grew angrier the more I talked.
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“You gave me a heartbeat on a monitor and a false sense of fatherhood. And then, when you knew the walls were closing in, you faked a miscarriage to seal the story. You didn’t just lic–you tried to break me.”
Tears welled in her eyes, but I kept going.
“I mourned a child that didn’t exist. I buried hope. I carried guilt for not being there for someone who was never real.”
“I didn’t know what else too,” she whispered, her voice trembling now. “I was desperate, Derek. You were slipping away. And I →I knew if I didn’t do something-
“You said nothing,” I cut in, my voice rising. “You said nothing while I bled for something you invented.”
Cassandra began to cry.
Real tears this time.
“You said you would only ever mark me!” she shouted. “That we would be together forever!”
I shook my head. “We were children.”
“We were meant to be-
“No,” I said. “We weren’t. I may have believed that once, but you have proven over and over again that the only thing you care about is control. You don’t want love–you want possession. You want a title. A spotlight.”
“I loved you-”
“No, Cassandra,” I said, my voice low. “You wanted me. But not this me. Not the man standing in front of you now. You wanted the version you built in your head–the fantasy. The boy who once promised to mark you because he didn’t know better. You’ve been clinging to a memory, not a person.”
Her fists clenched at her sides, shaking with fury. Her breathing hitched, uneven now, like she was struggling to decide whether
to scream or sob.
And still, I forced myself to breathe. To keep my voice level. To stay still.
“Tell me the truth,” I said, watching her carefully. “Did we even sleep together? Or did you orchestrate that too?”
For the first time, she faltered.
Her eyes widened–just slightly–but enough. Enough for me to see it.
That flicker of panic.
That split–second where the mask cracked.
That was all I needed.
I stared at her, at the way her composure collapsed in real time, her face crumpling like paper soaked through. The truth was written there now–undeniable, exposed. Her silence said everything.
“That’s what I thought.”
I stepped back. One slow pace. The distance between us never felt more final.
And something inside me—something taut and cold and knotted for months–finally began to unwind.
“I will never marry you,” I said clearly, each word like a stone laid at the grave of whatever this had once been.
Cassandra’s lower lip trembled. Her tears came in earnest now, spilling down in messy streaks, mascara bleeding under her
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Chapter 197
eyes. She didn’t try to hide it. Didn’t try to wipe it away.
She looked… stunned.
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Like somewhere deep down, she’d truly believed I might forgive this. That I might bend to the guilt, to the history. That I might still choose her.
“I don’t care how many lies you tell,” I continued. “Or how many friends you manipulate. Or how many stories you plant in the press. This is done.”
She stood frozen, rooted to the grass, her heels sinking into the earth like it might hold her here a little longer.
But it wouldn’t.
It couldn’t.
Finally, she turned on her heel and stalked back toward her car, her movements stiff and mechanical. Her heels stabbed little crescent wounds in the soft ground, the sound of her steps sharp and angry.
I didn’t watch her drive away.
I stayed still beside my father’s grave, my pulse finally starting to slow. I closed my eyes and tilted my head to the sky.
The morning air was crisp, and the light had shifted.
And for the first time in weeks–maybe longer–I felt something like clarity break through the fog. A sliver of stillness in the wreckage.
It wasn’t peace.
Not yet.
But it was close enough to start.
