Chapter 4 Miss McKinney Is Awake

“No, Brendan! Pleaseeeeeeee! I’m begging you, pleaseeeeeeee don’t!”

His lips cracked into a cruel smirk. “Don’t? Don’t what? Aww, Deirdre, Deirdre, Deirdre. Are you playing hard to get now? How low can you sink?” he jeered. He could not care less about how she felt. If anything, hearing her sniffle and wail only frustrated him even more.

“B-B-Bren… Please, think of our child!” she heaved, pleading. Tears rolled out of the corner of her eyes like a stubborn stream. “Our… child…”

“Our what?! That thing inside you is the son of a wh*re. I have no relation to it!”

The coldness in his eyes could chill anyone’s blood. He wanted to punish her. To eviscerate her. To humiliate her. To jolt her awake from her delusion.

To make the child perish in the brutality of it all.

“Brendan—!” she cried out again, her arms flailing in her struggle.

Suddenly, the man’s phone shrieked out of his pocket, forcing him to stop. He answered the call and put it on speaker. “What?!” he grunted.

Steven Young’s voice was palpably overjoyed. “S-She’s up, Mr. Brighthall! Miss McKinney is awake!”

…..

Brendan drove away in the thick of the night. It was past midnight, and yet a minute after the call, the man leaped into his car and hurtled into the darkness. His reaction showed his anxiety and excitement.

How could he not act that way? The woman of his dreams had returned. He no longer needed to put on a charade with this revolting pretender.

Deirdre rose and redressed in her battered state, putting on her night clothes. She looked through the balcony windows, her eyes tracing the car’s silhouette, which was fading at the end of the road.

She felt a chill in her heart that echoed the innumerable pangs prickling through every inch of her body, forming a cacophony of unbearable pain.

Six years ago, Deirdre McKinnon had met the man on stage during a charity drive. He had been in a suit and tie, and she had fallen in love at first sight. The next time they had met, however, it had been amid the cackling flames of a house about to be ruined. He had been almost swallowed by the fire until she had selflessly dived inside and saved him.

Before falling unconscious, he had promised her that he would find her when he recovered. He had said that he would marry her, pledging to shower her with love for that single act of heroism.

After waking up, however, he had become Charlene McKinney’s fiance.

impersonator. Now that the genuine thing had finally woken up, it

……

a wet pillow, but her phone jerked her awake after a while. The pain caused by his forceful activity had not fully subsided, so she shrank into a

screen revealed Brendan’s

of it drained all her sleepiness away. There could only be one reason he would call her this early in the morning, but still, it was sooner than she had expected. Charlene had just woken up. Was

from the same man shook Deirdre out of her stupor. Too terrified to ignore it, she answered it and set it

blared from the other side of the line. “I want you

of

went strangely quiet for a

be afraid of. I’m not asking you to file for

the first time Deirdre had ever seen him make concessions. It shocked her, but more importantly, it stirred something deep inside her. Brendan never lied. If he promised he would not hurt her kid, then he would not. But that still left one question unanswered: Why the urgency to bring her

be? Could he have realized that—even though Charlene was awake—he harbored some feelings for

than a straw, and yet she found herself moved. She quickly covered herself with an overcoat, got out of the house,

her imagination ample time to run wild. What was going to happen

room was more packed than

saw her, his furrowed

‘Collect her blood?’

from the couch and closed

cried out and tried to wriggle her way out of

to donate blood, and that someone is you. You’re going up there right now, so stop

You told me to come… because

else could I have asked you to come?” Brendan sneered. “Because I give

paled. Her hopes—her wishes and imagination—had been fanciful fantasies all along. “I’m pregnant, Brendan! Can’t you just get emergency blood bags from the hospital or something? It’s more reasonable than asking a pregnant woman to give blood!” she said. Her lips were trembling, and she felt her heart sinking into a

think I give a damn about

mentioned her death—it was just so irritating. His attention focused on her waist, and a sneer crept onto his lips. “I’m not forcing you to do

fight him. She felt his men pushing and

once—despite being married to him for two years. Nor had she ever imagined being granted the opportunity for the sole, cruel purpose of being

was when Deirdre’s eyes fell on Charlene’s features next to her.

just looked alike. An eighty-percent resemblance, maybe. But that was not the case at all. It was like staring at herself—a clone whose features mirrored her own with absurd

not mean they enjoyed

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