CHAPTER 478
The slap stumped Peachlyn.
Though she was the Clarkes' foster daughter and never got along with Milana, her foster parents adored her. From the time the Clarkes fostered her at age seven, no one had ever laid their fingers on her. However, Milana had just given her a tight slap!
At that, she held her cheek and looked at Milana with incredulity. "How could you? Who are you to slap me?!"
"Who am I? Why don't you tell me that yourself?!" With that, Milana gave her another solid slap and said through gnashed teeth, "Why did you have to elope with Hugo? You could've just said it if you didn't want to marry Zachariah! Why did you have to hide it from everybody and elope?! Do you know how much we have to bear because of your actions?!"
"As if I hadn't!" Peachlyn held her cheek in pain as tears welled up in her eyes. "I talked to Mom and Dad about it, but they said the marriage was already set in stone, and we couldn't go back on our word. Was I supposed to let you guys make me marry a paralytic instead of running away?! Also, the one I love is Hugo, not Zachariah, but you guys insisted that I marry Zachariah anyway. Had any one of you considered my feelings?"
"Wow, excellent chicanery." Milana sneered. "Back when we were considering forming a marriage alliance with the Soulsbys, Mom and Dad had specifically asked you if you liked Zachariah, and remind me what you said? Right, you'll leave it up to them. Then, when you learned Zachariah was paralyzed after an accident, you went back on your words and eloped, disgracing us!"
"What else was I supposed to do?!" Peachlyn retorted with red-rimmed eyes. "Do you expect me to just
stay and wait to marry Zachariah instead of running away with Hugo?! Would you have married him if you were in my spot?!"
"I would've!" Milana asserted. "You're but our family's foster child. My mom only took you in because she thought you were helpless after your mom passed away from an accident. We fostered you for about two decades, and you agreed to marry Zachariah yourself. However, you called off the marriage as soon as he met with an accident, causing our family's collaboration with the Soulsbys to fall apart and our family to suffer a grave loss. I wouldn't do something this treacherous if I were you!"
"Easy for you to say!" Tears pooled in Peachlyn's eyes as she retorted, "You're right. I'm just your family's foster child, so who cares if my marriage will be a happy one?! Who's going to help me if I don't do anything myself?! You are Mom and Dad's real daughter. They will naturally call the marriage off before you can say anything if you're the one engaged to Zachariah!"
She wouldn't want to elope with Hugo either if she had a choice, but she didn't.
When she learned that Zachariah had sustained serious injuries from the car crash, resulting in him being paralyzed from the waist down, she nearly broke down. Content is property © .
No way was she going to marry a paralytic!
She waited for the Clarkes to call off the marriage, but no one mentioned anything about it at all.
Her marriage to Zachariah was getting closer by the day, and if she continued to do nothing, she would really have to marry a paralytic! Desperate, she made the first move.
She told her parents she didn't want to marry Zachariah anymore, but they said his paralysis was only temporary, and the Soulsbys were seeking doctors for him. They were hopeful the young man would walk again.
Plus, if word got out that she called off the marriage as soon as ill fate befell Zachariah, it would cause a gravely damaging impact on her and the entire Clarke Family.
However, she couldn't accept such a justification. She knew they had forsaken her.
What mattered to them was the marriage alliance and what it could bring for their family. As for her happiness, nobody cared about that.
They wanted to sacrifice her happiness for the Clarke Family and the Soulsby Family's interests.
If no one was going to care about her fate, then she would take matters into her own hands.
Hugo has liked her for a long time, but Zachariah was much more outstanding than him, and the Soulsbys were more influential than the Sanburnes. That was why she ended up agreeing to marry Zachariah in the first place.
That said, she also had feelings for Hugo. Thus, she didn't reject him outright, only telling him the marriage alliance was her parent's decision. She was the Clarke Family's foster child, and she had an obligation to repay them for fostering her. Hence, she could only obey her parents' arrangement.
After Zachariah had met with an accident, resulting in his paralysis, Hugo sought her out again and tried to convince her to call off the marriage.
To that, she wept and said her foster parents insisted that she marry Zachariah, noting that couldn't call off the marriage at all. Hence, Hugo told her to run away with him.
Only by running away with Hugo could she escape the Clarke Family's control and absolve her fate to marry Zachariah. As such, she agreed to it.
Sure, the Sanburnes weren't as influential as the Soulsbys, but they were still affluent. What was more, Hugo was the direct descendent and the eldest of his generation in the Sanburne Family, and he was hot and suave. Though he was lesser than Zachariah before the latter got into a car crash, he was still an outstanding character among the younger generation.
Though marrying Hugo was a little lesser than the marriage she imagined having, it wasn't her fault Zachariah met with an accident, was it?!
She had no choice but to make do either when fate came into play.
She figured if she and Hugo ran away, did the irreversible, and waited until the tumult died down, she would be able to marry Hugo and become Mrs. Sanburne. However, who'd have thought the Sanburnes declared Hugo no longer a Sanburne soon after she and Hugo eloped?
At the same time, all of Hugo's bank and credit cards had been frozen, and just like that, the high- spending son of the affluent Sanburne Family became impoverished in a snap of a finger.
From that day on, the two had been spending her money.
Of course, all of her bank accounts had been frozen since the day she ran away. However, Peachlyn was prepared; she gathered a lot of cash and jewelry before leaving home.
As the direct descendent and the eldest of his generation in his family, Hugo grew up loved and pampered. Naturally, he didn't expect his family to cut ties with him when he and Peachlyn had just gone into hiding for a few days. Even more so, his parents wouldn't give him a sliver of aid when he called them for help.
Since he wasn't prepared, he didn't have anything valuable with him at hand. Thus, he became entirely broke when his bank account was frozen.
Now, away from Wingston with no resources, no connections, and no money, Hugo, the affluent son of the Sanburne Family, became an average Joe just like that.
Sure, Peachlyn had taken a ton of money and valuable jewelry with her, but the two grew up living comfortably. With no income and spending money like water, the cash she took with her ran out pretty quickly.
The jewelry, on the other hand, was valuable when she bought them, but when she tried to sell them, they were heavily discounted. Still, she managed to sell a few of them.
They were running out of cash, and she couldn't bear to sell the remaining pieces of jewelry, for they were her favorites. The two could only look for jobs, but neither were people who could endure hardship.
Those offering well-paid jobs found them underqualified, while they thought they were too good for poorly paid ones. Thus, the two remained jobless after surviving a month.
As their money bottomed out, they couldn't afford to live comfortably anymore but only scrimp and
save. They were living the worst days of their lives.
However, that wasn't the scariest part; the scariest part was that they didn't know when days like this would end.
Hell, their lives would be a living hell if they had to live like this for the rest of their lives!
The notion finally scared them, and they were worried that their current situation would become permanent. Thus, they began deliberately exposing their whereabouts instead of staying hidden, hoping that their family would look for them and take them home.