Dangerous Love: You Are My One and Only Bride novel Chapter 1762

How could any of them recover from this imbroglio?

Was there any way to mend what had been broken?

How on earth would she be able to make her parents forget the sheer obloquy that had marred their image today? Her mother, especially—her thin-skinned mother, who cared about her face more than anything, who then suffered scathing humiliation right on her daughter’s wedding day.

The light at the end of the tunnel—the light she had yearned for so much—was once again painfully out of her reach for God-knows-how-long.

Her parents would force her. They would force her to part with him, to never enter the Trudeau household again.

Her head would not stop imagining it—a million ways her parents could coerce and force and demand that she leave Sylvain. Then, on the far side of these agonizing thoughts, was Ursula Siebeech-Jaark, wearing the same twisted grimace she made whenever she saw her, the one that oozed utter contempt. It was an expression that had now extended even to her parents.

She reached the top of the steeple, looked down, and took in the verdant lawn sprawling below. How it teemed with all the careful décor Sylvain had put his heart into setting.

A breeze billowed her untainted white veil. It carried the scent of fresh white roses surrounding the church into its arms and spread it around. Behind her, the great bell continued its booming toll from the belfry, nullifying the cursed chaos below.

As soon as her father’s knees hit the floor, her last mental bastion crumbled along with him.

She closed her eyes and vaulted forward. It’s over.

No more suffering.

On her way down, she saw Sylvain stumbling out of the church with her unconscious father on his back.

He was the last thing she saw. The star-crossed lovers’ eyes linked for one last, transient second; it was all the time she needed to burn him into her eyes—

And then there was nothing.

“Robin——!”

Arianne’s shriek came first. By then, scarlet blood had splattered out of her in a shower, dyeing the stony steps below her and the surrounding verdant lawn red.

She landed on the narrow, stone-paved path leading to the church. It was the only one out there, yet Robin plunged right onto it.

Sylvain’s pupils dilated. His body froze in mid-action. All manner of noise passing into his ears muted itself, as though it were being blocked. In that trance of silence, all he saw was Robin… and the bloody pool that soaked her.

She had donned a bridal gown he personally designed. She was all dolled up in the most gorgeous get-up. Today was their wedding day.

But now, there the bride was, lying on the ground, completely devoid of life. There were only about ten feet between them, yet all of his courage had left him, leaving Sylvain utterly petrified at the prospect of touching her…

Mrs. Cox staggered close enough until she fell forward next to Robin’s body before breaking into a tearful, excruciating howl. She had never shed tears in front of anyone before, but she had lost her face already and there was little to care anymore.

Ursula, who did not expect Robin to jump to her death, was stunned into silence. The only thing she wanted was to break Sylvain and Robin apart; the only reason why she was here was to express her choler—never in her wildest imagination had she ever wanted it to end with a person’s death. Fear was not the only strong emotion dominating her, though. In fact, another sentiment was ballooning within her: hate.

“Why are you telling me you’re sorry?” she replied. “This isn’t your fault… As long as you know who caused this to happen and don’t protect that b*tch, don’t ever be sorry. I know you love Robin from the bottom of your heart, Syl. You’ve always wanted me to agree—to bless the union between the two of you—and so you endeavored hard, just for me to say yes. How could someone like you ever think of maltreating my daughter?

“But your mother… Oh God, your mother isn’t human. She was my only daughter, Lord! I-I loved her… I poured my soul into raising her right; I watched her grow so big only to… only to see her die, being coerced by that inhuman! And now, I’m all alone. A childless widow. My family’s gone—what else is there to lose? Nothing. Nothing’s holding me back from making that b*tch pay for her sins… even if it kills me!”

Arianne quickly poured Mrs. Cox a glass of warm water. “Please, have some water, Mrs. Cox. Let’s not get too worked up, alright? Your body needs to relax.”

“Arianne.... Mrs. Tremont!” The woman received the glass and burst into tears before she even took a sip. “You were best friends with our little Robin, weren’t you? She must have told you something! She must have mentioned how much she was suffering, right? Why else would she die like this; why else would she throw her own life away?! It wasn’t in her nature to be so weak-willed! Just how much… How much had she suffered?”

Although Robin told Arianne about Ursula disliking her, she had not divulged anything else. Honestly, Arianne had no illuminating answers, either, especially since Robin had never acted out of character before. What happened back in the church was certainly maddening, but it should not have been severe enough to make taking one's own life a viable choice, right?

Once the Coxes’ tragedy was made known, many of the family’s relatives—distant or close—gradually swarmed into the hospital. Worried that an altercation would break out, Arianne pulled Sylvain away from the powder keg. Before she left, however, she reminded Mrs. Cox that her door was always open for the older woman’s every need.

Arianne watched Sylvain go through the motion in a nigh soulless trance, with her heart growing more and more uneased. As a good measure, she offered to stay with him throughout his journey home. At the very least, her presence should introduce a safe for Sylvain against driving absent-mindedly—or worse, letting his darker impulse possess him into killing himself.

“Had Robin shown any abnormal behavior?” she asked on the way home. “I mean, just what happened today alone shouldn’t have been enough to push her to such extremes, right? It’s just… such a divorce from who she used to be. I’ll never forget how sunny and cheery she was when I first met her.”

Sylvain’s mien was still mired with a glazed, disconnected daze. “Don’t know… I don’t know... She’d always seemed normal. I thought that, by separating my mom and her, I’d be able to shield her from all this pain and pressure, but I didn’t know… I didn’t know it was still too much… My mom…. I know my mom’s been distressing her, just as her parents were. The fiasco that had happened today—even if she hadn’t despaired enough… I doubt it would have ended better by any measure. Maybe that debacle was it. Maybe it was the last straw on the camel’s back.

“You know, Arianne,” he rambled on. “I suddenly realize how much I’ve lost. I don’t even have a sense of direction anymore. I don’t know where to go from this point onward… Or even what to do.”