apter 10
she reached for the brilliant white wedding dress.
“Rowan! Are you finally planning to give me a real ceremony?”
They got married at the courthouse, but the wedding itself never happened.
She had hinted to Rowan more than once, but he always brushed it off with little interest, telling her they would talk about it “someday“.
She hadn’t loved that answer. But then she reminded herself that Joanna never had a wedding either. Their marriage certificate wasn’t
even real.
That thought had made it easier to let go.
Yet now, staring at the beautiful gown inside the box, she couldn’t deny the thrill that surged in her chest.
She was just about to say something, her voice filled with excitement. But as she lifted the dress, it fell apart into tattered, shredded pieces.
Rowan’s eyes locked on the ruin. His face darkened, his body tensing.
He recognized it instantly.
It was Joanna’s design, sketched by her own hand. It was the dress she had once dreamt of wearing on their wedding day.
She had only finished the sketch. Rowan had promised her he would hire the best couturier to bring it to life.
But as time passed, and his attention shifted more and more toward Hattie, the promise had faded into silence.
Chapter 10
1/5-
“This… what happened?” Hattie’s voice faltered as she turned to
Rowan.
Rowan didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at her.
His gaze locked on the ruined wedding dress strewn across the
marble floor.
A creeping unease settled in his gut.
His breath hitched. His throat tightened, and for a second, he couldn’t speak.
Then his gaze snapped toward Calvin, cold and sharp. “Where’s Joanna?”
Calvin forced down the anger burning in his chest and answered honestly, his tone flat. “Rowan, you sure have a short memory. Didn’t you send her to that women’s prison for some ‘discipline‘?”
Rowan’s expression froze, as if suddenly reminded of the way Joannal had shut him out completely, not sending a single message.
His tone sharpened with frustration. “I sent her there to discipline her, not to cut her off from the world. She still has a phone. So why the hell couldn’t she send me a single message?”
The more Rowan thought about it, the angrier he got. But when his eyes landed again on the shredded wedding dress on the floor,
something inside him snapped.
Frustrated, he yanked open the top buttons of his shirt. “Where is she?
Chapter 10
Calvin dropped his gaze to mask his expression. “No idea.”
That set Rowan off. His eyes blazed with fury as he spat, “Useless!”
Without another word, he turned and stormed off.
Behind him, Hattie called his name again and again, but he didn’t look
back.
Fuming with nowhere to vent, Hattie turned to Calvin, ready to scream in his face. But when she saw the icy, deadened look in his eyes, she
instinctively stepped back.
Calvin scoffed, watching Hattie shrink back.
Rowan had always criticized Joanna for not being gentle or obedient
enough.
Someone gentle and mild would never have had the nerve to save his life–not once, and certainly not time after time all those years ago.
It wasn’t until Rowan slid behind the wheel of his car that he realized-
he had no idea where Joanna might be. He debated whether to
swallow his pride and just call.
After a moment, he made up his mind and drove back to the house.
It was already the fourth day. He had only asked them to keep her locked up for three days.
Joanna’s daily routine was painfully simple. Aside from work or errands, she rarely went anywhere but home.
When the lock clicked and he stepped inside, it was already
midmorning.
The kitchen was empty, with no familiar figure in sight. Even the dining table was coated with a thin layer of dust.
That didn’t make sense.
Joanna was obsessive about cleanliness. She did full house
cleanings at least twice a week, sometimes more when she was
stressed.
He had been tangled up with Hattie lately. Joanna had been locked
away for three days, and he had spent all of them with Hattie instead.
If she had come back and seen the place in that state, she would
have thrown on gloves and scrubbed every corner in a frenzy.
Rowan glanced around the room.
The silence was unnerving. It was too quiet, almost eerie.
As if struck by a sudden realization, Rowan headed straight for the
bedroom.
