Chapter 2063 Hopeless Delusion
- Julian's lips trembled. Words lodged in his throat like shards of broken glass, and all he could manage were ragged whispers that never formed sentences. She's right. Mirabelle is only twelve. I can't drag my own child into court. Yet the numbers clanged in his mind—Mirabelle's allowance alone could feed his aging parents, clothe the newborn son he'd had with another woman, and keep the lights on in the shabby apartment where his secrets lived. If I could just keep texting her, asking for a little spending money... when she grows up and joins the board, my life will finally feel easy.
- But Vanessa would soon carry their daughter beyond the ocean. Once Mirabelle stepped onto foreign soil, how would he beg? How would he survive? He was a college graduate, yes, but he'd left school the moment Vanessa smiled at him, exchanging lectures for a luxury he never earned. Now, stripped of even borrowed privilege, he felt the ground beneath his feet dissolve into sand.”
- After graduation, Vanessa quietly put up the money to open a little bookshop for Julian. For years, he tended the narrow storefront as though it were a greenhouse for dreams, basking in the slow drift of days. Neighbors trickled through sun-dusted aisles, greeting him by name. He adored the unrushed hours, the peace of a life that asked nothing more than the turning of a page.