Secret Admiration: Finding True Love After Prison novel Chapter 4

The other guy laughed. "But Meryl's a real knockout, isn't she? With that face and figure, she'd turn heads anywhere. Keeping her around as a trophy wife wouldn't be so bad."

He glanced at Dalton, tossing a card onto the table. "Dalton, are you really okay with letting someone else have her?"

Dalton finally spoke, his tone flat and uninterested. "You want her? She's yours."

The guy was taken aback, unsure if Dalton was serious or just messing with him, and chuckled awkwardly.

"Everyone knows Meryl's been devoted to you. She's followed you around all these years. I guess I'm not that lucky."

Outside the door, Meryl was stunned, her face twisting into a bitter smile.

It was well known that she loved Dalton, but hearing him casually offer her up like a prize was a painful blow.

The sting of humiliation made her eyes well up. She clenched her fists tightly, feeling overwhelmed by a suffocating sense of betrayal.

She remembered being fourteen, new to the city from a small town.

Her dad, Malcolm Stone, had put her in an elite school.

It was supposed to be a fresh start, but Lydia Stone's schemes ruined it fast.

One day, during a brutal snowstorm, they locked Meryl in an outdoor bathroom stall.

She was freezing and terrified. She screamed for help until she lost her voice, but no one came.

Then, Dalton kicked the door open.

She could still picture it clear as day. It was freezing cold, and there he was, with the blizzard raging behind him.

His unbuttoned uniform flapped in the wind, wet hair sticking to his forehead.

In the dim light, she couldn't see his face clearly, but she remembered him taking off his scarf and tossing it to her.

"Here, take this," he said, turning away without looking back.

To fourteen-year-old Meryl, seventeen-year-old Dalton was a hero, her first beacon of hope.

From that moment, she had loved him deeply, chasing him for seven years.

But now, she was just something he could give away.

Fighting back tears, she moved to the window, pulled out a long-forgotten number, and dialed it.

As the phone rang, someone called out to her from behind.