Chapter 24
As Tommy spoke, he glanced at Ned. “Besides, whether or not that York woman meant to push Ingrid, there’s no changing that Ingrid was injured because of her. Even if you want to plead on her behalf… you should drink a few glasses in apology, shouldn’t you?”
“Exactly! Have a few drinks to show your sincerity!” someone cried. “If you can’t handle hard liquor, I’m sure you can still handle a few glasses of red wine!”
Angeline stood at the entrance. She looked straight at Ned, who sat casually in the middle of the room. She walked toward the table, removing her scarf and
revealing her face as she moved.
Then, she draped her scarf over the back of a chair before grabbing a large wineglass and placing it before her. She turned the turntable, bringing a decanter filled with scotch to her. She poured some into the wineglass before her.
Angeline’s skin was extremely fair; it made the bruises on the side of her face, jaw, and neck all the more obvious. “When we met at 12, I had pesticide on me. If not for me stopping to save you, I would’ve drank it all.”
She picked up a second decanter and poured some of it into her wineglass.” Actually, rather than saying that I saved you from getting kidnapped … I should say you saved me.”
When she’d taken the blade for him, she’d truly lost the will to live. If not for Ned throwing a tantrum and insisting and taking her back to the Fletcher residence with him, she probably would’ve found other ways to take her life.
“I’m not the same as you. You grew up in a warm and happy environment, but all the warmth and happiness in my life that I can remember came from the time I spent with you. You barged into my life and made me think someone would actually love this dirty, unwanted life.”
Ned had been the only source of light in Angeline’s pitch–black life. That was why when they’d gotten into that accident, the thought that had horrified her wasn’t her own death–it was Ned’s.
Ned looked taken aback. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
Angeline continued, “On your 18th birthday, the first wish you made was that Ned Fletcher would be the only person to bring Angeline Emmerson all the happiness in her life.”
She turned the turntable and picked up the third decanter. “You didn’t make your second and third wish, though. You said they would definitely have to do with me, so you wanted to keep them for another time.
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