To Liam, these words sounded like magnanimity and kindness.
But to Clara, it sounded even worse than being directly insulted.
This is blatant mockery.
Liam's expression softened slightly. He glanced at the mess on the floor, then at Clara's expressionless face, and a pang of guilt flashed through his mind. But that guilt was quickly soothed by Vanessa's gentleness.
He released Clara's wrist and said coldly, "Behave yourself from now on."
After saying that, he put his arm around Vanessa's waist and said in a doting tone, "Don't cry, come on, I'll take you to buy a better one."
The two left hand in hand, and the door to the entrance slammed shut with a loud bang.
Clara was the only one left in the living room.
There was also a mess everywhere, and broken glass scattered in the corners that hadn't been cleaned up in the past few days.
Clara slowly crouched down, reached out, and picked up the sharp shards of glass one by one.
The sharp glass cut her fingertip, and blood seeped out, dripping onto the floor and spreading into small, dark red flowers.
It hurts a lot.
But this pain kept her incredibly alert.
She looked at the blood on her fingertip, and a cold smile slowly curled up at the corner of her mouth.
Liam, Vanessa.
Every time you hurt me, it will become a bargaining chip for my revenge.
I will make you pay the price.
A dappled light filtered through the blinds in the study, falling on a wooden box at the bottom of the desk—Clara's design manuscripts, hidden away for seven years. Every page was imbued with her painstaking efforts, from the raw first drafts to the mature final versions, from the excitement of their first meeting to their expectations for the future, all sealed within this small wooden box.
Liam was working on documents on the sofa when Vanessa walked in carrying a fruit platter. Her gaze locked onto the wooden box, and a sinister smile curled at the corner of her lips. She had long hated these manuscripts, hated that Clara had used these designs to firmly grasp Liam's attention, and hated even more that these works were a hundred times better than what she had plagiarized.
While Liam was looking down at his documents, Vanessa quickly walked to the desk and yanked open the wooden box. A thick stack of manuscripts was revealed, the edges of the pages slightly yellowed, covered in Clara's familiar handwriting and densely packed corrections.