He Chose Her Over Us

---- Chapter 12 Gregory Velazquez POV: The flight to Nantucket was a special kind of hell. Every minute felt like an hour, every bit of turbulence a physical manifestation of the chaos raging inside me. The pink diary Camden had mentioned sat on the seat next to me, a ticking time bomb of truths | wasn't brave enough to face. Not yet. | didn't read it. | couldn' t. | needed to see her first. | needed to see her face, to explain, to beg. | went straight from the airport to the Porter estate, the imposing gates that had once welcomed me now feeling like a fortress wall.

| hammered on the door, my fists bruising against the ancient oak. The door was opened not by a butler, but by Belen' s father, Henry Porter. He was holding a golf club like a weapon, and his eyes, usually so warm and genial, were chips of ice. "Get off my property, Velazquez," he said, his voice a low growl. "Mr. Porter, please," | begged, my voice cracking. "I need to see Belen. | made a terrible mistake. | can fix this." "A mistake?" He laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "You left my ---- pregnant daughter bleeding on a factory floor. That' s not a mistake.

That' s a choice." He swung the golf club, the head connecting with my ribs with a sickening crack. Pain exploded in my side, but | welcomed it. | deserved it. | deserved so much worse. "Please," | gasped, falling to my knees on the stone steps. "Let me see her. Let me talk to her." | began to bow my head, knocking my forehead against the stone, again and again, the rhythmic thud a desperate prayer. "Please." The door opened wider, and Belen' s mother, Eleanor, appeared. Her face, always the picture of poised elegance, was a cold, unforgiving mask.

"You will not see our daughter," she said, her voice like shattering glass. "You will sign the divorce papers when our lawyer sends them. And if you ever come near Belen or our grandchild again, Henry won' t use a golf club. He' Il use a shotgun." The door slammed shut. | heard the bolt slide home. | was left bleeding on the steps, the finality of their words echoing in the empty air. | stayed there until my body gave out, collapsing into a heap of pain and regret. | woke up in a hospital room. Camden Montoya was standing over me, his face impassive.

"You," | snarled, trying to sit up, but the pain in my ribs was blinding. "This is your fault. You took her from me." ---- He didn' t even flinch. He just stepped forward and punched me, a clean, hard shot to the jaw that sent me reeling back against the pillows. "| didn' t take anything," Camden said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "You threw her away. | was just there to pick up the pieces." He tossed Belen' s pink diary onto my chest. "She wanted you to have this. She said you deserved to know exactly what you lost." The weight of it on my chest felt immense.

"She loved you for ten years, you arrogant fool," Camden continued, his voice thick with a pain that mirrored my own. "A silent, secret love. She chose you, over and over again. And you chose to destroy her. | respected her choice back then. | won't make that mistake again. She' s with me now." "l want to see her," | choked out, the words tearing at my throat. "Sign the divorce papers," he said coldly. "And maybe she' II consider it."" He paused at the door. "Oh, and the papers? They were in the gift box with the broken jade. You just didn' t bother to look." He left.

| was alone with the diary. With the truth. | stared at it, my heart pounding with a terrible, consuming fear. | was afraid to open it, afraid of the words inside, afraid of the sheer magnitude of the love | had so carelessly ---- annihilated. | threw the diary across the room. | didn't need to read her words. | needed to see her. | would find her. | would make her listen. | would not sign those papers. She was my wife. She was carrying my child. This was not over.