She didn’t know how she returned to the hotel. When she came back, Yelena was already asleep; she even muttered something in her sleep when she heard Elspeth return.
Elspeth lay awake in bed all night. The next day, she found Callum’s address with her computer hacking skills before hurrying there early in the morning.
Callum was watching the news while jotting down notes nonstop.
“Callum, I have something to ask you about.”
Callum didn’t say a word, but his fingers trembled for a moment.
“Emma is still in touch with Arthur at the moment. Do you know that?”
Callum’s eyes darkened; there seemed to be a cold gleam in his gloomy eyes. “I do.”
“In that case, do you know they’ve slept together before?”
Callum frowned slightly with an indiscernibly complicated look on his face. “What are you telling me this for?”
Elspeth asked coldly in a stern voice, “Arthur is nominally your brother, yet he’s slept with your ex-girlfriend. Do you still want to go out with Emma now?”
Callum averted his gaze. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“Callum, tell me that you’re faking all of this and that you have your reasons for doing so. I’ll believe you if you say that.”
A frosty expression came over the man’s face. “Elspeth, stop being unreasonable, will you?”
“Callum, do you really love me?”
Callum fell silent—a silence that struck a chill into Elspeth’s heart.
“I’m gonna ask you this again, so tell me the truth. Do you still love me?”
Callum’s voice was dry and hoarse. “I loved you before.”
Elspeth felt as though her heart had been thrown to the bottom of a valley and crushed beneath one’s heel. Her face turned pale, and she bit her lip involuntarily. She clenched her fists so hard that her fingernails dug into her palms, but she didn’t feel any pain. “Callum, we’re done.”
Turns out everything they said is true; I’m the only person who stupidly held out till the end, yet all I got was “I loved you before,” she thought. She felt the world spinning around her, so much so that she even felt like throwing up. Pulling herself together, she took a deep breath and walked out.
After Elspeth had left, Callum stood upright in front of the French window from which one could overlook the forest of high-rise buildings, staring at the sky far away from the glass window with jet-black eyes. After a long time, he finally dialed a number, saying, “I’ve broken up with Elspeth.”
“Was she the one who brought it up?”
“Yes.”
The man’s voice was old, but he sounded very candid. “That little girl is as stubborn as a mule. She’d never give up easily unless she broke up with you.”
“Can you release my mom now?”
“As I said, I won’t make things difficult for you as long as you’re willing to go out with Emma and make Elspeth break up with you of her own accord.” The man guffawed. “I’ll release Mrs. Winthrop once Elspeth’s engagement party is over. Don’t worry, I won’t hurt her.”
Callum took a deep breath. “I got it.”
Standing outside in the sun, Elspeth had a look of confusion in her eyes. Suddenly, she felt somewhat numb.
Jordan called just in time. “Elspeth, I’ve got a piece of bad news to tell you.”
Holding back her tears with tremendous effort, Elspeth smiled in the glaring sun, saying, “What kind of bad news could be worse than I am now? Tell me so that I can laugh at it. As it happens, I just had a breakup.”
“Congratulations on your breakup, then,” Jordan said before he was startled for a moment. “Wait a minute. You’ve broken up with him?”
“Yeah, that’s right. You want to laugh at me, don’t you?”
Jordan’s voice took on a frosty note, which was pretty rare. “No, I don’t. I just think that the Callum guy you liked is quite an *sshole.”
Elspeth was in no mood to talk about Callum, though. She came back to the subject, asking, “So what’s the bad news?”
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