Chapter 3

Cordelia's POV

"I’m not signing."

I pushed the divorce agreement back across the table to Silas and looked straight into his eyes.

He stared back at me, his features hard and distant. "The loss of Hollis’s project cost the group over a hundred million dollars. I can bear the financial hit, but a divorce doesn't solve anything. Give me three months, and I can fill the deficit."

【Mommy, sign it. A man only learns regret when he loses everything. If you leave gracefully now, Daddy will come back begging for you later.】

The voice in my head urged me over and over, trying to sway my mind, but I forced down every impulse to yield.

In my past life, I had trusted those very words and shattered my own marriage. Looking at Silas now, my voice was steady. "We were married for three years before we finally conceived this child. When the company faces a crisis, we should stand together. If I still mean anything to you, give me one chance to fix this."

Silas fell silent for a long time before finally giving a curt nod.

The very next day, I resigned as his secretary and requested a transfer to the high-pressure marketing department, starting from the ground up.

For an entire month, I worked day and night analyzing market trends, refining proposals, and reaching out to clients. Single-handedly, I doubled the sales figures for the West District project and reactivated three stalled community developments, injecting fresh capital back into the company.

At the quarterly board meeting, I presented the latest financial report to the directors, speaking calmly. "Our revenue for this quarter has surpassed the same period last year. The deficit left by the Ashford project is steadily shrinking."

Silas spoke up publicly, his tone firm. "She delivered. The remaining budget is approved in full to push the next phase forward."

I thought I had finally turned the wheels of fate, steering us away from ruin. But the very night the financial report was released, a set of maliciously staged photographs trended online, exploding across social media.

The photos showed me leaving a hotel late at night, a male subordinate reaching out to catch me as I stumbled from hypoglycemia. Another angle made it look as though he was holding me in an intimate embrace. The headlines were vile: Mercer Group CEO’s Wife Suspected of Trading Body for Contracts; Paternity of Unborn Child Questioned.

Silas’s mother Mey burst into the office, slamming a newspaper onto the desk, her face distorted with rage.

"Divorce her immediately! The Mercer family will not accept a child of uncertain lineage, nor will we keep a daughter-in-law who tarnishes our reputation!"

She spun around and rushed toward the balcony railing, screaming hysterically, "If she won't sign, I'll jump right now! Let the world see who pushed me to my death!"

Security rushed forward just in time to restrain her, but the chaos did not end there. That night, reporters swarmed the driveway of the Mercer estate. The next day, they ambushed me outside my prenatal clinic, pressing cameras against the car windows and trapping me at every turn.

The public outcry was overwhelming, leaving no room to breathe. That evening, Silas brought home a new set of papers.

A bitter taste filled my mouth. "You want me to sign?"

"It’s a fake divorce," he said, taking my hand with a look of helpless exhaustion. "If we keep dragging this out, the media won't leave you or the baby alone, and my mother will snap again. Once the storm passes and I clear up the rumors, we’ll remarry immediately."

In the end, I signed. That night, I moved out of the Mercer villa, changed my phone number, and cut off all contact, making the separation appear as authentic as possible to keep the press away. I left only one message through my lawyer: Three months from today, morning, at City Hall. Be there for our remarriage.

On the agreed day, I arrived at City Hall an hour early. But the man I waited for never showed up. Instead, news broke that Silas was holding a grand wedding that very morning at Lakewood Manor.

I sped frantically to the estate. By the time I arrived, the guests were already seated, waiting for the ceremony to begin.

Silas stood beneath a archway of white roses, his black tuxedo accentuating his tall frame. His expression was cold, devoid of any warmth he once had for me. Ignoring the security guards trying to block me, I broke through the crowd and stopped right in front of him.

"Why weren't you at City Hall? You said the divorce was just a cover!"

"Enough." Disgust filled his eyes, his voice cuttingly cold. "Every time you ruin something, you come begging for forgiveness. Crashing my wedding like this—don't you realize how pathetic you look?"

"What about our child? Are you just abandoning us?"

"Stop using the child to guilt-trip me," he snapped, his gaze unyielding. "I’ve already found the person I truly love."

The cameras in the hall turned toward me, capturing my disheveled state. Countless judgment-filled eyes pinned me to the spot.

I had tried so hard to change my choices, save the company, and endure every humiliation to avoid the traps of the past. Yet within three months, I had still lost my parents, lost my marriage, and walked right back into the same hopeless dead end.

The wedding march began to play softly.

The bride walked slowly down the aisle, her arm resting on Julian’s. Wrapped in a pure white gown, her shoulder-length brown hair framed a face identical to mine.

It was my twin sister, who had been declared dead years ago—Thalassa.

She walked up to Silas’s side, looked up at me, and offered a familiar, chilling smile.

In that single instant, every terrible decision prompted by the voice, every unexplainable tragedy and coincidence, connected together.

Looking at my reborn sister, I finally understood everything. I understood why I could hear a child's voice inside my head, and I understood what I had to sever and fight if I wanted to survive.