After I Freed My Husband for the Fake Heiress, His Whole Family Begged Me Back

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### Chapter 1

I'm sorry. We've verified it. Your marriage license is a forgery.

The pity in the clerk's eyes set a high ringing going in my ears.

Miss Henson? Are you all right?

Her concern came from very far away, and the tears blurred everything in front of me.

It had all started a week ago, when I was six months pregnant and drank the prenatal herbal tea Melanie Henson, the family's fake heiress, pressed into my hands. Then the cramping tore through me, and I went down in my own blood.

Cyril Weiss came when they told him. He saw the blood pooling under me, and the first thing he did was cover Melanie's eyes.

"Disgusting. Don't look."

He scooped up the pale, trembling Melanie and walked out without a backward glance. Then the pain swallowed me whole, the world went black, and I was gone.

When I opened my eyes again I was in a hospital bed, and the doctor told me, with that careful regret, that the delay had cost me too much. I would never carry a child again.

I couldn't believe my own ears. I called Cyril ninety-nine times through the pain before he finally picked up.

"Cyril, the baby's gone. I can never have a baby again"

He cut me off, bored.

"Julie, enough."

"Melanie mistook the abortion pills for the prenatal tea by accident. She feels so guilty she's threatening to kill herself. You just can't get pregnant. It's not like you're dying."

Just before the call dropped, I caught the faint sound of Melanie crying.

Cyril went straight to soothing her, his voice so gentle it was like a knife, and it left my heart in ribbons.

For the whole week after that, he never came once.

So I went to the county clerk's office to file for divorce, dead inside. And that was when I learned that the grand, talked-about proposal five years ago, the husband who had loved me for five years, all of it had been fake.

I drifted home like a ghost. There was a used condom thrown in the corner of the bed. The meaning was simple enough. Not long ago, the two of them had been in my bed.

The pain reached a place where even my throat felt clamped shut, where I couldn't pull in air.

After a long while, I took out my phone and dialed a number I'd buried a long time ago.

"That thing you said, about marrying me. Does it still stand?"

"Julie. I've waited too long for this call." The man's voice came through low and pleased and faintly sensual. "I'm coming to get you right now. We'll have the wedding tomorrow."

I shook my head, my gaze cutting through the dark outside the window until it went hard.

"Edwin James. Give me five days to finish things here."

How could I just set down everything they'd done to me, light as air? Before I left, I had to give something back.

Edwin went quiet for a beat, and when he spoke there was something dangerous in it.

"In five days, even if you change your mind, I'll come and take you anyway."

I pressed the crumpled fake marriage license in my hand, thinking of the five years I'd spent living inside an absurd lie, and nodded, certain. "All right."

I hung up and opened the door to go downstairs for a glass of water, and that was when I heard the voices coming from the living room below.

It was Cyril's lawyer friend.

"Five years now. You still won't think about giving Julie a real title?"

I stopped where I was and held my breath.

Cyril's low voice came up the stairs.

"Wait a little longer. I promised Melanie a grand wedding."

The lawyer pressed:

"Your marriage to Julie exists on paper and nowhere else. She can walk out on you anytime."

Cyril lowered his eyes, thought about it, then spoke.

"She loves me too much. She'd never leave."

He paused, and his tone left no room for argument:

"And now Melanie's carrying my child. The Weiss heir's seat is that baby's. No one takes it from them."

It was the deep heat of August, and I felt like I'd dropped straight into a pit of ice.

So he and Melanie hadn't betrayed me for the first time. He'd even made a child with her.

"So you just had the doctor take her uterus while they were at it?" The lawyer dropped his voice. "If she ever found out the truth"

"Back then she broke completely with her adoptive parents just to get back to the Hensons. Where would she go if she left me?"

My pupils shrank.

I clamped both hands over my mouth, and that was all that stopped the scream.

Cyril added: "I'll bring Melanie's baby home under the cover of an adoption and let Julie raise it. Call it granting Julie's wish to be a mother."

"Years ago I almost died in that car crash. Melanie gave me a kidney, gave me a second life. She wants a baby. I'd give my own life to make that dream come true for her."

The whole room spun, and my stomach heaved hard against me.

Melanie was his life.

Then what was the surgical scar still riding low across my belly? What did that count for?

Seven years ago, in that brutal wreck, I was the one who dragged him out of the crushed car. I was the one who signed the donation papers. I was the one lying on the next table, watching his bloodless face, telling him without a sound, you have to live.

When I woke, I hid every trace of it, only because I didn't want him to feel he owed me anything.

I'd come back to the Hensons not long before that.

Everyone decided I'd come to fight Melanie for the title of the Henson daughter, called me greedy, said I'd thrown away my disabled adoptive parents for money.

Even my own birth parents and my brother said it.

Only Cyril stood firm and said I wasn't that kind of person. He shielded me from all the gossip outside, promised he would protect me for the rest of his life.

So I fell into that fatal tenderness, and I was willing to sacrifice anything for him.

But now the one who saved him had become Melanie.

Cyril knew exactly how badly I wanted a child of my own. And for her sake, the way you'd crush an ant underfoot, he had killed the most important thing in my life.

I stumbled back to the bathroom and knelt at the toilet, retching until there was nothing left but bile.

"Julie? Why are you out of the hospital?" Cyril's voice came from behind me.

"Are you feeling any better? I've been so busy these past few days, that's the only reason I didn't come see you."

Busy?

Yes. Busy "caring for" Melanie in bed, day and night. Of course I understood.

My mouth twisted into something bitter, and I stood to face him.

"That car crash seven years ago. Your kidney"

### Chapter 2

I had just opened my mouth to ask about Melanie and the so-called kidney donation when the phone at his hip started ringing.

He glanced at the screen, and a smile pulled at his mouth before he could stop it.

I caught the contact name: "Silly Girl."

Melanie. The woman who stole twenty years of my life. From the moment I was brought home, she had been quietly tormenting me.

And now she had killed my child.

There was a time when Cyril knew every filthy thing she'd done to me, a time he couldn't stand her.

And somewhere along the way, she'd become his "silly girl."

It was almost funny enough to make me sick.

Her voice leaked out of the phone, sticky-sweet and cloying. "Cyril, my custom gown came in. Come with me for the fitting. The wedding's in five days. We can't afford to fall behind on anything."

"Sure, I'll be right there." He was already moving, tossing the excuse over his shoulder without looking. "Something urgent at the office. I have to go."

"Cyril."

I stopped him. My voice came out hard as iron. "Let's get a divorce."

His steps halted. His back went stiff for a second, and then he turned, slowly.

Against my calm gaze, his brow drew tighter and tighter, until it twisted into pure impatience.

"How long are you going to keep making a scene? I've told you, Melanie didn't do it on purpose."

"She had a high fever that day. She was out of it and grabbed the wrong medicine. No one blames herself more than she does. Can't you just be the bigger person?"

The bigger person.

I looked at him, and then I started to laugh, laughing until my whole body shook.

When I lay collapsed in a pool of blood, miscarrying, all he cared about was whether I had frightened her.

When they took my womb, when I lost the right to ever be a mother, he was in my bed working hard to "comfort" the mother of his child.

And now he wanted me to be the bigger person.

I stared into his eyes, searching for one flicker of guilt, one trace of love.

He studied my face too, hunting for the usual collapse, the crying, the hysterics.

But there was nothing in my eyes except cold, still water. Not even anger.

He sighed, came over, pulled me into his arms, and pressed a light kiss to my forehead.

"I know losing the baby hurts you. I'll make it up to you."

"Anything you want. But not a divorce."

No.

Cyril, I can.

I'm grateful for that fake marriage license. It means I can walk out whenever I please.

But he was in a rush to go meet Melanie, and he didn't take the word divorce seriously at all. He turned and hurried off.

I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes, turned, and opened the very back of the closet.

I drew out a yellowed agreement.

In five days, at their wedding, I would give him a gift he would remember for the rest of his life.

I woke the next morning to an empty bed beside me.

I was at the counter making coffee when one of Cyril's men walked in.

"Madam, flowers from Mr. Weiss."

He set 999 roses and an elegant food box in front of me, his face full of envy.

"Mr. Weiss really cares about you. He had a Michelin chef prepare a prenatal breakfast specially for you."

I looked at that breakfast, dripping with irony, and at the roses Melanie loved and I had always hated, and my heart felt like it was being scorched.

"Throw them out. I don't need them." I looked away, my voice flat.

In the six months I was pregnant, Cyril never once cared whether I had eaten, let alone arranged a special breakfast for me.

"Are you sure, Madam?"

While he hesitated, Melanie came out of the second-floor guest room.

"Oh, those are from Cyril. He says for the baby's health, he'll have a special breakfast made for me every day."

She came quickly down the stairs, scooped up the food box with delight, and let her eyes slide mockingly over my stomach.

"You'll never need anything for a pregnancy again, sis. Such a shame."

After the man left, I looked at her smiling eyes, baffled.

"Melanie, why are you doing this to me?"

"Whose fault is it that you came back to fight me for it all? That wealth, that life, it was always supposed to be mine."

"Cyril included. Just because you're the Hensons' real daughter, the second you showed up, his engagement got handed to you instead of me. By what right?"

My whole body was shaking. I screamed at her.

"Did I cause any of this? I never wanted to fight you for a single thing!"

The smile at the corner of her mouth turned so vicious it was cold. "So what? I'm going to take everything you have. Your husband, your name, and even your womb."

I clenched my teeth, knotted my fists, and growled low. "Then there's something you forgot. The one who saved Cyril was me, not you so aren't you afraid of the day I tell them all the truth?"

### Chapter 3

Melanie's smile only deepened. "You think he'll believe you, or me? Want to put it to the test?"

And with that she snatched up the pot of boiling water beside her and flung it straight at me.

I never expected the woman to lose her mind like that. There was no time to dodge. The scalding water poured across my leg.

The heat was so vicious I could barely stay on my feet, and in an instant the skin bubbled into a row of blisters.

That was when Cyril walked in through the door.

"Julie, what happened?!"

"I don't know how it happened. She grabbed the hot water and poured it over herself."

Melanie's eyes went red, her voice trembling.

The pain stole my words, but I watched the alarm in Cyril's eyes cool, degree by degree.

"You're still not done playing the martyr?" His voice dropped low. "Let me guess. You're about to say Melanie threw it on you?"

"If you don't believe me, check the cameras."

I forced the words out through the pain.

Melanie broke into soft sobs. "My fingers got scalded. It hurts so much."

She lifted her hand. There was nothing on her fingertip but one tiny, insignificant red dot.

Cyril pulled her into his arms anyway, and when he turned back to me, his eyes nearly spat fire.

"Are you out of your mind? Are you trying to kill her?!"

"If I could, I wouldn't hesitate." My voice shook, but it held.

He froze. Seven years together, five years married, and he had never once heard me talk back. Every time we fought, I was the one who apologized first. Not anymore.

The disgust in his eyes thickened. "Julie, when did you turn this vicious? Look at yourself. Look how ugly jealousy makes you."

"Let it go, Cyril." Melanie's eyes brimmed with tears, her face all wounded innocence. "Maybe my sister didn't mean to. Don't fight over me..."

Cyril bent his head and kissed her fingers, as if kissing something fragile and precious, his own eyes red with the ache of it.

"You silly girl. It's because you're too kind that she keeps hurting you."

My pulse lurched, and a knot of fury swelled in my chest, ready to burst.

"Kind? You think I don't know how I lost my womb? Cyril, this is your doing, all of you!"

A flicker of panic and guilt crossed his eyes. His mouth opened as if to say something, then shut tight.

After a long moment, he said quietly,

"If I'd asked you, you'd never have agreed. This was the only way."

My breath felt as though an invisible hand had closed around it.

"So you admit it. You got her pregnant, and for her sake you made sure I could never be a mother!"

He looked away. "Melanie agreed to give you the baby once it's born. You can still be a mother."

I screamed at him, wild and ragged. "Keep dreaming. I will never raise this woman's child!"

Melanie's tears spilled down in streams, and she broke into great sobs against Cyril's chest.

"It's all my fault. On my birthday I got drunk, and I confessed by accident, and Cyril and I... Stop fighting, please. I'll just get rid of the baby."

But Cyril only held her tighter, glaring at me with disappointment.

"Melanie only wanted one birthday wish. What did she do wrong? You've already taken everything from her, and now you want to drive her to her death? If you ask me, that miscarriage was exactly what you deserved!"

I couldn't believe he could say something so cruel to me.

The blood froze in my veins, the room tilted around me, and I caught the edge of the bar behind me just to keep from falling.

Footsteps came from the doorway.

My mother rushed in and threw her arms around Melanie. "Did this ungrateful wretch bully you again? Sweetheart, is the baby all right?"

My father's gaze landed on me, hard.

"Julie, you couldn't even spare an unborn child? I truly regret bringing you back."

In that instant I felt myself burning, breaking apart, my lips trembling so hard I could barely speak.

"So you all knew... knew they were having an affair, knew about the baby, and every one of you kept it from me?!"

### Chapter 4

My father's brow didn't even twitch.

"This is what you owe Melanie."

My mother let out a heavy sigh.

"You know perfectly well your sister's uterine lining is too thin. She may only ever carry one child in her whole life. And instead of supporting her, you hurt her."

"So you just stood back and let the doctor take my womb!" The last of my strength gave out and I slid to the floor, hid my face in my hands, and sobbed.

I had once walked away from the adoptive parents who cherished me for the sake of that blood tie, and in the end, what this "family" gave me wasn't happiness. It was this.

I was such a fool.

"Enough." Cyril rubbed at his temple and called for the housekeeper. "Tear down the nursery."

My head snapped up.

"What are you doing?!"

That nursery was mine. I had chosen every detail of it, designed and arranged each one with my own hands.

I'd worn myself out trekking through store after store, agonizing over the color of the wallpaper, the weight of the curtains, the shape of the cradle. The last small piece of my child I had left, and he wanted to destroy even that?

"Melanie's due in six months. The room needs to be redone."

There was a warning in the way he looked at me. "She hasn't been well since the pregnancy. As of today she's moving in to live with us. I hope the two of you can get along."

Melanie bit her lip and spoke in a small, timid voice.

"If my sister would rather I didn't, I can take the baby and live with Mom and Dad."

"No. I won't rest easy unless I'm the one looking after you." There was no room for negotiation in Cyril's tone. "The Weiss heir deserves the best possible environment to grow up in."

Over his shoulder, Melanie shot me a glance, and a smug little smile crossed her face.

The housekeeper went off at once to arrange for the nursery to be torn down.

I sat where I was, dazed, and watched them gather around Melanie and lead her off to the hospital, to have a look at that "injured finger" of hers that already barely showed a mark.

The burn on my leg was still raging. My heart had gone numb.

My tears stopped.

I remembered something my adoptive mother once told me.

"Tears are only ever a weapon bad people use to hurt you. You have to learn to brew them into poison and feed it to them with a smile."

She was right. I would never let my tears be a letter of surrender again.

I stood up, looked coldly at the enormous wedding portrait hanging in the living room, picked up a bottle of Lafite, and hurled it. The frame came down and shattered to pieces.

Then I shredded every photo of us in the house and smashed seven years' worth of keepsakes into fragments.

I called for the maid and gave my instructions calmly.

"Fiona, clean this up. These bags, and this jewelry, they're all yours."

"Ma'am, your leg..." Fiona's voice trembled as she looked at the blisters covering my foot. "Let me see to it for you."

She was probably the only person left in this house who felt any pity for me.

Eyes red, she dabbed on the ointment in silence, and again pressed me to go to the hospital.

But I was so tired. I shook my head, curled into the bed, and sank into a heavy sleep.

When I woke again, it was somehow already the next day.

I had just finished washing up when Cyril's voice came from behind me. "Julie."

Looking at my worn, hunched figure, he reached out to touch my hair. I turned my head away.

His hand froze in midair.

"Don't worry. Melanie moving in doesn't change the fact that you're my wife."

I blinked, my eyes dry. "Fine. I'll get along with her."

"You agree?" He sounded a little surprised.

"Why wouldn't I?" I answered evenly. "I can't have children anymore. But I still want to be a mother."

He seemed quite pleased with that answer.

"I'm glad you've finally come around. Does your leg still hurt?"

Footsteps sounded in the hallway. My brother, Lucas Henson, walked in, Melanie trailing behind him.

Lucas fixed Cyril with a hard look. "I trust you'll take care of my sister and my nephew. I'd hate for her to be hurt by certain people in this house."

Then that cold, cutting gaze landed on my face.

Cyril frowned slightly. "Relax. Julie's already agreed to get along with Melanie."

Melanie gave me a timid little glance, and Lucas immediately pulled her into the crook of his arm, his voice impossibly gentle.

"If someone dares to bully you again, you call me. Mom, Dad, and I will always be on your side."

Melanie shook her head.

"It's all right. My sister doesn't like me, but for the baby's sake, I can put up with anything."

Cyril stroked her hair and swore, "With me here, no one's going to bully you."

What a touching picture.

My mouth twisted into a bitter smile.

From my husband to my own family, every last one of them lavished pity on her, no questions asked. And I was forever the one in the wrong.

A dry, cold laugh forced its way up my throat.

"That's right. I'm the woman who's always hurting people, the mistress who seduces other women's husbands and even bears their children."

"And the precious daughter you Hensons raised is as pure and innocent as a white lotus!"

### Chapter 5

Lucas's face went dark in an instant, his gaze raking across mine like a blade.

"Shut your mouth. Getting to come back to the Hensons at all is more luck than you deserve. And after you came crawling back here with no shame, do you have any idea how much Melanie has suffered?"

He stared at me, biting off every word.

"Even if she made a mistake, you're the one who pushed her into it."

I couldn't help laughing.

Seven years. I'd long since stopped counting the times Melanie had framed me, hurt me.

It wasn't that our parents didn't know the truth. They just always said, "Melanie's only afraid you'll steal our love away. Be the bigger person about it."

No one ever asked about what I'd suffered. So I was the bigger person, year after year.

Back then, only Cyril would wipe my tears. He was the one who demanded Melanie apologize, the one who told me, "I've got you."

And in the end, even he crossed over to her side.

Hearing Lucas, Cyril's expression flickered with something complicated, but he didn't argue in the end.

He only looked at me, his voice low. "We were all drunk that night. You can't seriously expect Melanie to get rid of the baby and lose any chance of having children for the rest of her life."

So instead, you made sure I'd never have children.

"I just want to take care of her until the baby comes. Stop making a scene."

So you took such tender care of her that you kept ending up in her bed.

Melanie's tears spilled over at once, her body trembling faintly.

"Sis... I'm so sorry. None of this was ever meant to happen, I swear."

Lucas cut her off immediately.

"You did nothing wrong. She's the one in the wrong, petty as always."

"Don't cry. The diamond crown I had made for you is finished. Let's go see it. I promise that in three days my little sister will be the most beautiful bride there is."

Cyril glanced at me and offered a careless explanation. "The wedding is just a formality. Melanie isn't going to take anything from you."

Then the two of them gathered Melanie up and swept her out.

At the door, Lucas turned back and tossed out one last warning.

"Bully Melanie again and you can get out of the Hensons. Go back and live the 'good life' with those crippled beggars you call parents."

Whatever they said, my heart no longer ached. I looked back at them, cold.

"Then try me. I'll make you regret it."

Before he or Cyril could say another word, I slammed the door.

In the mirror, my face was still pale, dark circles of exhaustion under my eyes, but the expression on it was calmer than it had ever been.

I started packing my things.

These seven years of memories. I didn't want a single one of them.

Then I dialed my adoptive father's number and said quietly, "Dad, I'm ready to come home."

"Really?" His voice was thick with worry. "Sweetheart, have they been hurting you?"

"I was wrong, Dad. I'll come home, take over the Delgados, and marry Edwin."

Crippled beggars. That was what Cyril and the Hensons thought of the people who'd raised mebroke, useless, leaving me nowhere to run. They had no idea those crippled beggars were the quiet hand that ran the Delgados' multi-billion empire across all of Harbor City.

"That's wonderful. I'll tell your mother the good news right away," he said. "When will you be home?"

"Edwin is coming for me in three days. Then we'll hold the wedding."

"What wedding?"

A man's voice came from behind me, sudden.

I turned. Cyril was standing in the doorway.

### Chapter 6

My heart lurched, and before I knew it my fingers had tightened around the phone.

"What wedding were you just talking about?" Cyril stepped closer, eyes fixed on me.

"A friend of mine is getting married. She invited me."

The breath went out of him visibly, and the look he gave me softened. "Julie, I promise, my wedding with Melanie won't change anything. The place of Mrs. Weiss is yours forever."

I lowered my lashes so he wouldn't see what was churning underneath, and asked quietly, "Why did you come back?"

He held out a tube of burn cream.

"I know you're hurting. I'll make it up to you." His voice dropped low. "You can't carry a child anymore, but the Weisses need an heir. Once Melanie has the baby, everything will get back on track."

I almost laughed out loud.

He had wrecked our future with his own hands, the marriage itself nothing but a lie, and he stood there telling me things would get "back on track."

But I only moved my lips and gave him one word. "Fine. I understand."

Cyril seemed satisfied with that. He looked ready to say more, and then his phone rang.

It was the ringtone he'd set just for his "little fool."

"Cyril, we're celebrating four months of my pregnancy today. I've already booked the restaurant, so hurry over."

He left without a backward glance.

I walked into the garage, hit the gas, and shot out.

Today was the seventh anniversary of the day we met. Every year before this, he'd had a gift ready early, some surprise waiting for me.

This year, he didn't remember.

I parked outside a mountaineering shop, went in, and bought every piece of top-grade gear they had.

When I was young, I'd watched a sunrise over a snow mountain on TV and made a wish.

After that, every year I told him I wanted to climb the snow mountain with him and watch the sunrise together. Every time he said he was busy, and to wait a little longer.

I wasn't waiting anymore.

I would go to the snow mountain myself and watch the most beautiful sunrise there was.

I'd barely tossed the load into the trunk when a hand clamped down hard around my wrist.

"Where's Melanie? What did you do to her?" Cyril snarled at me, his voice shaking with rage.

I'd never seen him like this. His eyes were even threaded with red.

When I said nothing, his knuckles dug in until he nearly crushed the bone. "Talk! Did you take her?"

Pain tore up my wrist and I sucked in a breath. "I haven't seen her, I swear!"

Cyril stared into my eyes, as if weighing the truth of it.

After a moment his fingers loosened, and he finally let me go.

But the instant he turned, his gaze snagged on the open trunk.

Ice axe, rope, tape. Something in his face split open. The red in his eyes thickened, and he seized my jaw.

"Still lying to me. Do you have any idea how much she means to me? Give her back!"

"I didn't. Kidnap her." I forced it out through my teeth.

The fury swallowed him whole. His hand came up and the slap cracked across my face.

A ringing filled my ears, the world went black, and I dropped to the ground.

My cheek burned, and the taste of iron and blood spread through my mouth.

"I'll ask you one last time." He stood over me, his voice cold enough to freeze. "Where is Melanie?"

I gathered every scrap of strength I had and screamed it back at him.

"I told you I didn't do it, are you deaf? If you don't believe me, check the security cameras, check the dashcam!"

Meeting the stubbornness in my eyes, something in Cyril wavered. Then in the next breath he fisted his hand in my hair and dragged me toward his car like a rag he was hauling off.

"Who else would touch her but you? Won't admit it? I have plenty of ways to make you talk."

The burn on my leg split open, sticky blood seeping out, the pain pulling tears straight down my face.

Just as it nearly knocked me out, his phone rang.

"You found her? I'm on my way."

Cyril let go in an instant, spun, threw himself into the car, the engine roaring as he tore off.

Not a moment's hesitation. Not a flicker of guilt over me.

I lifted a hand and touched my swollen, scalding cheek, and a low laugh slipped out of me.

It didn't matter. Let the three of them have their happy little reunion. Their reckoning would come soon enough.

I dragged myself up, straightened my clothes, limped back to the car, and drove straight for the snow mountain outside the city.

The intersection out of town was just ahead. Then, out of nowhere, several cars swept in from both sides.

The black Cayenne in front surged forward, braked hard, and threw itself sideways across my path.

Cyril shoved the door open and got out, his face darker than before.

"Where do you think you're going?"

### Chapter 7

His voice was cold, like a blade dipped in poison.

"Where I go is none of your business."

I had no intention of arguing with him, but Cyril yanked my car door open and dragged me into his Cayenne.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Let me out!"

He didn't react. He floored the gas and drove straight for Weiss Hospital.

"Just because you can't have children, you want to destroy Melanie and her baby? How can you be this vicious?"

"If I hadn't gotten there in time, her whole life would have been ruined!"

He dragged me into the hospital room.

Melanie lay in the bed, her face white as paper. The moment she saw me she scrambled off the bed, dropped to her knees in front of me, and pressed her forehead to the floor, again and again.

"It was my fault, sister. Punish me however you want, just please let my baby live. Please?"

Listening to her, the numbness started in my fingertips and spread through my whole body.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Cyril seemed to have expected the denial. His voice came out hard and cold. "The kidnappers confessed everything. You hired them to take Melanie, you told them to do whatever they wanted with her, to get rid of the baby. And you've got the nerve to deny it?"

He pulled Melanie up off the floor and into his arms, kissing the tears from her face with great tenderness.

"Don't be afraid. I'm here. I'll make this right for you."

From inside his embrace, Melanie stole a glance at me, her eyes full of malice and triumph.

Another play, written and performed by her.

I didn't waste another word. I grabbed Melanie by the wrist.

"You say you were kidnapped? Then let's go to the police and report it. The truth will come out on its own."

Melanie shrank back into Cyril's arms in terror, the tears coming harder, her whole body trembling. "Cyril, I'm scared..."

His face dark, Cyril knocked my hand away.

"Melanie was nearly violated, and you want to put her through it all over again in front of everyone?!"

"Julie Henson, apologize. And swear you'll never hurt Melanie again."

I screamed at the two of them. "Apologize to her? She isn't worth it!"

Crack.

Cyril slapped me with everything he had.

He looked at Melanie's swollen, red-rimmed eyes, then turned to me, and his gaze had never been so vicious.

"So you feel no remorse at all. Someone take Mrs. Weiss to the morgue. Let her reflect down there."

The bodyguards hauled me off at once and threw me into the hospital morgue.

The door slammed shut. A wave of freezing air hit me, cold enough to set my whole body shaking.

There was a time when I scraped a little skin and he came apart with worry.

Now I'd just lost a child, the wound he'd given me still on my belly, my leg festering, and he locked me in a place full of the dead.

I curled up on the icy floor and thought of seven years ago, my adoptive mother holding my hand as she warned me:

"Sweetheart, always love yourself first. Never pin your hopes on a man."

I hadn't understood her then.

Now, frozen nearly stiff, my mind blurring, the words came back clearer than they ever had.

On the third morning, the bodyguards finally opened the door.

I dragged my body, heavy as iron, out of the hospital and went back to that house to get my things.

The master bedroom door stood ajar. From inside came the violent creak of the bed, and a woman's high, rising moans. The sound drove through my eardrums and rang around inside my skull, and I almost threw up.

### Chapter 8

I don't know how long I stood outside that door. Dawn came and washed the sky pale, and somewhere in there my heart went numb. When I finally dragged my body, spent past the point of feeling, into the living room, every step was borrowed.

I sat on the sofa and waited. Half-conscious, I felt a shadow fall across the light in front of me.

Cyril stood there in nothing but a robe, the scent of another woman still clinging to his skin.

He took in my purple lips, my stiff, frozen body, and something flickered in his eyespity, guilt. Then he remembered I was the jealous one who'd tried to hurt Melanie and her baby, and his face hardened again.

"Do you understand what you did wrong?"

I kept my eyes down, looking at the fingernail I'd torn loose hammering on that door all night, and said quietly, "I was wrong."

Wrong to make love my whole life.

Wrong to keep hoping, like a fool, for something from people who only shared my blood.

Cyril caught sight of the blood seeping down my legs, and something twisted in his chest. He reached for me, ready to pull me in before I dropped. "Julie"

"Help! Miss Melanie's trying to kill herself!"

The maid's terrified scream tore down from upstairs. Cyril's hand clamped onto my arm and he hauled me up the stairs with him.

Melanie was clinging to the window. He shoved me away and crushed her against him.

She broke into loud, theatrical sobs. "She'll never let me live! If there's a next time, I'd rather die now and give you back to her"

The warmth drained out of his eyes. He turned and looked at me.

"There won't be a next time. She's here to get on her knees and apologize to you."

"What? I will not" The words burst out of me before I could stop them.

He only nodded to the bodyguards. They pinned me down and forced me to the floor.

"Do something wrong, you pay for it," he said coldly. "Help your mistress."

A bodyguard fisted his hand in my hair and slammed my forehead into the cold floor. Once. Again. Harder.

Blood blurred everything in front of me. Beside me, Melanie's fake mercy floated down. "Let it go, Cyril. It's our wedding day. Spare her. She's still my sister, after all."

"All right. You always were the kind one. The guests are here. Let's go."

He swept her up into his arms. Her tears turned to a smile, and she let him carry her out without a backward glance.

From start to finish, he never once looked back at me.

I lay crumpled on the floor while my phone buzzed and buzzed.

First, my birth mother: Today is Melanie and Cyril's wedding. Be smart and stay away. Don't come ruin it.

Then my brother, Lucas: Swear you'll never fight Melanie for anything again, and I'll let you come for the family portrait.

The last one was from Cyril: Julie, after the wedding I have a surprise for you. You're going to love it.

A family portrait? A surprise?

Disgusting.

No. I don't need any of it anymore.

There's no bigger surprise than watching every one of you get what you deserve.

I started to laugh, and laughed until it broke into coughing I couldn't stop.

Then I forced myself up off the floor and pressed a file folder into Fiona's hands, telling her to put it into Cyril's own hands at the height of the wedding.

The dark closed in at the edges of my sight, and just as I fell, a man came running toward me.

"Julie!"

He caught me clean and lifted me into his arms. His chest was warm and solid.

"Sweetheart, I'm here to take you home."

I grabbed his sleeve and held on with both hands, gripping hard, biting out each word through my teeth:

"I want Cyril to never find me. Ever."

Edwin laid me down in the car and carefully wiped the blood from the corner of my eye. "Don't worry. Julie Henson is already gone. From now on, there's only Julie Delgado in this world."

"The people who hurt youI'll see to it none of them ever die in peace."

The car carried us racing toward the airport.

On a giant billboard screen by the road, a lavish wedding was streaming live.

I looked at the screen, and the corner of my mouth curved into something cruel.

Cyril. I can't wait for the most "memorable" moment of your wedding to arrive.

Goodbye, for good.

I hope you like the wedding gift I left you.