Chapter 4The Heart He Gave Me

At this moment, Ryan's eyes were filled with disbelief.

He took a step forward, looking at me cautiously, as if I were a lost treasure recovered.

He reached out, wanting to touch my face.

I took a step back, dodging him.

His fingers curled, a look of hurt crossing his face.

But he quickly adjusted his expression, his voice gentle:

"Jane, did you come to find me?"

I didn't speak.

I didn't need to.

Lily had already rushed over.

Her meticulously made-up face was distorted, eyes fixed dead on me.

"Jane Miller! You did this on purpose, didn't you! You deliberately chose today to ruin my wedding! You haunting ghost..."

She raised her hand to strike me.

Ryan moved almost simultaneously with her raised hand.

He grabbed her wrist with such force that Lily cried out in pain, then he shoved her backward.

Lily stumbled back a few steps in her high heels, nearly falling if someone hadn't caught her.

"Ryan!"

She looked at him in disbelief, tears instantly welling up.

Ryan didn't even look at her; he just turned around, using his body to block me, separating me from Lily.

His back was as broad as I remembered; this back used to give me countless moments of peace.

But looking at it now, I only felt a dense sourness in a certain part of my heart, not sharp, but omnipresent.

If there hadn't been those forty years of endurance in my past life,

If I were still the twenty-five-year-old Jane whose heart was full of him,

I think, given how much I loved him, seeing him like this now,

I probably would have softened, wavered, found ten thousand reasons to forgive him.

But those forty years were not fake.

The filial duties I performed for him, the nights I kept watch alone, the empty space in my heart when seeing others' family reunions, and the guilt accompanying every heartbeat.

None of these were fake.

Ryan's parents squeezed through the crowd too.

His mother saw me first, her eyes flickering with guilt,

But it quickly turned into anxious concern as she went to support Lily.

"Lily! Are you okay? Is... is your stomach uncomfortable?"

Lily leaned into his mother's arms, tears falling harder, biting her lip silently,

Only looking at Ryan with that mournful and stubborn gaze, then glancing at me from time to time, a silent accusation.

His father also arrived, face dark as he said to Ryan:

"Ryan! What are you doing! Lily is pregnant, how can you push her like that! What if you hurt the child?"

Ryan's body stiffened.

I could feel the back shielding me waver for a moment.

He turned his head slightly, his peripheral vision sweeping over Lily's still flat belly, his Adam's apple bobbing.

But the next second, he turned back, voice firm:

"Dad, Mom, I said it, I only love Jane in this life. She is my wife."

He said it with such certainty, as if the person who was ready to marry Lily and give her and the child a home wasn't him.

Lily finally burst into tears.

She broke free from his mother's support, taking unsteady steps forward,

Not towards Ryan, but towards me.

"Jane... I beg you, I beg you, okay? Give him back to me..."

"No, not to me, give him back to this child. The child cannot be without a father..."

"I know I wronged you, I know I owe you."

"But the child is innocent... just have pity on this child, give him a complete home, okay?"

As she spoke, she actually bent her knees, about to kneel.