Chapter 243 Heartfelt Vows
Chapter 243 Heartfelt Vows
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“Why can’t I be indifferent?” Julius asked, his gaze steady and unflinching. “Quinn, I’m not a little boy. I can tell the difference between simple gratitude and real love. I’m grateful to her, yes. All my life, I’ve been surrounded by people who only wanted to use me. My father tried to use me to chain my mother to him, and my grandfather’s sole wish was that I become a proper heir who could keep the Whitethorn name. intact. But that girl never tried to take advantage of me; she just wanted to save my life. And after I met you, that gratitude only grew deeper. If not for her, I might have died back then. I would never have crossed paths with you, never have learned that one person can mean this much to me.”
“But…” Julius paused, then spoke each word with deliberate certainty. “Apart from gratitude, I will never harbor any other feeling for her. Even if she saved my life, it changes nothing. If you’re worried, I’ll swear it right now. Should I ever locate that girl, I won’t meet her in person. I’ll let my people handle it and repay her through them. Nothing more.”
Quinn studied Julius, taking in the earnest light in his eyes and the utter lack of hesitation in his voice. Everything about him told her he meant every syllable.
“If we really do find her, let me go with you,” she said quietly.
Julius blinked, clearly surprised by her suggestion.
“Because I want to thank her, too,” Quinn went on. “She saved you, which allowed us to meet.”
“You truly… don’t mind?” Julius murmured.
“I can still tell right from wrong,” Quinn replied. “You’ve done nothing improper. Searching for the person who saved your life and wanting to repay them isn’t a sin. I won’t trouble myself over problems that haven’t even happened yet. But-”
She drew a deep breath. “If you really do fall for someone else one day, if you can’t devote yourself to me alone, then I won’t cling to this relationship–I’ll walk away.”
Perhaps Trent’s betrayal had cut too deep, for the moment she learned Julius was also looking for their savior, she felt a sudden, panicked lurch in her heart.
But Julius is not Trent.
Trent had hidden behind talk of “repaying a debt” and being “just friends” while he betrayed his marriage, wanting everything at once. His hypocrisy sickened her.
So, when Marley mentioned the matter last night, that instant of tension and unease had flooded her body because she was afraid of repeating the same tragedy.
“Quinn, aside from you, I’ll never fall for anyone else. Regardless, the only person who can move me is you.” Julius stepped forward and clasped her hand.
Only now, with her warmth back in his palm, did the emptiness inside him begin to ebb. He lifted her hand and pressed her soft palm/against his cheek.
Her warmth was something he had hungered for all along.
Back when he first felt something unusual for her, he had even overlapped her image with that of the little
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Chapter 243 Heartfelt Vows
girl who’d once saved him. Both of them carried that same dazzling light.
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The darker a person’s world, the more he gazed up at such brilliance. Yet as a child, his feelings toward that glow had been curiosity, even puzzlement..
He could not fathom why that girl would go to such trouble to save someone who had nothing to do with her, why she asked for no reward and never tried to use him, why she could rescue another human being with no ulterior motive at all.
Now, the light he saw in Quinn sparked only greed inside him. The hunger to keep that brilliance locked at his side, the greed that refused to let her go.
Even knowing that brilliance made him self–conscious and uneasy. Even if it meant placing all his joy, anger, sorrow, and his very life in her hands, he would rather stay by her than leave.
This feeling was fierce enough to seem foreign, yet at the same time felt oddly inevitable. People said the Whitethorns were mad, frighteningly obsessed when it came to love. Whitethorn blood did indeed flow in his veins after all.
“So, Quinn, the thing you fear? Me falling for someone else? It will never happen. And you…you can’t abandon me, either. If we’re talking about saviors, remember you’ve rescued me, more than once.” Julius‘ voice dropped to a murmur, his eyes blazing. “I told you before. If you decide to save me, you have to see it through. You can’t leave me halfway, can’t throw me back into that pitch–black world where even living held no meaning.”
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