I Let Him Choose His Ex This Time Chapter 05

I Let Him Choose His Ex This Time Chapter 05

Cressida’s POV 

I was seven when my mother died. 

Three months after her funeral, my father Laurent brought my stepmother Rosalie into the white mansion. She brought a son two years younger than me and comfortably moved into what used to be my mother’s bedroom. 

It’s not that I didn’t act out. 

used to wake up in the middle of the night, shove dirt into my mouth, and cry the next morning about severe stomach pains, just hoping my father would look at me before leaving for work. I intentionally smashed my stepmother’s favorite vase, standing barefoot in the shards waiting for punishment, thinking that even his anger meant he cared. I got into fights at school, bloodying classmates’ noses just to force the school to call my parents–but Rosalie answered, said a dismissive “Got it,” and hung up. 

My father never showed up once. 

After that, I completely gave up on hoping for his affection. 

At eighteen, I packed my bags and left the white mansion without looking back. Drifting was freeing, but intensely lonely. So lonely that sometimes, 

standing on my balcony at night, I vividly felt myself slipping off the edge of the world. 

That was when Lysander entered my life. 

He fended off drunken thugs for me. When I was convulsing with a 104–degree fever on the floor of my cheap apartment, he broke a window to get me to the hospital and stayed by my bed until dawn. He took me out for late–night food and sat with me outside convenience stores until 3 AM in total silence. That was the first time in my life I felt what it was like to truly be *seen*. 

Inevitably, I fell in love with him. 

But one evening, I overheard him on the phone. A woman was laughing on the other end–light, familiar. It was Evangeline. I stood in the hallway, swallowing every confession I had prepared. I never said a word. 

I knew my marriage was never my own choice to make. So I suppressed that fire and genuinely wished them happiness. I thought giving him a graceful exit was the best thing I could do. 

Later, when my father announced my arranged marriage to the Corleone family at the dinner table, I thought I was dreaming. 

It was the first time in my life I felt fate had thrown me a bone. 

Ironically, I quickly realized my father and stepmother communicated far more with Lysander than with me. They attended his galas, personally 

delivered his birthday gifts, and spent dinners raving about his latest business acquisitions. Meanwhile, I sat at the same table as a mere contractual placeholder. 

In my past life, when I couldn’t endure it anymore and asked my father for a divorce, he put down his teacup and looked at me like I was a stranger. 

Lysander manages up the companies impeccably. He gives you whatever you want. Do you think a multi- hillion dollar corporate merger is a child’s game you can just quit?” 

My stepmother chimed in softly from the side, twisting the knife. “He might have someone else in his heart, but so what? No marriage is perfect. 

Cressida, stop causing trouble for everyone.” 

So I endured it, year after year. 

Until the very end, when I held a gun to my own head, staring into Lysander’s finally panicked eyes, and calmly said: “Sign the papers.” 

That was the first time I lived like an actual human being. 

“Cressida.” 

Gavin’s low voice anchored me back to reality. He stood beside me, his gaze resting on my face. He looked as stoic as ever, but his brow was slightly furrowed, silently asking if I was okay. 

I took a deep breath and turned to him. 

“Gavin,” I heard my own voice, incredibly steady.” Can you drop me off at my parents‘ first?” 

He paused for a second, then nodded. 

I turned around and kept pace with him. 

Behind me, Lysander called out again–a final attempt to reel me back in–but it failed to land a hit. 

I didn’t look back.