At the time, he and Quinn had been at their most passionate. When he’d discovered this, he’d secretly blocked Gabriel’s account.
To this day, Quinn was unaware of this
Nicholas felt an unprecedented sense of crisis upon learning that the man before him was Gabriel. He knew the latter was special
to Quinn.
When he saw how worried she was over Gabriel, he gritted his teeth and jumped into the river. The sound startled Quinn and Gabriel. They turned to look at him as he struggled in the water, looking hopefully at Quinn.
Gabriel glared at him and secretly cursed him for being sly. He wanted to jump into the water to save Nicholas–he didn’t want
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Quinn to have anything to do with the latter anymore.
However, she stopped him and said calmly, “Ignore him. He can swim.”
+15 Bonus
Nicholas‘ hopefulness fizzed out, and his heart felt colder than his body when he heard that. Upon noticing that he showed no sign of getting out of the water, Gabriel forced through gritted teeth, “I can imagine how deeply you hurt Quinn when I see you like this, Nicholas. What can you do for her aside from getting her in trouble?”
Nicholas retorted, “What nonsense are you spouting? I can do plenty for Quinn! Everyone knows how much I love her!”
This dredged up unpleasant memories for Quinn. She chuckled softly at his words. “Did you do those things for me or to put on a show for others, Nicholas? You’re right that everyone knows you love me–you wanted nothing more than to show the world
everything you did for me.
“Once upon a time, I thought you treated me better than anyone in the world. However, I later realized you were only acting like that to catch Jasmine’s attention. Am I right?”
She continued, “When you went abroad to have my wedding ring custom–made, you probably met with Jasmine, right? It’s also
Jasmine’s habit to have a warm glass of milk every night, right?
“You sacrificed me to protect her–I’m sure you still remember doing that, don’t you? Whenever you needed to choose between
me and her, she was always the one you picked.”
Quinn couldn’t help finding the situation laughable as she spoke. She never wanted to experience those things again!
“It’s not like that, Quinn. I swear!” Tears blurred Nicholas‘ vision as he tried his best to get out of the water. “I only felt
Indignance toward Jasmine!”
“Is that so? Would you have severed ties and cut off all contact with her if we’d really gotten married? It’s fine if you want to lie everyone else, Nicholas, but don’t do it to yourself,” Quinn said.
Nicholas wanted to tell her that he would, but he couldn’t get the words out despite them being on the tip of his tongue. She was right–he’d never thought of cutting contact with Jasmine.
He’d been addicted to the feeling of having the person who’d once abandoned him treat him carefully and like he was a precious
treasure. Oftentimes, he felt like Jasmine could bring him a sense of excitement he’d never felt in the past.
It wasn’t a feeling Quinn could give him. He’d been reluctant to let go of that feeling, so he’d hurt Quinn time and time again. He’d only started regretting and feeling scared after she’d left him.
“I
ar I won’t do anything else to hurt you in the future, Quinn. Can you please trust me this once?” he pleaded. His body was stiff from the cold, but he didn’t seem to feel it. All he wanted was for Quinn to return to his side–it was much too painful losing
her.
“We don’t have a future anymore. Let’s go, Gabe,” Quinn said coolly. She and Gabriel left without another look back despite
Nicholas‘ cries of despair.
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+15 Bonus
He scrambled after them but stopped when his assistant called him. His hands started trembling uncontrollably when he heard
the latter’s words.
