“Zachary! You... You’re too overbearing!” The burst of shock and wrath made Garrison roar like a wild beast. He could no longer care about his image and grasped Zachary firmly by the hem of his collar, his eyes looking like they were about to shoot laser beams.“I’ll give you two seconds to let her go. Otherwise, don’t blame me for making a move on you!”“Oh?” Zachary responded with a disdainful smirk. “Speaking of making a move, you reminded me that since we want to marry the same woman, we should just turn to the most barbarous and primitive courtship method. We shall just fight to the death for her, just like animals do.”“Aaah—” Someone in the background screamed.A lady whispered immediately, “Oh! Mr. Connor has disappointed me. I’d always regarded him as my prince charming in the past. I didn’t expect that he would act as savagely and ruthlessly as an animal. He has lost my love!”Another woman rolled her eyes. “What do you know? This is called being domineering and mighty.
“You told me that if I don’t marry you today, you’ll make sure to wipe Garrison and Naomi off the surface of this world. Seriously, I was scared before, but when you said that you wanted to fight Garrison to the death, I suddenly understood that Naomi and I are just items to you. So, if I were to marry you, even if you treated Naomi and me very well on the surface, we’d always be two pieces of decoration in your eyes... We’d always be two empty shells that represent your attachment to another woman... We’d live like puppets for the rest of our lives! Hence, instead of living without dignity, I’d rather die.“Zachary sneered. “Do you think that I’ll let you go so easily just because you said so?”“I don’t expect you to let me go.” Sotiria raised her face arrogantly and looked straight at Zachary’s cold eyes courageously.“From now on, you can continue to threaten me, you can retaliate against me with any means, you can defile my body, you can even wipe me off the surface of this worl
“Of course I didn’t feel...” Sotiria, who wanted to deny the fact subconsciously, swallowed the word “moved” back into her stomach before she could finish the sentence. Instead, she shrugged and said calmly. “I promised to answer you truthfully, so I won’t lie. Yes, I was indeed moved by you.”Garrison’s hand, which was holding her little hand tightly, trembled a tiny bit.Lorraine, who was standing not far away, quivered a little too.Even Zachary, who had always been as cold as an iceberg, trembled faintly from head to toe.Sotiria then pursed her lips indifferently, and her eyes were free and nonchalant. “Mr. Connor is the most attractive man in Rothesay and the prince charming that thousands of girls could only dream of. I think, if some other women were to be placed in my position, as long as they are not a dead person, they’d always be tempted when they get seduced by Mr. Connor. So I’m just telling the truth here. I don’t feel embarrassed at all.”“Yes! Yes! What she said i
‘Yes! I’ve been hating the wrong person for the past four years!‘And this encounter between Sotiria and me was nothing but a farce.‘No matter how uncanny the resemblance is, it’s impossible for Sotiria to fill up the void that Charlotte left behind within me after her departure. I’m a person that’s destined to die in grief, so I shouldn’t ruin the happiness that belongs to Sotiria and Garrison in order to alleviate my grief.’“Tiria, do you still want to get the certificate?“Tiria...“Tiria!”Garrison’s voice sounded right beside Sotiria’s ears for a long time before she recovered from the trance as if she had just woken up from a dream. Her gaze shifted slowly from the direction where Zachary left toward Garrison’s face, and the corners of her lips rolled up rigidly.“Let’s go, let’s get our hand on that certificate.”“Okay.” Garrison held her hand again.Zachary had already walked out of the city hall’s lobby a few minutes ago. Before Sotiria took another step, she looked
“Ms. Green, wait a moment.” Seeing that Sotiria was leaving, the female clerk picked up the marriage certificate that was left on the table hurriedly. “This is the marriage certificate that you and Mr. Connor applied for. Although you haven’t registered officially and I haven’t stamped it yet, you can bring it back and keep it as a souvenir.”Sotiria’s fingertips trembled, but both her eyebrows were raised in the next second. “No need, just shred it and throw it in the trash can.”‘Souvenir? What’s there to commemorate? Zachary’s absurd pursuit and flirting against me in order to retaliate against Garrison?‘Zachary Connor! He promised that he would never disturb me again. I should be on cloud nine now, but why am I feeling an inexplicable sadness when I think of him?’She took another look at the marriage certificate in her hand again.‘Garrison and I are officially married now, which also means that I can’t possess any trace of affection for other men. I’ll gradually get Zachary
“She and I are over.”“Don’t be like this, sir!”Tears streamed down Lucas’s face at the sight of Zachary in this state.“You’ll never find anyone like Mrs. Connor if you cut ties with Sotiria. You’ll spend the rest of your life like the past four years, living in desolation, longing for Mrs. Connor. Sir, you have a long life ahead of you. The thought of you living each day in depression from now on saddens me—”“Lucas!”Zachary indifferently cut Lucas off. “Stop talking. I’ve made my decision from the moment I severed ties with Sotiria.”“But sir, are you really going to spend the rest of your life in loneliness?” Lucas wept even more profusely.Zachary curled his lips as he watched as Sotiria moved further and further away from outside his car. A hint of sadness formed in his carefree facade.“Can’t you understand? Ever since that little girl left, I’ve been destined to be alone for the rest of my life.”“Sir… Oh, you poor thing!”Lucas threw himself against the steering
“Zach, why do you always treat me like this?”Lorraine, tender and beautiful, now had tears glistening in her pretty, limpid eyes.“You know how I feel about you. It’s been four years. I’ve been waiting for you. I’m willing to wait for you for the rest of my life as long as I can be with you. But why do you always turn away from me? Why do I feel as if I’m nothing more than air every time I’m with you?”Zachary kept his back against her. His perfect, glacier-like face showed no signs of emotion.“I have no time to whisper sweet nothings with you. Get to your point. Why are you here?”Lorraine’s sexy, curvy figure wavered. “You kidnapped Sotiria and her daughter yesterday and used her daughter to threaten her to marry you. When I heard—”“Do you know what the word ‘straightforward’ even means?” Zachary quietly cut Lorraine off. His eyes remained fixed upon Charlotte’s unfinished painting on the easel. “Get to the point.”Lorraine felt a lump in her throat. It took her a while
“Argh!”Lorraine landed on the ice-cold ground, on her knees with a loud cry.“Remember this, you have no right to be here. If you ever set foot into this place again, I will show you no mercy.”Zachary’s ice-cold voice rang aloud, hitting her like a frosty wind in the next second.Slam!The door was violently slammed shut. Lorraine stared dazedly at the trembling door. Sorrow rose in her heart like a sharp knife, yet the corners of her lips curled into a self-deprecating smile.‘Hehe… Who says Charlotte Simmons is dead? She’ll always live on in Zachary’s heart! Charlotte Simmons! When I heard that she was blown to bits during that car crash four years ago during my emergency surgery, I was so happy that my blood pressure shot up, and I lost a lot of blood. I nearly lost my life. ‘I thought that as long as I could get rid of Charlotte, that poisonous thorn stuck in Zachary’s heart, I could return to his heart, and everything would go back to how it used to be, then I would be