Ainsley gazed at Eloise with a furrowed brow, his voice breaking the silence. “Why did you tear up the Cheque?”
Eloise’s voice was steady, too steady, as though it were floating above the weight of the pain she carried. “It was just a piece of paper.”
Ainsley couldn’t understand how she could speak those words with such calm. His eyes studied her, but it was as though he was looking at a stranger, someone who had mastered the art of hiding her suffering behind a mask of indifference.
But Eloise’s despair ran deeper than any mask could cover. Beneath the surface of her calm demeanor, there was an overwhelming emptiness that ate away at her, suffocating her from within. She had given up everything, her pride, her dignity, her sense of self, only to watch it all slip through her fingers, p
