I Walked Away Seven Years Too Late But Right on Time novel Chapter 106

This time, he didn't ambush her at her apartment. Instead, he waited at the local park where she rehearsed with The Riverside Singers every morning.

Surrounded by a crowd, he figured she wouldn't make a scene or scream at him to leave.

Sure enough, when she spotted him, she didn't curse him out like last time. She just panicked and tried to bolt.

The park was packed with early joggers. He easily closed the distance and clamped a hand around her wrist. Sarah hissed at him to let go, too terrified to cause a commotion.

"I just got back from Oak Creek. I saw Sean," Harold murmured.

Sarah froze. She looked up at him, her eyes instantly brimming with panic. "Leave my brother out of this. He doesn't know anything."

"Sophie is my daughter. Sean confirmed it," Harold lied effortlessly.

"No. She has absolutely nothing to do with you," Sarah snapped back defensively.

"Fine. I'll go see Sophie myself and demand a DNA test."

"You... you bastard! Don't you dare go near her! She's my daughter, mine! Your mother said so herself—she has nothing to do with your family!"

Breaking down, Sarah covered her face with her free hand, sobbing silently.

"My mother knew you were pregnant? You went to her? Why didn't you come to me?"

He didn't need a DNA test anymore. Her hysterical reaction was all the proof he needed. Sophie was his.

She had grown up so beautifully, inheriting the absolute best of both of them. She was everything he could have ever dreamed of.

Sarah was choking on her tears, entirely unable to speak. Every time those cursed memories surfaced, it felt like her chest was being ripped open. She refused to revisit that trauma.

The pathetic wad of cash and his mother's vicious taunts had shattered her dignity, making her realize just how pathetic her devotion had been.

This child was rejected by his family and disowned by hers. Sophie belonged to her, and her alone.

Her foolish stubbornness had driven her father to an early grave and condemned her mother to a life of depression. She was the disgrace her father had cursed with his dying breath.

There had been moments, looking at Sophie's face—a cruel blend of her own features and Harold's—when regret threatened to drown her. Her daughter's mere existence was a constant reminder of her catastrophic failure.

She turned on her heel and practically sprinted away, desperate to put as much distance between them as possible.

Sophie had made the same delusional assumption, and she could never bring herself to explain the truth.

Staying single had been an act of self-flagellation. She hated that she hadn't listened to her parents, hated the devastating consequences of having Sophie. She had willingly swallowed every ounce of humiliation while dragging her parents through the dirt right beside her.

As for Harold? She hadn't loved him in decades.

The moment her mother relayed the Harper family's vicious insults, followed by thirty years of gut-wrenching despair, any trace of romance had evaporated, leaving behind nothing but suffocating shame.

"Sarah!" Harold chased after her. "I had no choice back then! My mother passed away years ago, please, let the resentment go."

Trapped, Sarah glared at him with feral desperation. "What will it take for you to leave us alone?!"

"I mean it. I want to provide for you both. I want to make things right," he pleaded.

"Fine. Give me a million dollars. Consider it child support. You get a clean conscience, and we get to live in peace. And after that, you never come near us again."