The Love I Begged For Was Never Real novel Chapter 6

Nora stood frozen, watching helplessly as the Hayes staff scooped Giselle up and escorted Gideon out of the facility.

She never knew why he didn't choose her, and she never got the chance to ask.

After he left, life at the welfare home turned unbearable. The kids he used to scare off began bullying her ruthlessly, stealing her food and pushing her around.

She endured that dark, miserable existence for quite a while, absorbing the brunt of the director's vicious temper.

By the time the Xaviers finally tracked her down, she was traumatized and covered in scars.

Back home, she became a socially awkward outcast. The young socialites maintained polite facades but always looked at her with strange, judgmental eyes.

Nora grew silent and withdrawn, becoming a wallflower among the elite, always hiding in the corners of grand galas, coldly observing her peers laugh and play.

As the years passed, the Hayes heir shed his childhood scruffiness, growing into a breathtakingly untouchable figure who commanded the entire social circle.

And always by his side was Giselle, the girl he personally spoiled and nurtured.

That scrawny little girl had blossomed into a stunning young woman. Parading her title as the Hayes family's adopted daughter, she bathed in Gideon's unconditional favoritism.

Nora had seen him from a distance at a banquet once.

He didn't recognize her; or rather, she didn't even register in his vision.

Until that fateful dusk ten years ago.

Nora was cornered in the alley by thugs, and Gideon appeared.

Nora recognized him instantly as the boy who had held her hand in that dark cellar.

In that moment, the withered corners of her heart felt sunlight again.

Mr. Hayes Sr. carried that debt of gratitude for the rest of his life, treating Nora like his own granddaughter.

Three years ago, as his health rapidly failed, he lay in his hospital bed with numbered days, tightly gripping Nora's hand with pleading eyes.

"Nora... Gideon's heart is too cold, his nature too isolated."

"His parents passed early, and Giselle is his only weakness. She is the center of his universe, and no one is allowed to cross her. But Giselle... she has a frail constitution and a naive mind."

Tears slipped through the deep wrinkles on the old man's face as his bony grip tightened.

"I'm terrified that once I'm gone, no one will be able to reel him in, no one will give him a real home... Nora, help me. Help the Hayes family."

Seeing the old man's desperate expectation and thinking of the boy she had secretly loved for so long, she nodded, possessed by a fleeting spark of hope.