perfect for me.
Turns out, Ray had planned the whole wedding behind my back, down to every tiny detail.
I couldn’t help but feel something shift. Originally, I’d said yes because I needed to lock down my dad’s inheritance. But now? Seeing how thoughtful, steady, and endlessly patient he was, I realized something.
I was falling for him.
1/2
Chapter 9
***
+15 BONUS
That morning, while I was getting my makeup done, the door burst open.
And there they were–my mom and Henry.
My mom rushed in. “Daphne, I’m here to apologize.”
Tears streamed down her face as she launched into this whole speech. “I’ve wronged you for years. I didn’t see how much pain I
caused. I was blind! I ignored my own daughter for an ungrateful snake.
“Daphne, can you forgive me?”
I waved the makeup artist away, then turned to her, stone–faced. “Why were you so biased all these years?”
Her face froze. After a long pause, she finally said, “That night, if you hadn’t begged for that stupid strawberry cake, your dad wouldn’t have gone out, and he wouldn’t have died in that car accident! He was the glue holding this family together, and when
we lost him, my whole world fell apart.
“How could I not resent you? Every time I looked at you, I saw the person who killed him.”
So that was it.
No wonder she always looked at me like I was something she stepped in.
No wonder she adopted Betty despite already having me.
No wonder she always favored Betty.
For years, I’d been twisting myself in knots, wondering what was so broken about me that she couldn’t love me. Turns out, she didn’t hate me. She hated this warped version of me she’d made up in her head–the one she blamed for my dad’s death.
Except the joke’s on her. The real culprit wasn’t me.
It was her.
