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After I Freed My Husband for the Fake Heiress, His Whole Family Begged Me Back
NovelShort
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"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 fa...
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第1章
"I'm sorry, but we've checked. Your marriage certificate is a forgery."
The pity in the clerk's eyes set my ears ringing.
"Ms. Henson? Are you all right?"
The concern in her voice came to me from far away, and the tears blurred everything.
It had all started a week ago. Six months pregnant, I drank the prenatal herbal tea that the fake heiress, Melanie Henson, handed me. Then the cramps tore through my belly, and I collapsed in my own blood.
Cyril Weiss rushed in when he heard. He saw the blood under me, and the first thing he did was cover Melanie's eyes.
"Don't look. It's disgusting."
He scooped up the white-faced Melanie and walked out without a backward glance. Then the pain swallowed me whole, my vision went black, and I passed out.
When I opened my eyes, I was already in the hospital. The doctor told me, with regret, that the treatment had come too late. I would never be able to carry a child again.
I couldn't believe my own ears. In agony, I called Cyril ninety-nine times before he finally picked up.
"Cyril, the baby's gone. I can never have a child again—"
The next second, he cut me off, impatient.
"Julie Henson, enough!"
"Melanie mistook the abortion pill 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 going to die."
Just before the line cut off, I caught the faint sound of Melanie sobbing.
Cyril went straight to soothing her, his voice so gentle it was like a knife, carving my heart open until it bled.
For the whole week after that, Cyril never showed up once.
Heart gone cold, I went to the county registry office to file for divorce, only to learn that the grand proposal five years ago, the husband who had cherished me for five years, all of it was fake.
I went home like a ghost. There, tossed in the corner of the bed, was a used condom. It was obvious. Not long before, they'd been together in my bed.
The pain reached its peak, my throat closing as if a hand had clamped around it, until I couldn't breathe.
After a long while, I took out my phone and dialed the number I'd buried away long ago.
"That thing you said, about marrying me. Does it still count?"
1.
"Julie. I've waited too long for this call." The man's voice came through, low and warm and pleased. "I'm coming to get you right now. We'll have the wedding tomorrow."
I shook my head, my gaze cutting through the darkness beyond the window, hardening.
"Edwin James, give me five days to settle things here."
The pain they'd dealt me. How could I just set it down like it was nothing? Before I left, I had to give something back.
Edwin went quiet for a moment, and when he spoke there was an edge to it.
"In five days, even if you change your mind, I'll come and take you anyway."
I gripped the wrinkled fake marriage certificate in my hand, thinking how I'd lived inside an absurd lie for five years, and nodded, firm: "All right."
I hung up and pushed the door open to go downstairs for a glass of water, and that was when I heard voices from the living room below.
It was Cyril's friend, his lawyer.
"It's been five years. Aren't you going to give Julie a proper position yet?"
I froze where I stood and held my breath.
Cyril's low voice came.
"Wait a little longer. I promised Melanie a grand wedding."
The lawyer pressed him.
"Your marriage with Julie exists in name only. She can leave you anytime she wants."
Cyril lowered his eyes, thought for a moment, then spoke.
"She loves me too much. She'll never leave."
He paused, his tone leaving no room for argument.
"And now Melanie is carrying my child. No one is taking the Weiss heir's place from that baby. No one."
It was high summer, August, and yet my whole body, my whole mind, plunged into ice.
So it hadn't been the first time he and Melanie betrayed me. He'd even made a child with her.
"So you had the doctor take her womb out while they were at it?" The lawyer lowered his voice. "If she ever finds out the truth—"
"She broke off ties with her adoptive parents to come back to the Hensons. Where could she possibly go if she left me?"
The breath went out of me, and the floor seemed to tilt under my feet.
I clamped both hands over my mouth, and only that kept the scream in.
Cyril added, "I'll bring Melanie's child back under the name of adoption and let Julie raise it. Consider it granting Julie her wish to be a mother."
"That car crash years ago nearly killed me. Melanie donated a kidney and gave me a second life. She wants a baby. I'd give my own life to make her dream come true."
Everything in front of me spun, and my stomach heaved violently.
Melanie was his life.
Then what was the surgical scar still sitting on my belly to this day?
That terrible crash seven years ago. I was the one who dragged him out of the crushed wreck. I was the one who signed the donor consent. I was the one lying on the next operating table, watching his pale face, saying silently, you have to live.
After I woke, I hid every piece of evidence, only because I didn't want him to feel he owed me anything.
Back then I'd only just returned to the Hensons.
Everyone thought I'd come back to fight Melanie for the place of the Henson daughter, called me greedy, said I'd abandoned my disabled adoptive parents.
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 the gossip and the whispers, and he promised he'd protect me for the rest of his life.
So I drowned in that fatal tenderness. I was willing to make any sacrifice for him.
But now, the one who saved him had become Melanie.
Cyril knew exactly how much I wanted a child of my own. And for her, he had killed the most important thing in my life the way you'd crush an ant.
I staggered back to the bathroom, dropped to my knees in front of the toilet, and vomited until even the bile came up.
"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 "taking care of" Melanie in bed, day and night. Of course I understood.
I tugged my lips into a bitter line, stood, and turned to face him.
"That crash seven years ago. Your kidney—"
第2章
I'd just opened my mouth to ask about Melanie and the so-called kidney donation when the phone clipped at his waist started ringing.
He glanced at the screen, and a smile rose to his lips before he could stop it.
I caught the name he'd saved it under: "My Silly Girl."
Ha. Melanie. The woman who stole twenty years of my life. From the day they brought me back, she'd tormented me in the shadows.
And now she'd killed my child.
There was a time Cyril knew exactly what filthy things she did to me. A time he couldn't stand her.
Somewhere along the way, she'd become his "Silly Girl."
I could have laughed until I was sick.
Her voice oozed out of the phone, sweet and clinging. "Cyril, my custom gown came in. Come with me to try it on. Our wedding's only five days away, we can't afford to fall behind on anything."
"Okay, I'm coming." He was already moving, tossing me a careless line over his shoulder. "Something urgent came up at the company. I have to go."
"Cyril."
I stopped him. My voice came out hard as iron. "Let's get divorced."
His footsteps halted. His back went stiff for a beat, then he slowly turned around.
Meeting my calm stare, his brow drew tighter and tighter until it broke into pure impatience.
"How long are you going to keep this up? I already told you, Melanie didn't mean it."
"She was running a high fever that day, she grabbed the wrong medicine by mistake. She blames herself more than anyone! Can't you find it in you to be the bigger person?"
The bigger person?
I looked at him, and a laugh shook loose out of me, shook through my whole body.
When I lay bleeding on the floor, losing the baby, all he'd cared about was whether I'd frightened her.
When they took my womb, when they made sure I could never be a mother again, 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 held his eyes, searching them for a trace of guilt. A trace of love.
He was studying my face too, looking for the usual collapse, the sobbing, the hysteria.
But there was nothing in my eyes except a cold, still pool. Not even anger.
He sighed, came over, pulled me against him, and pressed a light kiss to my forehead.
"I know it hurts, losing the baby. I'll make it up to you."
"Anything you want. But divorce is off the table."
No.
Cyril, I can.
I have your fake marriage certificate to thank for that. It means I can walk out any time I please.
But he was in a hurry to go meet Melanie, and he never took the word seriously. He turned and left in a rush.
I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes, turned, and opened the very back of the closet.
I drew out a yellowed document from inside.
In five days, at their wedding, I'd give him a gift he would never forget.
When I woke, the sheets beside me were empty.
I was at the counter making coffee when one of Cyril's men walked in.
"Ma'am, flowers from Mr. Weiss."
He set down nine hundred ninety-nine roses and an elegant covered tray in front of me, his face full of envy.
"Mr. Weiss really cares about you. He had a Michelin chef prepare a special breakfast to support the pregnancy."
Looking at that cruelly ironic breakfast, and at the roses Melanie loved and I hated most, I felt my heart start to burn.
"Throw them out. I don't need them." I looked away. My voice gave nothing away.
For all six months I was pregnant, Cyril never once asked whether I'd eaten, let alone ordered anyone to make me breakfast.
"Are you sure, ma'am?"
While he hesitated, Melanie came out of the guest room on the second floor.
"Oh, those are from Cyril. He said that for the baby's health, he'd have someone make me a special breakfast every day."
She came hurrying down the stairs, scooped up the tray with a little hop of delight, and let her eyes drag mockingly across my stomach.
"You'll never need anything to support a pregnancy again, sister. Such a shame."
After the man left, I looked at her, at the smile dancing in her eyes, and couldn't understand it.
"Melanie, why are you doing this to me?"
"Who told you to come back and compete with me? All that wealth and status, it was supposed to be mine."
"Including Cyril. Just because you're the Hensons' real daughter, the moment you showed up, the engagement was suddenly yours. Why should it be? Why?!"
My whole body was shaking. I screamed at her, "Is any of that my fault? I never wanted to fight you for a single thing!"
The smile curving her lips turned evil enough to chill the blood. "So what? I'm going to take everything from you. Your husband, your name, even your womb."
I gritted my teeth, fists clenched, and growled low, "So the person who saved Cyril was me, and you claim it was you? Aren't you afraid I'll expose your lie?"
第3章
Melanie's smile deepened. "You think he'll believe you, or me? Want to find out?"
And with that, she snatched up the kettle of boiling water beside her and threw it at me.
I never thought the woman would lose her mind like that. I couldn't get out of the way in time, and the scalding water poured across my leg.
The burn was so violent I could barely stay on my feet, and blisters rose along my skin almost at once.
That was when Cyril walked in through the door.
"Melanie, what happened?!"
"I don't know what happened—she grabbed the kettle and poured it over herself."
Melanie's eyes reddened, her voice trembling.
I was in too much pain to speak. But I watched the panic in Cyril's eyes turn cold, bit by bit.
"Haven't you played the martyr enough?" His voice dropped low. "Don't tell me you're going to say Melanie threw it on you again?"
"If you don't believe me, go check the cameras."
I forced the words out with everything I had.
Melanie suddenly began to sob. "My finger got scalded. It hurts so much."
She raised her hand. There was only a faint little red dot on her fingertip.
But Cyril pulled her hard against him, and when he turned back to me, his eyes nearly spat fire.
"Are you insane? Were you trying to kill her?!"
"If I could, I wouldn't hesitate." My voice shook, but it held. I threw it back at him.
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 grew thicker. "Julie, when did you turn this vicious? Look at yourself. That jealous face of yours is hideous."
"Forget it, Cyril." Melanie's eyes brimmed with tears, her expression innocent and fragile. "Maybe she didn't mean it. Don't fight over me..."
Cyril lowered his head and kissed her finger, as though kissing something precious that might shatter, his eyes red with how much he ached for her.
"Silly girl. It's because you're too kind that she keeps hurting you."
My heart slammed. The fury in my chest was about to detonate.
"Kind? You think I don't know how I lost my womb? Cyril, this is all your doing!"
Something panicked and guilty flickered in Cyril's 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. I had no choice."
My breath felt like an unseen hand had closed around my throat.
"So you admit it. You got her pregnant, and for her sake, you made sure I could never be a mother again!"
He looked away. "Melanie agreed to give you the baby after it's born. You can still be a mother."
I screamed, hysterical. "Keep dreaming. I will never raise that woman's child!"
Melanie's tears fell in streams. She broke down crying in Cyril's arms.
"It's all my fault. On my birthday I got drunk, and I accidentally confessed to him, and Cyril and I... Please don't fight anymore. I'll just get rid of the baby."
But Cyril 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 force her to die too? If you ask me, that miscarriage was what you deserved!"
I couldn't believe he would say something so vicious to me.
The blood in my body froze. The room spun, and I caught the bar counter behind me just to stay upright.
Footsteps came from the doorway.
My mother rushed in and threw her arms around Melanie. "Did that ungrateful wretch bully you again? Sweetheart, is your belly all right?"
My father's gaze fell on me, hard and severe.
"Julie, you won't even spare an unborn child? I truly regret bringing you home."
In that moment something inside me shattered, and my lips trembled out of control.
"So all of you knew... you knew they were having an affair, that there was a baby, and you all hid it from me?!"
第4章
My father's brow didn't so much as twitch.
"This is what you owe Melanie."
My mother let out a heavy sigh.
"You know your sister's uterine lining is too thin. She may only ever get to have one child in her whole life. And instead of supporting her, you hurt her."
"So you all just let the doctor take my womb!" I couldn't hold myself up any longer. I sank to the floor and buried my face in my hands and wept.
I had once left the adoptive parents who cherished me, all for the sake of this blood tie. And in the end, what this "family" gave me wasn't happiness. It was wound after wound.
I'd been such a fool.
"Enough." Cyril pressed his fingers to his brow and called for the housekeeper. "Tear down the nursery."
My head snapped up.
"What are you doing?!"
I had chosen that nursery myself. Every last detail had been designed and arranged by my own hands.
I'd walked through countless stores for the color of the wallpaper, the weight of the curtains, the shape of the crib. Even that final scrap of longing I had for my child, he wanted to destroy it?
"Melanie gives birth in six months. The room needs to be redone."
His eyes carried a warning. "She hasn't been well since she got pregnant. As of today, she's moving in to live with us. I expect the two of you to get along."
Melanie bit her lip and spoke in a small, timid voice.
"If my sister doesn't want me here, I can move in with the baby and stay with Mom and Dad."
"No. I won't feel at ease unless I look after you myself." There was no room for argument in Cyril's voice. "And the Weiss heir deserves nothing less than the best environment to grow up in."
Over his shoulder, Melanie shot me a glance and let a smug little smile slip out.
The housekeeper went off at once to have the nursery torn down.
I sat there, numb, and watched them sweep Melanie off to the hospital to have a doctor look at that "injured finger" of hers, the one that hardly left a mark.
The scald on my leg still burned without mercy. My heart had gone numb.
My tears stopped.
I remembered something my adoptive mother once told me.
"Tears are only a weapon for wicked people to hurt you with. You have to learn to brew your tears 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 got to my feet and looked coldly at the enormous wedding portrait in the living room, picked up a bottle of Lafite, and hurled it. The frame came down and shattered.
Then I cut every photo of the two of us to shreds and smashed every keepsake from those seven years into pieces.
I called for the maid and gave her my instructions, calm as anything.
"Fiona, clean this up. These bags, and all this jewelry, they're yours now."
"Mrs. Weiss, your leg…" Fiona's voice trembled as she looked at the blisters covering my feet. "Let me tend to it for you."
She was probably the only person left in this house who felt anything for me.
Eyes rimmed red, she dabbed on the medicine without a word and urged me to go to the hospital.
But I was so tired. I shook my head, curled up in bed, and sank into a heavy sleep.
When I woke again, it was already the next day.
I had just finished washing up when Cyril's voice came from behind me. "Julie."
He looked at the worn, hunched line of my back and 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 that you're my wife."
I blinked my dry eyes. "Fine. I'll get along with her."
"You agree?" He sounded surprised.
"Why wouldn't I?" I answered evenly. "I can't get pregnant again. 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 came down the hall. My brother, Lucas Henson, walked in, with Melanie behind him.
Lucas fixed Cyril with a cold, hard stare. "I hope you'll take good care of my sister and my nephew. I don't want her getting hurt in this house by certain people."
Then that icy glare landed on my face.
Cyril frowned slightly. "Don't worry. Julie's already agreed to get along with Melanie."
Melanie gave me a timid little glance, and Lucas pulled her into his arm at once, his voice impossibly gentle.
"If anyone dares bully you again, you call me. Mom, Dad, and I are always 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 endure anything."
Cyril stroked her hair and swore to her, "With me here, no one will ever bully you."
What a touching scene.
A bitter curve tugged at the corner of my mouth.
From my husband to my family, every single one of them poured their hearts out for her, no questions asked. And me, I was forever the one in the wrong.
A dry, cold laugh scraped out of my throat.
"That's right. I'm the woman who's always hurting other people, the mistress who seduces another woman's husband and even bears him a child."
"What a fine daughter the Hensons raised, pure and innocent as a white lotus!"
第5章
Lucas's face darkened in an instant, his glare scraping across my skin like a blade.
"Shut up! Coming back to the Hensons at all is more luck than you deserve. You shamelessly crawled back here, and look how much Melanie has had to suffer for it."
He stared at me, biting off each word.
"Even if she did something wrong, you drove her to it."
I couldn't help it. I laughed.
In seven years I'd lost count of how many times Melanie had framed me, hurt me.
It wasn't that my parents didn't know the truth. They just always said, "Melanie's only afraid you'll steal our love away from her. Be the bigger person."
No one ever asked about what I'd suffered. So I was the bigger person, year after year after year.
Back then, only Cyril would wipe away my tears, only he would order Melanie to apologize, only he would tell me, "I've got you."
And in the end, even he ended up on her side.
When he heard Lucas, something flickered across Cyril's face. But he didn't argue.
He only looked at me, his voice low.
"We were all drunk that night. You weren't really going to make Melanie get rid of it and leave her unable to have kids for the rest of her life, were you?"
So instead you made sure I'd never have children.
"I just wanted to take care of her until the baby comes. Stop making a scene."
Take care of her. Is that what you call it, taking care of her into your bed again and again?
Melanie's tears spilled over at once, her body trembling faintly.
"Sis, I'm sorry... I really didn't mean for any of this."
Lucas cut her off instantly.
"You didn't do anything wrong. She's the one in the wrong, petty as ever."
"Don't cry. The diamond tiara I had made for you is ready. Let's go take a look. I promise that in three days my little sister will be the most beautiful bride in the world."
Cyril glanced at me and offered a careless explanation. "The wedding is only a formality. Melanie isn't going to take anything from you."
Then the two of them swept Melanie out with them.
At the door, Lucas turned back and tossed out one last warning.
"Bully Melanie one more time and you can get out of the Hensons. Go live the 'good life' with those crippled beggar parents of yours."
Whatever they said, my heart didn't ache anymore. I met their eyes coldly.
"Go ahead and try. I'll make you regret it."
Before he or Cyril could say another word, I slammed the door shut.
In the mirror, my face was still pale, dark circles of exhaustion under my eyes. But my expression was calmer than it had ever been.
I started to pack.
Seven years of memories, and I wouldn't keep a single one of them.
Then I dialed my father, my voice quiet.
"Dad, I'm coming home."
"Really?" His voice was thick with worry. "Sweetheart, did they hurt you?"
"I was wrong, Dad. I'll come back and take over the Delgados, and I'll marry Edwin James."
Cyril and the Hensons all believed my adoptive parents were broken-down crippled beggars, believed I had nowhere to go if I left them. The truth was that my adoptive parents were the people behind the Delgados' hundred-billion-dollar empire in Harborfield.
"Wonderful. I'll go tell your mother the good news right now." Then he asked, "When are you coming home?"
"Edwin James will come for me in three days, and then we'll hold the wedding."
"What wedding?"
A man's voice cut in behind me.
I turned. Cyril was standing in the doorway.
第6章
My heart gave a sharp jolt, and before I knew it, I'd clenched the phone tight in my hand.
"What did you just say about a wedding?" Cyril took a step closer, eyes fixed on me.
"A friend's getting married. They invited me."
The relief on his face was obvious, and his gaze softened a little. "Julie, I promise, my wedding to Melanie won't change anything. The place of Mrs. Weiss will always be yours."
I dropped my eyes so he wouldn't see what was churning underneath, and asked quietly, "Why are you back?"
Cyril held out a tube of burn ointment.
"I know this is hard on you. I'll make it up to you." His voice went soft. "You can't carry a child anymore, but the Weiss family needs an heir. Once Melanie has the baby, everything will go back to normal."
I almost laughed out loud.
He'd destroyed our future with his own hands, our marriage itself was a lie, and still he fed me this line about things going "back to normal."
But all I did was move my lips and let out a single word. "Fine. Understood."
He seemed satisfied with that, and looked like he wanted to say more when his phone rang.
It was the special ringtone he'd set for his "little fool."
"Cyril, we're celebrating four months of my pregnancy today. I've already booked the restaurant, so come quick, okay?"
He left without so much as 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 have a gift ready early to surprise me.
This year, he didn't remember.
I parked outside a mountaineering supply store, went in, and bought every top-tier piece of gear they had.
When I was young, I'd watched the sunrise over a snow mountain on TV and made a wish.
Every year after that I told him I wanted us to climb a snow mountain together and watch the sunrise. Every time he said he was busy, told me to wait a little longer.
I wasn't going to wait anymore.
I'd go to the snow mountain myself, and see the most beautiful sunrise.
I'd barely tossed the pile of gear into the trunk when my wrist was seized in a brutal grip.
"Where's Melanie? What did you do to her?!" Cyril snarled at me, his voice shaking with rage.
I'd never seen him lose control like this. His eyes were even bloodshot.
When I said nothing, his knuckles dug in until he was nearly crushing the bone. "Talk! Did you take her?"
The pain shot through my wrist and I sucked in a breath. "I haven't seen her, I swear!"
Cyril stared dead into my eyes, as if weighing whether I was lying.
After a moment his fingers loosened, and he finally let go.
But the instant he turned, the corner of his eye caught the open trunk.
Ice axe, rope, tape. His face twisted, the red in his eyes thickening, and he clamped down hard on my chin.
"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 out through gritted teeth.
The fury swallowed him whole. He swung his hand and the slap landed hard across my face.
A ringing went off in my ears, my vision went black, and I crumpled to the ground.
My cheek burned, and the taste of blood spread warm and salty in my mouth.
"I'll ask you one last time." He stood over me, his voice cold as ice. "Where is Melanie?"
I gathered every ounce of strength I had and screamed 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's gaze wavered. But the next second he grabbed a fistful of my hair and dragged me toward his car like a piece of rag.
"Who else would touch her, if not you? Won't admit it? I have plenty of ways to make you talk."
The burn on my leg split open, blood seeping out sticky and warm, the pain so sharp it sent the tears running down my face.
Just as I was nearly fainting from it, his phone rang.
"You found her? I'm coming."
Cyril let go in an instant, spun around and threw himself into the car. The engine roared, and the car tore away.
Not a moment's hesitation. Not a flicker of guilt over me.
I lifted a hand and touched the burning, swollen cheek, and then, quietly, I laughed.
It didn't matter. Let the three of them have their happy little reunion. Their reckoning would come soon enough.
I struggled up, straightened my clothes, and limped back to the car, heading straight for the snow mountain outside the city.
The intersection out of the city lay just ahead. Then, out of nowhere, several cars came swerving in from both sides to cut me off.
The black Cayenne at the front shot forward, braked hard, and stopped square across my path.
Cyril pushed the door open and got out, his face darker than before.
"Where do you think you're going?"
第7章
His voice was cold as a poisoned blade.
"Where I go is none of your business."
I didn't want to tangle with him, but Cyril yanked my car door open and dragged me into his Cayenne.
"What is wrong with you? Let me out!"
He ignored me, floored the gas, and headed straight for Weiss Memorial Hospital.
"Just because you can't have children, you'd destroy Melanie and her baby? How can you be so vicious?"
"If I hadn't gotten there in time, her whole life would have been ruined!"
He hauled me into the hospital room.
Melanie lay on the bed, white as a sheet. The moment she saw me she scrambled off the bed, dropped to her knees in front of me, and kept knocking her forehead to the floor.
"It was my fault, sis. Punish me however you want, just please spare my baby, 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 hard and cold. "The kidnappers confessed. You're the one who ordered them to take Melanie, told them to do whatever they wanted to her, to get rid of the baby. And you're still lying?"
He pulled Melanie up off the floor into his arms and gently kissed away her tears.
"Don't be scared. I'm here. I'll get justice for you."
From inside his embrace, Melanie shot me a sidelong glance, her eyes full of malice and triumph.
Another act she'd written and staged herself.
I didn't waste my breath. I grabbed her wrist.
"If you say you were kidnapped, then let's go to the police and file a report. The truth will come out on its own."
Melanie shrank back into Cyril's arms in terror, tears pouring harder, her whole body shaking. "Cyril, I'm scared..."
His face darkened and he knocked my hand away.
"Melanie was nearly violated, and you want to make her relive it in front of everyone?!"
"Julie, apologize. And swear you'll never hurt Melanie again."
I screamed at the two of them, shaking with rage. "Apologize to her? She isn't worth it!"
Crack!
Cyril slapped me with all his strength.
He looked at Melanie's red, swollen eyes, and when his gaze swung back to me it was vicious beyond anything.
"Not a shred of remorse. Take her. Lock my wife in the morgue—let her think hard about what she's done."
The bodyguards dragged me off at once and threw me into the hospital morgue.
The door slammed shut. The freezing air rushed at me, and I shook all over with the cold.
There was a time when, if I so much as scraped my skin, he would panic.
Now, not long after a miscarriage, with the wound he'd caused still in my belly and my leg festering, he locked me in this place full of the dead.
I curled up on the icy floor and remembered 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."
Back then I didn't understand.
Now, nearly frozen, my mind drifting, that one sentence came clearer than it ever had.
On the morning of the third day, 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 rocking of the bed, and a woman's high moans. The sound pierced my eardrums and rang through my skull, and I almost threw up.
第8章
I don't know how long I stood outside that door. The sky went pale, then bright, and the cold in my chest dulled into nothing. Finally I dragged my body, drained past its limit, to the living room.
I sat on the sofa and waited. Somewhere in the haze, a shadow fell across the light in front of me.
Cyril stood there in nothing but a robe, the smell of what he'd just done still clinging to him.
He saw my purple lips, my body locked stiff with cold, and something like guilt and pity flickered through his eyes. 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 nail I'd torn off pounding on that door all night. "I was wrong," I said quietly.
Wrong to make love the whole of my life.
Wrong to keep hoping, again and again, that blood would mean something.
Then Cyril noticed the blood seeping down my leg, and his heart lurched. He reached out, as if to pull me upright before I dropped. "Julie—"
"Help! Miss Melanie is trying to kill herself!"
A maid's terrified scream tore down from upstairs. Cyril grabbed my arm and dragged me up the steps with him.
Melanie was leaning out over the window ledge. He flung me aside and seized her, holding her tight.
She broke into loud sobbing, the acting laid on thick. "She'll never let me go! If there's a next time, I'd rather just die now and give you back to her—"
His eyes cooled by degrees, then turned to me.
"That won't happen. She came here to kneel and apologize to you."
"What? I will never—" I jerked back, stunned.
But he signaled the bodyguards. They pinned me down hard, forced me onto my knees.
"Do something wrong, you pay for it." His voice was flat. "Help your mistress."
A bodyguard fisted my hair and slammed my forehead down against the cold floor. Once. Again. Again.
Blood blurred my sight. Beside me came Melanie's false little plea. "Forget it, Cyril. It's our wedding day. Let her off. She's my sister, after all."
"All right. You always were the kind one. The guests are already here—let's go."
He lifted her up into his arms, and she laughed through her tears, carried off in big easy strides.
Not once, from start to finish, did he look back at me.
I lay collapsed on the floor while my phone buzzed, one message after another.
First my birth mother. "It's Melanie and Cyril's wedding today. You'd be smart to know your place and stay away from any trouble."
Then my brother, Lucas. "Swear you'll never fight Melanie over anything again, and I'll allow you to come take the family photo."
The last one was from Cyril. "Julie, once the wedding's over, I have a surprise for you. You're going to love it."
A family photo? A surprise?
How sickening.
No. I don't need anything from you anymore.
There's no greater surprise than watching every one of you get what you deserve.
I started to laugh, and laughed until it broke into a fit of coughing.
Then I forced myself up off the floor, pressed an envelope into Fiona's hands, and told her to deliver it to Cyril herself, at the very height of the wedding.
The dark swam up over my eyes, and in the moment I fell, a man came rushing toward me.
"Julie!"
He caught me clean and lifted me into his arms. His chest was warm and solid.
"I've got you, baby. I've come to take you home."
I caught hold of his sleeve, gripping it with both hands, and ground out every word through my teeth.
"I want Cyril to never find me. Ever."
Edwin laid me down in the car and gently wiped the blood from the corner of my eye. "Don't worry. I've already destroyed the Julie Henson identity. From now on there's only Julie Delgado, anywhere in the world."
"Whoever hurt you—I'll make sure they die badly."
The car raced us toward the airport.
On a huge billboard screen along the road, a lavish wedding was playing live.
I watched it, and the corner of my mouth curved up in something close to scorn.
Cyril. I'm looking forward to the most "spectacular" moment of your wedding.
Goodbye, for good.
I hope you like the wedding gift I left you.