Chapter 1
And suddenly, I understood.
Five years of marriage Was just another one of Scarlett Donovan’s vicious pranks.
Thoughts back to when I was in the college, the time when my mother’s brain tumor diagnosis turned me into a sleep-deprived ghost working three jobs-
During my darkest days, Scarlett D8R
I tried to refuse, but she pressed them into my hands with a pitying smile. “Your mother would be heartbroken to see you looking so haggard.”
Grateful, I accepted. Once, I thought she was the angel sent to me in my dark days. What happened later made me realize that devils can also dress like an angel and lead you all the way to hell.
Then came the day my mother’s condition turned critical-the emergency surgery she desperately needed was denied when my financial aid was frozen.
The school board slammed glossy photos across the table. “How can you claim to be poor when you’re draped in Chanel
and Prada?”
But I was a girl from the countryside. I didn’t even recognize those brands. I didn’t even know what the double C means at
that time.
I couldn’t reach Scarlett anyhow. I couldn’t prove myself innocent.
No one believed me.
No evidence could cleanse me. Just a village girl then, trembling before the school board, pleading with raw desperation -“I really need the money, it is for my mother’s surgery. Those handbags were given to me by Scarlett. I swear it.”
That groveling scene seared itself into my flesh, a wound no years could heal. Thus I learned life’s cruelest lesson: Some
battles cannot be won, not even when you surrender every last shred of pride at the altar of mercy.
“Scarlett Donovan is the model student, she has always been on the dean’s list-you’re the one who stole her scholarship!
And now you’re trying to slander her?”
When finally released from the school board office, I almost fell down but I know I couldn’t, my mom is waiting for me to
get cash for her life-saving surgery.
In the pouring rain, I clutched the ‘luxury’ handbags and clothes Scarlett Donovan had gifted me, rushing into a
consignment shop-only to be told the crushing truth: they were all fakes.
Fake! Fake! Fake!
No amount of begging could summon the money needed-not a penny for my mother’s surgery. Her presence slipped further away, like a feather drifting beyond my grasp, while I, earthbound and helpless, strained toward a hope that
flickered like a dying candle.
When she saw the devastation in my eyes, she murmured-so softly it could have been a sigh-
“It’s alright..Julie. It’s alright… It’s…”
Each reassurance softer than the last, until only the heart monitor remained, its relentless, flatlined scream carving the air
“Beeeeeeeeep-
The night I stood on the rooftop, it was Damien Kingsley who caught me as I fell-tendons snapping in his wrist from the force of my weight.
For months afterward, he was my anchor. Gentle. Patient. Guiding me through the fog of depression.
I thought it was salvation.
I gave him my heart, my soul, my everything.
Only to realize it was just another round in Scarlett’s twisted game.
My life had always been her plaything.
But no more.
When the nurse pressed the “shot of nutrition” into my vein, I caught the flicker of remorse in Damien’s eyes.
It meant nothing.
This child would never draw breath-what did it matter?
But the drug’s side effects hit harder than expected. Agony twisted through my stomach until I was retching violently,
tears streaming down my face.
Damien’s composure shattered. “Doctor!” he bellowed, sprinting into the hallway-so frantic he left his phone behind.
Messages lit up the screen from a group chat titled “Scarlett’s Royal Knights”:
Sebastian: When are you telling Julie the kid’s mine?
Lynch: Wait till your anniversary next week! Imagine her face when she realizes she’s been passed between brothers!
Scarlett: You boys are so naughty~
Amber: Scarlett, you’re too kind and sweet!
I didn’t scream. Didn’t even sob.
Just emailed my lawyer to draft divorce papers.
Damien never returned.
Eventually, hushed whispers floated down the corridor: “Miss Donovan scraped her ankle, and Mr. Damien Kingsley summoned every specialist in the hospital…”
I looked down at the vomit staining my gown and laughed silently.
Damien forgot everything about me-yet remembered every trivial detail of Scarlett’s life.
The exact temperature of her coffee.
Which skincare ingredients triggered her allergies.
But he couldn’t recall my birthday if his life depended on it.
I used to cry. Used to beg for scraps of his attention.
His response was always the same: “Mrs. Kingsley shouldn’t obsess over petty things. It’s unbecoming. Behave yourself. Don’t be dramatic.”
So this time, I didn’t wait like a discarded pet.
Didn’t touch his abandoned phone.
Just let the nurses return it to him.
Unlike six months ago, when I’d rushed his forgotten phone to a business dinner-only to be met with icy disdain:
“Juliette, don’t you have a life of your own? Your neediness suffocates me.”
I took a cab home, washed away the stench of betrayal, took a sleeping pill and tried to sleep it all away, hoping some unconscious hours could give me some relief.
Until familiar arms wrenched me awake at midnight.
“You didn’t wait for me?” Damien’s voice was dangerously soft.
I turned to face him in the dark.
“You didn’t stay with her?”
