He Chose Her Ten Times, I Left Once Chapter 02
That night, the news of Elliot and Sienna’s “fairytale ending” exploded across social media, dominating the headlines.
#The Tenth Blindfolded Bride Selection Ends Perfectly Sienna Sterling Becomes the Whitmore Family’s Future Daughter-in-Law Once Again. Some Love Is Simply Destined.#
While everyone assumed I would sit there all night crying until sunrise, I opened my suitcase and began packing.
I did not know when Elliot came back. Before I could say a word, his palm cracked against my cheek, sending my head snapping to the side.
“Avery Sterling, look what you did!”
He shoved his phone in front of me. On the screen was a comment that read:
[The affair child just had to become the other woman. Shameless.]
“It took your father and me years to bury the whole illegitimate-daughter scandal, and now you drag it back onto the trending list? You’re even calling her a homewrecker?”
My voice was calm. “I didn’t write that.”
Elliot scoffed, the sound sharp and cynical.
“If it wasn’t you, then who?”
“I already told you, the ceremony was just a tradition. It doesn’t change the fact that you’re going to be Mrs. Whitmore.”
The scrape on my arm still throbbed.
The slap mark burned on my face, making my eyes sting red.
Only then did Elliot’s tone soften a little. He reached out and traced the line of my tears with a thumb that felt like ice.
“You were always meant to be my wife. Why fight over a moment like this and make things hard for Sienna on purpose?”
Years ago, when my father brought Sienna home and forced my mother to accept her as part of the family, my mother could not bear it.
In front of everyone, she swallowed a bottle of pills.
While she was being rushed into the ER, Elliot had taken my hand and proposed to me.
“I swear none of this will ever happen to you,” he had said. “You are the only woman I’ll ever love.”
Back then, I had believed he was my rescue from despair.
Then Sienna’s mother died, and Elliot worked with my father to bury that woman with the honors of a lawful wife, spitting in the face of my mother’s legacy in front of the entire Sterling family.
Later, because of one phone call from Sienna, he abandoned me on a remote back road, leaving me lost for three days and three nights before I barely made it out alive.
After that, he began indulging Sienna’s so-called pranks.
She laced my vitamins with abortifacients, and I lost my baby at eight months.
But Elliot blamed me.
He said I was useless, that I could not even protect my own child.
My vision went dark in waves. Cold sweat broke across my forehead from the pain.
With one look from Elliot, the housekeeper brought over an extravagant evening gown.
“Tomorrow is Sienna’s birthday gala. You’ll attend dressed properly. That will prove she isn’t the other woman.”
I laughed, sharp and bitter.
“Why would I need to prove anything? Isn’t that exactly what she is?”
A flicker of anger crossed Elliot’s eyes. Then he handed me an organ donation consent form.
“Your mother developed kidney failure after taking all those pills years ago. Yesterday, I finally found a compatible donor. Are you sure you want to throw that away?”
I looked up at him in disbelief.
But then I thought of my mother coughing up blood day after day, of how often she had to be rushed into the ICU every year.
The refusal lodged in my throat, and I swallowed it down hard.
My fingers went limp.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll go.”