Chapter 15
Elizabeth sat by the easel near the floor–to–ceiling window, her fingertips dipped in paint, gently spreading a soft blue across the canvas.
Outside the window, the snow–capped peaks never melted, and sunlight streamed through the glass, falling on her hair and casting a faint golden halo.
She hadn’t thought of Kaiden for a long time.
So long, in fact, that the pain she once felt had faded into a blurry, distant dream.
When Javion pushed open the door, this was the scene he saw. He stood quietly at the entrance, not making a sound to disturb her, simply watching her paint in silence.
It was only when Elizabeth set down her brush that he approached, placing a cup of hot cocoa by her side.
“It’s beautiful,” he said softly, his gaze lingering on the painting.
Elizabeth smiled, picked up the cup and took a sip. The sweet warmth traveled from her throat all the way to her stomach. “Thank you.”
Javion looked at her and suddenly asked, “Do you regret it?”
Elizabeth lifted her eyes. “Regret what?”
“Leaving him.” He pressed his lips together, tentatively probing her feelings.
Chapter 15
Elizabeth had told him about her past life. Ten years together, childhood friends across two lifetimes–how could one simply forget? He knew Kaiden still had a place in Elizabeth’s heart, perhaps not love, nor hatred. But the memories they shared were hard to erase.
She shook her head, her gaze calm. “That wasn’t my life.”
Now, this was her life.
In the mornings, she would sketch in the garden, painting roses still glistening with dew.
In the afternoons, she went to town to buy art supplies, sometimes learning to make handmade chocolates with the locals.
At night, she sat by the fireplace reading, while Javion worked on his documents nearby. They spoke little, but their hearts were at peace.
Sometimes, she would receive letters from Viktor.
In the letters, he wrote that the Stenson family had regrouped, and Natasha had faded into obscurity after the previous scandal.
As for Kaiden, he had gone mad. Not as a figure of speech–he was truly
insane.
He smashed the new room that was meant to imprison Elizabeth, burned everything related to her, but left only two paintings untouched.
He hung them in his bedroom, facing them day and night, as if punishing himself, or perhaps seeking redemption for her.
After reading the letter, Elizabeth calmly folded it and placed it in the drawer.
Those days were no longer part of her life
Crochets
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But Elizabeth never expected that the next news of Kaiden would come in
such a way.
He had been in a car accident.
To save a little girl who ran across the street, he dashed into the traffic. He was thrown several meters, his body covered in blood, yet he clung tightly to the terrified child in his arms.
In the news photos, he lay on a stretcher, his shirt soaked in blood, but there was a faint smile on his lips.
Just like years ago, when he was the boy who shielded her from the wind.
Elizabeth stared at the photo, her fingertips trembling slightly. She thought she no longer cared, but her heart felt as if an invisible hand was squeezing it, hurting so much she could barely breathe.
Kaiden was lucky enough to survive.
But the doctors said his brain was damaged, and his memory was stuck at eighteen–the age before he met Natasha, when his world was still filled only with Elizabeth.
The first thing he did upon waking was to pull out his IV and stumble out of the hospital.
“Where’s Eliza?” he asked every nurse he saw, his eyes frantic and stubborn.
“I want to find Elizabeth!”
No one dared to tell him the truth.
It wasn’t until he found his old phone and discovered traces of Elizabeth in Switzerland that he ignored the doctors‘ protests, dragged his injured
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Chapter 15
body, and bought the earliest flight to go after her.
錄
Vouchers
Chapter 16
