The Bride He Took For Granted novel Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Elise returned home at nine o’clock in the evening.

The villa was empty except for the servants on night duty.

Housekeeper, Clara Clark, told her that Leonard White and Sharon White had gone to pick up the Dora White

from school in the afternoon and still had not returned.

Elise was twenty-four years old this year. Her younger sister, Dora, was sixteen and a sophomore in high school.

She lived in boarding school and only came home on

weekends.

Every time she returned home, Leonard and Sharon would dress up formally and personally go to her school to pick her up.

Then they would take Dora out to eat, shop, and have fun, returning home in the middle of the night.

Elise’s matter of breaking off the engagement could only wait until tomorrow.

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At daybreak

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breakfast table.

The dining room was so quiet that only the occasional clink of cutlery could be heard.

Leonard took the porridge handed over by Clara and instructed her,

“Dora will sleep until eleven. At ten thirty, prepare her favorite English platter. Also send someone to buy her favorite blueberry soufflé from the dessert shop opposite her school. Remember, don’t make it too sweet. She had a

toothache last week.”

Elise slowly raised her eyes.

Leonard’s usually stern face seemed to light up

warm, gentle smile.

with a

She had been his daughter for fourteen years, yet he had never smiled at her like that, let alone remembered what

she liked to eat.

But she herself had never forgotten.

She liked spicy beef sauce.

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daughter, he casually asked Elise,

“Have you taken your wedding photos with Landon yet?”

Elise originally planned to bring up the engagement after breakfast.

Because once she said it, this breakfast would probably come to an end.

“Not yet,” she replied.

“Move faster. Spend more time with the planning team and follow the process properly. No mistakes, understand?”

Elise tightened her grip on the spoon.

Every direction she turned led to an abyss.

She wanted to gather her last bit of courage and try once more. What if there was still a miracle in family affection?

After a long internal struggle, Elise said seriously,

“Dad, Mom, I saw Landon cheating with my own eyes.”:58

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The sound of cutlery disappeared from the dining room.

It was so quiet she could almost hear her own heartbeat.

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds passed.

Suddenly, Leonard overturned the bowl of porridge.

“How dare you?! The invitations have already been sent. Even if he has an illegitimate child, you will still marry

him.”

He stormed out of the dining room in anger.

Elise’s slender fingers dug into the edge of the table as she looked straight at Sharon.

“Mom, is that what you think too?”

Hope and pleading mixed in her dark eyes.

But the outcome was still the same.

The love she never received as a child would not appear now that she was grown.

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She would never receive the miracle of warmth from her

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“No one will dare spread news of Landon’s affair. Secretary Carter and Mrs. Carter will not allow it either. All men are the same. Marrying Landon is your best

choice.”

Sharon said this without emotion and waved Clara over

to clean the dining room.

Elise’s throat burned as if filled with sand.

“Do you and Dad hate me? Did you bring me back just to secure ties with the Carter family?”

“No,” Sharon denied expressionlessly.

“Once you become the Carter family’s daughter-in-law, no one in Los Angeles will dare bully you.”

“Is Landon cheating on me not bullying me?”

Sharon’s fingers tightened slightly at her side, but she said nothing and did not look at Elise again.

“In your eyes, my thoughts don’t matter. What I like doesn’t matter. Whether I am happy doesn’t matter.”

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“I am just a vine you trimmed and tied up, forced to climb

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“Am I your daughter? Or just a product you refined?”

Elise’s eyes turned red, tears trembling at the edges.

Sharon lifted her head.

Her long, almond eyes, a perfect mirror of Elise, held not an ounce of softness.

She said word by word,

“Elise, this is your fate.”

If reincarnation were a skill, Elise had clearly never

mastered it.

A father who never looked at her directly.

A mother who always treated her with indifference.

For twenty-four years, the happiest period of her life had been the ten years she spent with her poor adoptive mother.

Elise let out a soft laugh.

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Only then did she realize how unpleasant her own

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Clara looked at Elise with clear reluctance in her eyes, but she had no way to help her.

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