Chapter 13 - Chloe Walks Away
Outside in the circular driveway, the snow was falling heavily, blanketing the mountain estate in a thick layer of pure white.
Chloe Van Der Bilt stood beside her idling luxury SUV, waiting for her driver to finish loading her designer luggage. When she saw me step out onto the porch with my children, she stopped and turned.
The arrogance, the high-society sneer, the diamond-encrusted entitlement—all of it was gone. She looked small, defeated, and thoroughly humiliated.
"Kesha," Chloe called out across the snow.
I paused at the top of the stone steps, my children gathered safely at my side.
"You took everything from me today," Chloe said, her voice shaking with bitter resentment. "My engagement. My father's company. My pride."
"I didn't take anything from you, Chloe," I replied across the cold wind. "Your father made terrible investments, and Marcus was a con artist who used you as a financial life raft. If anything, I saved you from spending the next twenty years tied to a bankrupt fraud who would have dragged you down with him."
Chloe looked toward the front door, where Marcus had just stumbled out onto the porch, looking disheveled, ruined, and completely broken.
"Marcus!" Chloe yelled, her voice filled with absolute disgust. "Don't ever call my phone again. My father’s lawyers will be contacting you on Monday to demand the return of every single dollar we ever advanced to your worthless company."
"Chloe, wait! Please!" Marcus begged, stumbling down the icy steps, slipping and falling hard onto his hands and knees in the freezing slush. "Don't leave me like this! We can fix it!"
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Chloe didn't even look at him as she climbed into the back seat of her SUV. The heavy door slammed shut, and the vehicle accelerated down the long, gated driveway, disappearing into the swirling Colorado blizzard.
Marcus remained on his knees in the snow, his expensive suit soaking through with freezing water, his bare hands red and numb from the cold.
