CHAPTER 39: CHAPTER 39: SINCE I MADE YOU FEEL SO WRONGED

"What’s it to you whether they’re good-looking or not? It’s over between us, don’t forget it was you who wanted the breakup," Henry Willow reminded her.

"I regret it, I don’t want to break up! You know I can be impulsive sometimes, why didn’t you come to patch things up after that unpleasant scene at the Starlight Hotel banquet?"

Henry: "..."

Sarah was making a scene again, and yet she still thought she was justified, turning to question him: "Have you stopped wanting me, Henry? Let me tell you, you were the one who flirted with me first. I won’t let you get away with this. If I find out you’ve fallen for someone else, I’ll... I’ll tell my brother!"

"My brother always said you were a playboy. He told me not to trust you, but I just fell for you. You tell me, it wasn’t like I just casually threw tantrums and broke up with you, right? Every time it was because you got caught cheating by me first!"

"Getting asked for directions counts as cheating?" Henry countered.

"Why didn’t that woman ask anyone else on a busy street, why approach you? The way you two talked seemed flirty, don’t think I didn’t notice."

The more Sarah spoke, the more aggrieved she felt. She pounded Henry twice in the chest and then pulled back to wipe her tears.

Henry sighed helplessly, "It’s always you being suspicious, you causing a scene without evidence, you saying break up, and in the end, it’s still you feeling wronged. What do you want from me?"

"You’ve got nerve, you know. I know that since we’ve been together, you’ve cheated on me behind my back so many times. Just because I can’t catch you doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. A woman’s intuition is spot on. I can feel if you’ve been with other women."

She said this, and Henry did not deny it: "So? Since I’ve wronged you so much, why not just break it off? Why come looking for me again?"

"I don’t care, we are not breaking up! Until I’ve decided to completely break it off with you, you’re still my boyfriend. If you dare to move on, I’ll tell my brother and say you slept with me!" Sarah threatened, "He would definitely kill you."

"And you’re well aware of your place in the Willow Family, no! You don’t even have a place in the Willow Family, your father doesn’t value you! So you can’t afford to offend me or my brother!"

Sarah was speaking the truth, but to say something so unpleasant, she was quite something.

The young lords and ladies in Aethelgard had their own social circles, and the four great families stood firmly at the top of the pyramid. But even at the top, there existed a chain of contempt; hereditary elites looked down on self-made successes and even more so on nouveau riche. Of course, someone like Conrad Sterling, who was young and promising with an unimaginable rise in status, was another matter.

Even within the elite, many men with power and money had complex marital relationships. Since ancient times, there’s been a distinction between sons and bastards, and the legitimate child held the moral and socially granted high ground, giving them an edge in succession rights.

But in the Willow Family, there was an exception.

Henry was the legitimate son, but after his mother and sister’s successive deaths, the legitimate inheritance rights were divided by his father’s other illegitimate children, making him an outsider in the family. He had no chance to manage the group business, surviving merely on the insurance compensation from his mother and sister’s accidents, which he squandered to pass the time.

The members of the Willow Family looked down on him, and so did outsiders.

From Sarah’s earlier tone of superiority, it was clear she listened a lot to her brother calling Henry a loser.

Yet, she insisted on clinging to this loser.

A cold smile curled on Henry’s lips. His eyes, once dazzling and full of laughter, darkened into an impenetrable abyss of ink, hiding a rarely seen fierceness beneath the surface.

But Sarah was still unaware, only thinking that when she heard he’d been detained today, she hurried over with $120,000 in cash to bail him out.

But after rescuing him, Henry not only didn’t thank her but also ignored her proposal to reconcile. Was he really planning to leave her?

The more Sarah thought, the more afraid she became. She simply took out her phone to make a call: "I’ll call my brother over now; if you want to break up, tell him yourself. He’ll make sure you don’t walk out of here whole."

Sarah had just dialed two numbers when Henry grabbed the phone from her and turned it off.

"Someone who doesn’t know might think it’s your brother I was dating. Besides complaining to him, can you do anything else?"

"I don’t have any other way!"

Sarah, unable to take back her phone, stomped her feet anxiously, walked a few steps, then suddenly stopped, sobbing.

She looked up to see that Henry still wasn’t about to console her, so she took off her high heels and threw them at him: "Heartless bastard!"

"My brother was right, you’re unreliable!"

"You were just playing with me, weren’t you? Just like with those hundreds of ex-girlfriends of yours?"

"If I had known you’d be like this, I..."

Sarah was genuinely crying over her misfortune of meeting the wrong person when Henry suddenly interrupted: "Now you know it’s not too late! Listen to your brother and stay away from scum like me, don’t lower the Grant Family’s standards."

Henry’s words were not advising her but more self-deprecating.

The man kicked away the high heel thrown at him and walked towards the room exit.

When Sarah saw him about to leave, she was so anxious her voice trembled: "Henry, you dare leave me here alone today?"

"I swear I will never forgive you! I’ll never speak to you again!"

"You bastard! Henry, come back... come back!"

Sarah shouted until her voice was hoarse in the room, so angry she shrunk her legs and buried her face in her knees, crying.

After she sobbed for a while, she looked up to find Henry, who had left with a cold face, suddenly back in front of her.

Henry held the retrieved high heels in one hand, gently pushed away a stray lock of Sarah’s hair with the other hand, and sighed, "Such a pretty girl, why let yourself be so pitiful for me?"

Back then, it was gestures like this that captivated Miss Grant, who had never been in love before.

Even though she was angry now, she softened at Henry’s gentle coaxing: "Sniff... Henry, let’s not break up, shall we? I promise I won’t throw tantrums anymore."

Henry didn’t respond to Sarah’s words, bending down to put her shoe back on, because he knew her promises lasted a maximum of one hour.

He had just put the shoe on, and Sarah had already kicked it off again.

"I sprained my ankle just now, I can’t walk."

"Really? Where did it hurt? When did you sprain it, I didn’t see."

"I don’t care, it’s sprained anyway, I want you to carry me!"

Miss Grant’s temper came up, leaving no room for refusal as she clung onto Henry’s back.

"Still going to complain to your brother?"

"No more complaints!"

Upon hearing this, Henry then carried her smoothly.

Sarah smiled sweetly, immediately hugging his neck tightly. Whatever reason Henry had for coming back to coax her, her goal was achieved anyway.

"Henry, let me tell you, as long as you’re good to me, I won’t report to my brother. I’ve even told him that I want to marry you. Since the Willow Family doesn’t value you anyway, you should come to our Grant Family, what’s mine is yours, let’s see who dares to look down on you!" Sarah offered what she considered an enticing condition for moving into her family, not noticing the cold indifference that lingered in the man’s eyes behind her.

"Why aren’t you saying anything?" Sarah wondered.

"Shall I send you home now, or would you stay the night at my place?" Henry asked.

Sarah blushed lightly at his latter words, then suddenly remembered something and twisted Henry’s ear from behind: "Stay the night? We’re not done with today’s matter, don’t think I’m forgetful. I’ll call someone now to investigate every elderly woman over seventy in this sanatorium to find out which old hag you were picking flowers for today!"

Henry: "..."

Originally he thought today’s fine was an end, but he didn’t expect it was just the beginning!

Wow, Young Master Sterling, you really impress me!

"If I dare say another word, I’ll be a dog!" Henry shouted in his mind.