Chapter 18
When Mrs. Sherwood heard about Quentin’s return to the country, she immediately demanded his presence at the Sherwood estate. Ever since Fiona had fled from their wedding, the Sherwood family had become the laughingstock of their social circle. At such a crucial moment, not only had Quentin failed to take control of the situation, but he’d chased after Fiona abroad like a lovesick fool. Mrs. Sherwood couldn’t fathom what made Fiona so special. There were countless women who would kill to become Mrs. Sherwood, yet Quentin remained hopelessly devoted to this one woman who’d humiliated them all. She had already. planned everything out the moment Quentin arrived at the estate, she would arrange introductions with suitable young ladies. This time, she was determined to select a properly refined and dignified daughter–in–law!
But Quentin defied her expectations. He neither returned to the family estate nor went to the company. Instead, his first destination upon returning was Moonview
Villa.
The moment he pushed open the door and saw the immaculately clean living room, fury coursed through his veins. “Who gave permission to clean up the house?” he demanded, his voice trembling with rage.
Zachary, trembling slightly, answered, “It was Dowager Mrs. Sherwood’s orders, sir. She said the house looked too chaotic and unbecoming.”
Quentin clenched his fists, frantically searching for anything Fiona had left behind like a man possessed. Fortunately, Zachary had known better than to carelessly dispose of Fiona’s belongings. He had instructed the staff to carefully organize and store everything.
With desperate movements, Quentin pulled out all of her possessions, examining. each item one by one. Finally, he understood why Fiona had treasured these things. so deeply. They held not just her memories, but his as well – their shared history, their story together. Yet Fiona had abandoned it all.
She’d left everything for Quentin, including all the sorrow and regret that came with them. As his eyes fell on the single wedding ring its pair missing – tears.
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began to fall freely down his face.
“I was wrong… I was so terribly wrong…” he choked out, his voice breaking. “No wonder she could never forgive me.”
He staggered backward, accidentally knocking over the waste basket behind him. Among the scattered trash, a crumpled paper ball rolled across the floor.
Slowly, as if moving through a dream, Quentin bent down to pick up the discarded
paper.
Zachary instinctively moved to intervene.
He knew all too well about Quentin’s obsession with cleanliness–even the
smallest speck of dust could set him off. But then it hit him. When it came to
anything related to Fiona, all of Quentin’s rules went out the window. Zachary quietly retreated from the room, not daring to say a word. With trembling hands, Quentin placed the crumpled paper on his lap, carefully
smoothing out each wrinkle. Fiona’s elegant handwriting danced across the page, carrying ten years‘ worth of dreams: “To wear the most beautiful wedding dress and marry my beloved Quentin.”
Pain ripped through his heart like a physical wound, an agony he couldn’t. suppress no matter how hard he tried. Each breath felt like dragging a knife through his chest.
His mind wandered to Fiona at eighteen–shy yet full of hope. He remembered that night when she saw the ruined wedding dress, the flash of heartbreak in her
eyes that he’d tried so hard to forget.
“What have I done?” he whispered.
“Dear God, what have I done?!”
This wish calendar had seven pages in total, and this was the last one. Where were the others? What other dreams had Fiona written down?
Quentin tore through the room like a man possessed, searching every corner, every crevice. The mansion was vast–large enough to hold all their memories. Yet somehow, it felt suffocatingly small, too cramped to contain even one of Fiona’s
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wishes.
The previous six pages had been thrown away with the rest of the wedding items, discarded along with all the decorations Fiona had carefully chosen.
Gone. All gone.
“I’ll find them,” he promised the empty room. “I swear I’ll find them all.” Stumbling into his study, Quentin realized that if he couldn’t find the physical pages, he’d have to reconstruct them from memory. After twenty years together, surely he knew Fiona’s heart well enough to recall her wishes?
He immersed himself in their shared past, sifting through countless memories, searching for traces of Fiona’s dreams. For an entire day, he neither ate nor drank, focused solely on recreating those six discarded wishes.
As he wrote down the final word, tears streamed down his face, but this time, al
smile broke through.
Fighting to control his racing heart, he made a solemn vow: “Fiona, everything I’ve taken from you–I’ll give it back double. Just wait for me.”
His whispered promise echoed through the empty house: “Wait for me.”
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