Later, I quietly held a wedding.
Yet when I became the laughingstock of New York high society just as Daniel wished, he suddenly went mad seeing the brightly colored U.S. marriage certificate in my hand.
“Dad, Mom, I’m marrying him.”
I pressed my palm against the glass of the emergency room, staring at my grandfather’s lifeless figure on the bed, despair tightening around my chest.
“Emma, don’t say such nonsense. Even if it ruins Carter Group, I will never let you marry a security guard Daniel pointed at on a whim!”
My father stood beside me, eyes bloodshot. The constant blows seemed to have aged him ten years overnight, strands of white appearing at his temples.
Everyone in our circle knew the Brooks and Carter families had been close for generations. Daniel and I had grown up together, and people had long awaited the day we wed.
But Daniel would rather gamble thirty years of cooperation between our families than allow me to marry anyone else—he insisted I wed a crippled guard.
The gossip in the social circle swirled like a storm:
“It must be Emma who wronged Daniel. That girl’s notorious, I heard she’s had several abortions. Maybe she even made him raise another man’s child.”