She Wore My Wedding Dress

Chapter 4

That evening, I returned to the bedroom early and suddenly realized that my grandmother's medical notebook wasn't in my suitcase. I pushed open the door to look for it, but the sight before me made my blood run cold.

Sabina sat on the couch, watching television and drinking coffee. The notebook I treasured more than anything lay beneath her dripping coffee mug as a coaster. Dark coffee had soaked through the fragile pages. Large sections of my grandmother's handwriting had blurred beyond recovery.

Rage exploded through me. I strode forward, grabbed Sabina by the hair, and slapped her hard across the face.

She screamed and tumbled onto the carpet, taking the coffee with her. Clutching her cheek, she sobbed, "Are you insane? Why did you hit me?"

"Who gave you permission to touch it?" I pointed at the medical notebook, my eyes burning with rage.

Cedric stormed through the door at that moment, looking exhausted and furious. When he saw Sabina crying on the floor, he rushed over, grabbed my shoulder, and shoved me backward.

My foot caught on something. I lost my balance and crashed onto the glass coffee table. It collapsed beneath me with a deafening impact. Jagged shards sliced my wrist, and blood immediately streamed onto the white carpet.

Cedric didn't even glance at my injury. He bent down, helped Sabina up, and sheltered her behind him. Then he pointed at me and began shouting.

"Odette Fenton, are you mentally ill? You got our entire department torn apart online today, and now you've come home to assault someone! Sabina only borrowed your notebook. Did that justify hitting her?"

"Cedric Voss, that notebook had been with me for 10 years. It held my grandmother's entire life's work. It was the last thing she left me!"

He finally noticed the blood on my wrist. With a sigh, as though he were soothing an unreasonable child, he took out the wooden box and held it toward me.

"If you're determined to make an issue of this, we'll settle it fairly the usual way. Let's draw for who apologizes. If you pick the black stick, you apologize to Sabina. If you pick the white stick, she apologizes to you."

His certainty carried the condescension of someone offering charity.

Suppressing the tearing pain in my wrist, I braced myself among the broken glass and slowly stood. Blood ran from my fingertips. I stared at the box I had once believed was proof of his romantic devotion.

Then I lunged forward, ripped it from his hands, and hurled it against the marble wall with all my strength.

The wooden box shattered with a tremendous c***k. More than 10 craft sticks clattered across the floor.

Cedric was about to lash out at me, but the moment my eyes fell on the scattered sticks, my entire body went rigid.

There were 12 sticks. Every one of them was black. There had never been a white stick.

He hadn't left even the smallest possibility of fairness for me.

All the color drained from Cedric's face. His lips trembled as he stumbled back two steps, panic entering his voice.

"Odette, let me explain."

"Explain what?" I raised my bleeding hand and pointed at the wreckage, laughing even as tears threatened to fall. "Are you going to explain why every stick in your box was black? Or how you disguised calculated favoritism as fairness so you could force me to surrender and behave?"

Cedric reached for me. "I only wanted you to give in."

"Cedric, I'm done with your game."

I threw my keys and access card at his feet, stumbled to my room, pulled out my suitcase, and headed for the door.

Cedric rushed after me and blocked the doorway. "Where are you going?"

"Away from you."

"Do you really think anyone out there will care about you more than I do?"

I pushed open the door and kept walking.

An SUV waited downstairs, its headlights cutting through the rain. Callum got out of the driver's seat. The sneer on Cedric's face vanished.

"Who is he?"

I didn't answer. I carried my suitcase into the rain. Cedric finally panicked and shouted my name after me.

"Odette Fenton!"

I paused for a fraction of a second, but I didn't look back. I kept walking. The vehicle door slammed shut, and from that moment on, Cedric and I had nothing to do with each other.

End of Odette's POV.