Chapter 1263 The Turmoil of a Proposal (V)

• Chadwick Fullner had lived through Donnie Burns’s revenge. Even now, the memory made his skin crawl. Hearing Kate Penrose lay it all out turned his blood to ice. He knew too well how profit, desire, and hate could warp a person into something unrecognizable. He couldn’t picture how the woman who always wore that sunny smile in public—Kate—kept her eyes open through night after night of darkness and fear. No wonder she’d grown thinner, hollowed-out.
• “Besides, you and Finn—you two are supposed to walk the whole road together.” Chad snapped at her, anger spilling over. “Kate, you think you’re Wonder Woman? Don’t you know your own limits? If you can handle everything alone, why did you ask him to help you take back Brighton Enterprise?” He was yelling, but his nose burned and his chest ached. Even if there could never be anything between them in this lifetime, he still couldn’t bear the thought of something bad happening to her. “Kate, a lot of things just aren’t fights you win solo. And life is so damn long…”
• Kate simply watched him, eyes holding too much to say out loud. After a long pause, she asked, “You said he and I are going to walk a lifetime together—what do you mean by that? Sounds like you’ve decided I’ll marry him, that I’ll be with him.”