The Bride He Took For Granted novel Chapter 33

The Bride He Took for Granted

Chapter 33

Elise looked at her. “The cleaning was six hundred. The silk cover, lining, and cotton filling were fifty thousand each.”

She held Joan’s gaze. “Will you be transferring the money now, Ms. Reed?”

Joan caught the mockery in Elise’s eyes, and humiliation burned through her.

I can call myself poor. That’s different.

No one else gets to look down on me for it.

Especially her. Take away the White name and Landon, and what does she even have?

Landon knew how proud Joan was. Elise’s attitude rubbed him the wrong way, and his voice hardened.

“Joan didn’t hold that slap against you. She swallowed her pride and apologized. Now she’s offering to pay for the damage.”

He frowned at Elise. “Don’t push it. She won’t even buy expensive clothes for herself, and she’s still willing to pay you back.”

Elise let out a cold laugh.

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“Fine. Then she can keep her money and buy herself a designer outfit.”

She met Joan’s gaze. “Maybe that’ll make that fragile little ego of hers feel better.”

“Elise!”

She turned to leave, but Landon grabbed her arm and yanked her back.

The quilt slipped from her arms and fell to the floor.

Landon froze, alarm flashing across his face.

He bent down to pick it up, but Joan caught hold of his arm.

“My quilt…”

Elise quickly crouched and gathered it back into her arms. She carefully brushed it off, pain twisting across her face.

Then she looked up at Landon.

Her gaze was colder than before.

Landon’s chest tightened.

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Chapter 33

There was no anger in Elise’s eyes now. Only a cold distance he had never seen before.

He had never seen her look at him that way, and it sent a flicker of panic through him.

Elise ignored them and carried the quilt down to the underground parking garage.

Harold was still waiting in the car.

One look at her forced smile and reddened eyes told him something had gone wrong.

Kai had already told him the Wedding Blessing Quilt couldn’t be fully restored, and Chloe had explained what Landon and Joan’s dog had done to it.

So Harold knew this was about the quilt.

But maybe it wasn’t just the quilt.

Once Elise was in the car, Harold started the engine.

“Did they get the stains out?”

Elise shook her head. “No.”

She looked down at the quilt in her arms, her fingers tightening6

Chapter 33

around the fabric.

“My mom made it for me.”

After a moment, she added, “My adoptive mother. Not Mrs. White.”

Harold already knew the story. Laurel had told him.

When Elise was born, an obstetrician obsessed with Leonard told the Whites that their baby had died. The doctor then stole Elise from the hospital and abandoned her in Seattle.

Jane found her and raised her as her own. It wasn’t until Elise was ten that the Whites discovered she was still alive and brought her back to Los Angeles.

“When Mom heard I was getting married, she grew the cotton herself and spent a whole year making this quilt. She couldn’t read, but she still copied the word happiness in a hundred different languages and embroidered each version by hand.”

Elise held the quilt tighter.

“And I couldn’t even keep it safe.”

She tried to smile, but the bitterness showed anyway.

Hayold turned the wheel and headed toward the exit. [

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Chapter 33

After a moment, he said, “Don’t you think maybe it was fate?”

Elise looked at him, caught off guard.

Fate? What does he mean?

Harold kept his eyes on the road.

“It’s not the same quilt anymore,” he said. “Even if they got every stain out, would you still sleep under it?”

Elise’s fingers tightened around the fabric.

Harold glanced at her briefly. “And if your mother knew what happened to it, would she want you to?”

Elise said nothing.

She only stared at him, caught off guard.

“Your mother made it because she wanted you to be happy.”

His voice remained calm.

“You’re trying so hard to save it, but all it’s doing is hurting you.”

Elise lowered her eyes.

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Chapter 33

From the moment it had been ruined, the quilt had become a burden.

Keeping it made her miserable. But the thought of letting it go

broke her heart.

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