Chapter 2

Philippa's POV

I held my breath, staring intently at Roland’s face.

Even a slight hesitation, a prompt of "impossible" in his eyes, would have given me peace.

Roland stopped his grinding foot. He looked down at the ruined, gray powder beneath his shoe and frowned slightly.

"If this really is Philippa’s ashes..."

My heart clenched.

"...then I regret spilling her here." Roland’s lips curled into a chilling smile as he pinched Lavinia’s chin affectionately. "I should have turned her ashes into fireworks to celebrate our wedding next week."

It was at that exact moment that I realized the depth of Roland’s hatred for me. It was woven into his very bones.

He loathed me. He believed I had kept him and his true love apart for years, and now that I was "gone," they could finally be together without any obstacles.

Lavinia leaned into Roland’s chest, her fingers playfully twisting his shirt buttons. Her voice was perfectly pitched with grievance. "Roland, I always knew you were the only one who cared about me. If she hadn't crawled into your bed back then and brought the media to force your hand, we wouldn't have been torn apart for so long. And..."

She paused, her eyes welling with tears.

"If she hadn't constant murmured poison in Grandmother's ear, Grandmother wouldn't have hated me so much. She wouldn't have forced you to marry her on her deathbed. You know I was the one who was always supposed to be by your side..."

"It’s not your fault, Lavinia. It was always that bitch's fault." Roland tightened his grip on her waist, kissing the crown of her head. "You’ve suffered enough these past few years. I promise you the grandest wedding this city has ever seen."

He led her out of the room, never offering a single backward glance at the mess on the floor.

A sudden, invisible force yanked at my soul. I was dragged along, forced to sit in the passenger seat of his black Maybach.

The car roared through the streets, pulling up outside an elite bridal boutique.

Roland held Lavinia’s hand as they walked in, the staff bowing in deference.

I drifted aimlessly near the ceiling, watching Lavinia try on one custom-made diamond gown after another.

Roland sat on the velvet sofa, his gaze incredibly soft. He stood up, drew a massive, flawless diamond ring from a velvet box, and slipped it onto Lavinia’s finger.

"Beautiful," he murmured, kissing the back of her hand.

My heart felt like it was being pierced by a thousand needles. A mix of fury and sorrow threatened to tear my spirit apart.

During our entire three-year marriage, we had signed a paper, but we had never had a wedding. He had denied me the one thing I wanted most.

He had no idea that the frail, innocent woman standing before him was the very person who had pushed Grandmother Mabel down the stairs! He was embracing a murderer as his beloved!

Lavinia twirled in front of the floor-length mirror, her silk train billowing. She casually asked, "Roland, should we invite Philippa to the wedding next week?"

Roland let out a cruel, mocking laugh, his eyes cold with disdain.

"Of course we should. I want her to watch every second of the wedding she spent years dreaming of. I want to see how long she can maintain this pathetic, stubborn act."

He sneered. "After all, throwing tantrums is what she does best, isn't it?"

Throwing tantrums.

Those words cut deeper than any blade, bringing back a flood of agony from my past.

We had been married for three years, but he treated me like a ghost in his house. Two years ago, driven to absolute despair by his coldness, I had swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. That attempt had terrified Grandmother Mabel so badly that she ended up hospitalized with a heart condition for weeks.

A year ago, on the night Grandmother died, she had called me repeatedly. But I had been lured back to the law firm by a fake emergency email sent by Lavinia—and subsequently drugged and passed out.

By the time I woke up, Grandmother was dead, and photos of me seemingly naked next to Graham had been leaked to Roland.

My husband didn't listen to a single word of explanation. He assumed I had intentionally ignored Grandmother’s dying calls out of spite, effectively killing her.

From that day on, his hatred turned into systematic torture. He abused me verbally and physically, and eventually forced me to undergo regular, dangerous blood draws to "save" Lavinia from her alleged blood disorder.

Every plea, every explanation from my lips was treated as a calculated lie.

"Since she loves playing dead so much," Roland sneered, "even if she’s rotting in a ditch somewhere, I’ll have her corpse dragged to the altar to watch us."

He pulled out his phone and dialed my number.

The cold, mechanical ringing echoed in the quiet boutique.

He tried three times. Each time, the call went straight to voicemail.

The smug indifference on Roland’s face finally cracked.