, who had stood there waiting for her, drenched, breathless, eyes filled with devotion had moved on in just two days.

The world hadn't stopped for her.

The sharp wail of sirens cut through the air.

Red and blue lights pulsed against the glass storefronts, the reflections casting an eerie glow over the marble floors.

The paramedics moved quickly, their voices urgent but professional.

Nina was still conscious, her skin ghastly pale against the stark white of her dress.

The blood had already begun to seep through the delicate fabric, a slow, spreading stain.

Pax stood beside me, his expression carefully blank.

But his hands, fisted tightly at his sides.

tension in his shoulders, and the way his

He was worried.

wouldn't let himself

let out a slow breath, my lips

"Go."

about him, up to this

lasted only a second before he stepped forward, but not before pulling me into

quick,

lingered-clean, crisp, familiar. A faint trace of cologne mixed with something uniquely

"Cecilia, wait for me."

tonight, everything will be

almost laughed. Because he was right, it really

A few hours later....

upscale boutique placed a velvet box

absorbing the glow of the store's

the lid, revealing

big enough to silence doubts. Big enough to convince someone

where's your boyfriend?" the sales associate asked politely, assuming the moment

I smiled.

don't need

I wavered. But I

the time I got home, my resolve was