Chapter 470: Is It You?

“You don’t have to feel ashamed. I’m also responsible for how things turned out for you. I was the one who encouraged you to become a streamer, and I didn’t stop you when you told me you were doing entertainment streams. That whole business is a mixed bag, and all sorts of situations can arise. I should have anticipated that this could happen.”

Donna was already wracked with guilt and pain. His attempt to comfort her only made her feel more mortified.

“No, it’s all my fault. I’ve caused you trouble again. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Like I said, I share some of the blame… Anyway, what’s done is done. Let’s drop it. Let the past be the past. Go home, take a nice bath, and get some sleep. There’s no rush to find a new job.”

Looking at his handsome, composed profile, Donna felt the urge to cry, but she held it back.

The car quickly entered the village.

Ahead was a floating bridge. It wasn’t long—only about ten meters—but it was quite high. Water gurgled and splashed beneath it.

“You can just let me out here. My place is right across the bridge, and it’s hard to turn a car around in there.”

Hearing Donna say that, Brandon Jacobs didn’t insist.

It wasn’t too late. He could still go back, pick up Faye Fisher, and make it in time for their honeymoon.

‘I hope she isn’t angry.’

Brandon Jacobs stopped the car, and Donna got out.

He watched her walk toward the floating bridge, then turned the car around and started on the road back.

‘But something felt off.’ He kept glancing in his rearview mirror as he drove.

About two or three hundred meters from the bridge, Donna had shrunk to a tiny speck in his rearview mirror. She turned her head in his direction, likely watching his taillights.

Brandon Jacobs saw her standing there in a white dress, her long hair unbound. Her thin, lonely figure on the bridge couldn’t help but remind him of Elsa.

‘When she stood alone in the desert, resolved to die… did she look just like this?’

‘To die? No, wait!’

Brandon Jacobs slammed on the brakes.

Before he could even get out of the car, he saw Donna crane her neck forward, lean her body over the edge of the bridge, and silently pitch over the side.

SPLASH!

A loud sound echoed from the water’s surface.

‘No wonder she was acting so calm. It turns out she was planning to…’

Brandon Jacobs scrambled out of the car and sprinted back.

Without even stopping to take off his clothes, he jumped in after her.

The bridge was high above the water. The impact of hitting the surface made his face sting with pain.

He thrashed through the water, struggling to paddle until he finally grabbed hold of Donna, who was flailing wildly.

By the time Brandon Jacobs dragged her to the riverbank, Donna had already swallowed a stomachful of water.

Her hair and clothes clung to her sodden body. Her face was pale as she vomited continuously.

Brandon Jacobs was incandescent with rage. He cursed at her through gritted teeth.

“You’d jump in a river over something so small? Your fucking life is worthless! If I’d known you wanted to die this badly, I would’ve just left you in there! Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

“…”

“Can you get up? Does your chest hurt? I’m taking you to the hospital.”

His own clothes were soaked through, clinging to his body uncomfortably.

He didn’t have the strength to carry Donna, so he had to pull her.

Donna weakly pushed him away.

“You shouldn’t have saved me. Just leave me alone, Mr. Jacobs. You can go.”

Brandon Jacobs’s anger flared again.

‘Fucking hell, what is my luck? Every woman I meet is more determined to die than the last!’

He hadn’t been able to stop Elsa from dying, a failure that had become his life’s greatest regret. So, no matter what, Brandon Jacobs couldn’t let anything happen to Donna now.

“Even if you want to die, you’ll die on my watch, on the day I say you can die. Don’t even think about it otherwise! Now get up! We’re going to the hospital!”

Donna vomited for a little while longer until she felt better. Then, half-pulled and half-dragged by him, she scrambled back onto the shore.

The two of them stumbled back to the car. With a grim expression, Brandon Jacobs started to drive to the hospital, but Donna said it wasn’t necessary.

Brandon Jacobs had been a swimmer since he was a child. Besides, he had rescued Donna quickly enough; he knew she couldn’t have inhaled enough water to drown her. So, he didn’t insist.

“So where the fuck do you live?”

Donna hesitated for a few seconds. “The company’s broadcast studio.”

‘So it really was true.’

‘No wonder she tried to jump.’

Her boss had skipped town, the company was shut down, she was penniless, and she had nowhere to go… ‘She really is an unlucky woman.’

It seemed like she’d been plagued by misfortune since the first day Brandon Jacobs met her.

He glanced over at her. She was filthy, a pathetic mess. Brandon Jacobs sighed to himself and drove away from the village.

But now, where to take her became a problem.

‘A hotel? In the state we’re in, we’d scare the staff half to death.’

‘His private villa? He rarely stayed there, so there wouldn’t be any change of clothes. Pointless.’

Suddenly, he thought of a place.

When they got out of the car, Donna stared at the remote, forbidding castle with a hint of fear in her eyes.

He couldn’t blame her for being afraid.

When Damien Vaughn was trying to hide from the world, he’d found this place specifically because it was so remote. Even Brandon Jacobs had been taken aback on his first visit.

The car seats were soaked. The entire drive had been unbelievably uncomfortable.

As he got out of the car, he sniped irritably at Donna.

“You’ve got the courage to kill yourself, but you’re afraid I’ll drag you out to the middle of nowhere?”

Donna didn’t reply.

Once inside, he led her directly to the room Elsa used to stay in.

Her clothes were still in there.

“There’s a bathroom and clothes in here. Go get cleaned up and change.”

There were some of his clothes in there too. He grabbed a set for himself and went to a different bathroom.

After washing up, Donna emerged wearing a set of Elsa’s clothes.

Brandon Jacobs waited for her, sitting on the same sofa, in the exact same spot, where he had first met Elsa. The living room was lit by a single, warm yellow floor lamp.

When Donna walked up to the coffee table, Brandon Jacobs froze.

‘This is Elsa! A perfect, bare-faced Elsa!’

‘She’s so beautiful, so tall, with such an ethereal, extraordinary air… His Elsa wasn’t dead!’

“Elsa…”

Brandon Jacobs stared at Donna’s face, slowly rising to his feet as if in a trance.

“I knew you were alright. I knew you were waiting for me. You’ve been waiting for me, haven’t you? I’m sorry I’m late.”

He pulled Donna into an emotional embrace.

When she had opened the closet and seen it was full of women’s clothes alongside some of his, Donna had already guessed his lover must have lived here.

‘He always said I looked so much like someone from his past. Could it have been this woman?’

Donna hadn’t hesitated to put on Elsa’s clothes; she wanted to see how Brandon Jacobs would react.

And sure enough, it was just as she’d expected.

Smelling Elsa’s familiar scent, feeling her warmth after so long, Brandon Jacobs was ecstatic, overjoyed.

He hugged her with all his might, as if trying to merge Donna’s body with his own.

“I missed you so, so much. I was going crazy thinking about you, it was agonizing. We’re finally together again. I’m so happy. Elsa, please, tell me this isn’t a dream. Tell me. We’ll never be apart again, right?”

Donna slowly pulled back from his embrace and looked him straight in the eye.

His eyes were a mixture of joy and agony, a sight that left her with complicated feelings.

“This isn’t a dream.”

“Elsa!”

Brandon Jacobs could no longer control himself. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her deeply.