He Asked Me To Divorce, I Said Yes Chapter 08
I was surprised. “Mia, I’ve never thought about dating again.”
“Does the idea of another relationship bother you?”
I considered the question carefully. It would have been a lie to say my last marriage hadn’t left scars.
But I couldn’t let Julian destroy my ability to trust anyone ever again. That wasn’t how I wanted to live.
“No,” I told Mia. “I’m open to it.”
Mia gave a mischievous laugh. “That’s all I needed to hear. The guy happens to be vacationing in Carmel, so the two of you can meet. Trust my taste.”
Then she added, “Even if you fall for him, dating is as far as it goes. No marriage. Protect your assets. Understood?”
I smiled. “Understood.”
After I ended the call, I found myself looking forward to it.
Mia had an uncannily good eye for people. Years ago, she had actually found an excellent marriage prospect for me, but I had stubbornly fallen in love with Julian instead.
When I was hospitalized after the car accident, the Bennett family abandoned me and canceled every card they had given me. I had no way to cover the medical bills.
Mia rushed to the hospital, paid them for me, and then spent two months taking care of me.
—
From that point on, I wanted to become someone like her.
When I told her that, Mia burst out laughing.
“You have another path available to you,” she said. “Don’t follow mine. I did what I did because I had no choice.”
I asked her what path she meant.
“College.”
My grades had been decent. But the moment I turned eighteen, the Bennett family cut me off.
Then the car accident left me penniless before I could even start school.
I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life.
“Don’t worry,” Mia said. “I’ll support you.”
She kept her word.
She supported me through a gap year while I reapplied to colleges, and I enrolled the following fall.
I ended up at a perfectly ordinary four-year university, nothing prestigious.
I felt anxious and guilty, as though I had somehow failed to justify everything Mia had spent on me.
But she told me, “It doesn’t matter what school it is. Getting a degree changes your options. If you can find a job and support yourself, you won’t end up on the same road I did—a road you can’t come back
—
from.”
She had always considered every detail of my future.
She had even thought about my love life.
When I was twenty, Mia told me she was taking me to a party.
I assumed she only wanted to help me score a free dinner. Instead, she said, “There will be a few decent prospects there. Their families own small businesses or manufacturing firms.”
“Pick one you like. If things work out, you can marry him after graduation. The two of you can take over the family business and build a stable life together.”
She had planned out a good future for me.
I was the one who failed to live up to it.
None of the men she introduced interested me. Instead, I fell for Julian the moment I saw him.
At the time, he had only recently regained control of the Prescott family empire.
He carried such cold hostility that most people found him intimidating.
I liked him anyway.
Back then, I was young, stubborn, and unwilling to admit defeat.
I knew Julian would burn me, yet I kept chasing him without ever looking back.
—
Mia warned me that Julian and I would never have a happy ending.
I refused to believe her.
What none of them knew was that Julian had already begun to soften toward me.
Sometimes, when I wasn’t around, he would look for me without realizing it.
When we ate out with other people, he would instinctively order my favorite dishes first.
He would even think of me while away on business and bring me back a gift.
He treated me differently from everyone else.
Then someone told him I was the Bennett family’s illegitimate daughter.
The warmth vanished from his eyes.
“Nora,” he said, “you don’t even deserve to stand in front of me.”