CHAPTER THIRTY – UTTER REJECTION

"Stop..." she rasped out, voice thick with heartbreak. "Just...stop torturing me, Alexander. If you've truly resolved to discard everything we were for this...this saccharine, shallow imitation of a bond, then be a man and make the clean break!" She gestured wildly at the smirking Emma, radiant and triumphant in her perceived conquest. "Don't dangle our memories in front of me like some perverse dangle string, using them to soften the blow of your departure! Have you no shred of the honor I fell endlessly for buried somewhere beneath this cowardly facsimile?" Alexander's gaze remained soulfully intense, his eyes glimmering with naked emotion. But rather than rebuking her outburst, he simply sighed and stepped forward, taking Charlotte's hands in that achingly familiar clutch. "You're right...you deserve better than this prolonged torment." His voice was low yet pitched to carry, each hushed rasp feeling like a brand searing her very core. "These games, these cloying overtures about