Chapter 1

"Margaret..."

Deep in the act, Robert Howard moaned that name while he was fucking Sophia Windsor.

How could he call out her sister's name while making love to her?

Humiliation crashed over Sophia like icy waves, drowning her instantly. Before she could refuse, Robert shoved her legs wider apart and thrust into her with brutal force.

"Ah!" She couldn't suppress her cry.

"Shut up. Making noise ruins the illusion." Robert's large hand clamped over her mouth. Desire and disgust both flickered in his handsome features.

Sophia's heart turned to ice.

Three years ago, Margaret threw herself into the ocean. Her final phone call before death had been to Sophia—who missed it because she was in the lab.

Robert, who had loved Margaret deeply, blamed Sophia for everything.

He forced her to drop out of school. Forced her to imitate Margaret. Turned her into Margaret's replacement.

Sophia couldn't fight back. She silently endured all his rage.

Because she was drowning in regret too. She hated herself for missing that call.

After the one-sided, brutal sex ended, Robert got up without a backward glance. His long fingers buttoned his shirt with casual, lazy movements.

"Take it."

A box of morning-after pills landed on Sophia's body.

Once, Sophia had been utterly infatuated with Robert. Now she felt only pain.

Out of habit, she picked up the pill and swallowed it. Her stomach churned violently. She nearly threw up.

Lately her stomach had been bothering her—constant dry heaving and nausea. She planned to get it checked at the hospital soon.

Before she could even catch her breath, the Howard family's butler came to hurry her out.

Robert never let Sophia stay the night at his place. No matter how late. No matter how exhausted she was. She had to leave.

To him, she was nothing but a stand-in to mourn his unforgettable love. A body to use for sex. Someone he could summon and dismiss at will.

Sophia walked out the front door. She glanced back and thought she saw a tall figure standing at the second-floor window.

When she looked again, the window was empty.

A mocking smile twisted her lips. Robert hated her. Why would he care whether she lived or died?

An hour later, Sophia returned to the Windsor Mansion.

The moment she stepped into the living room, a ceramic mug flew at her face and struck her temple.

Warm blood immediately gushed out, blurring her vision.

Her mother, Bianca Johnson, showed not an ounce of concern. She shrieked, "Useless piece of trash! You can't even keep a man! Why wasn't it you who died instead?"

Even though Sophia had heard those words many times, they still twisted her heart every time.

How much must a mother despise her own child to say something like that?

Margaret's death hadn't just turned the once high-spirited Robert into someone paranoid and brooding—it had also made Sophia's own parents volatile and cruel.

And she, as the supposed culprit in everyone's eyes, could only silently endure it all.

Bianca hurled a newspaper at Sophia. The headline on the front page stabbed into her eyes.

[The Howard Family and the Brown Family Announce Merger Marriage—Business Empires Join Forces]

In that moment, Sophia could barely breathe.

Robert was getting married to someone else?

The man who had vowed to torment her for life, to make her atone forever—he was marrying another woman?

Did this mean he was finally letting go of his hatred? Finally letting her go?

For an instant, relief, confusion, and a trace of resentment she didn't even recognize tangled inside her.

While Sophia stood frozen, Bianca lost her patience and slapped her hard across the face.

"I'm talking to you! Why are you playing dumb? You killed Margaret, and now you can't even hold onto Robert? What good are you alive?"

Bianca's emotions spiraled out of control. In a rage, she shoved Sophia out the door and ordered her to go beg Robert to change his mind.

"If you can't do it, don't come back!"

Cast out of her own home, Sophia stared helplessly at the moonlight overhead. The wound on her temple still throbbed faintly, but it was nothing compared to the agony in her chest.

When would this atonement finally end?

Sophia couldn't get through to Robert's phone.

Between them, it had always been one-sided—he contacted her when he wanted. She had no way of reaching him.

In the end, all she could do was leave a message with Robert's assistant.

Half an hour later, her best friend Echo Jones picked up the disheveled Sophia and brought her home.

Echo carefully tended to Sophia's wound, but finally couldn't contain her fury.

"This is too much! Margaret's been gone for years, and they still treat you like this. She committed suicide. It was an accident. It wasn't your fault! Why do they pin all the blame on you?"

Sophia clasped Echo's hand and gently shook her head.

Whenever she thought about her sister—outwardly sunny and cheerful, but secretly suffering from severe depression—Sophia felt like the worst sister in the world. She'd never noticed a thing.

That missed phone call was a knot in her heart she couldn't untangle. She was willing to bear that responsibility.

Unable to persuade Sophia, Echo let out a heavy sigh.

After thinking for a moment, she suddenly grabbed Sophia's wrist, her tone bold. "Forget it. Don't think about this depressing stuff! Tonight, I'm taking you out to clear your head!"

Without waiting for an answer, Echo dragged Sophia to the biggest bar in Emerald City. She even called over a few young, handsome guys to help Sophia relax.

Sophia felt completely out of place in a setting like this. After sitting for only a short while, she excused herself to the restroom.

She was staring at her own pale but beautiful face in the mirror when Robert's call came through.

"You were looking for me?" His voice was as cold as ever, devoid of emotion.

Sophia instinctively straightened her spine. "I wanted to ask—are you really marrying Victoria?"

Silence on the other end. Then Robert's mocking, contemptuous laugh came through. "What gives you the right to ask me that?"

What right?

Sophia was speechless. She didn't even qualify as his mistress.

Was she supposed to do what Bianca demanded—throw away all her dignity and beg him not to get married?

She couldn't do it.

Finally, Sophia's voice trembled as she asked, "If you're getting married, can we be done?"

It should have been the most natural thing in the world, but Robert acted like he'd heard the funniest joke ever.

"Sophia, what kind of dream are you having? You'll always be my plaything. When I'm bored of you, I'll kick you out myself."

Sophia froze.

Robert was getting married, but he refused to let her go. He still wanted to torment her.

She'd thought she'd already endured his most extreme humiliation. But he always found new ways to trample her dignity.

"What do you want from me before you'll let me go?"

Robert sneered. "Unless you bring Margaret back to life!"

After he hung up, Sophia broke down in tears. Thoughts of ending her own life surged up again.

Just then, a painfully familiar voice drifted in from outside the restroom.

"I just wanted to play a prank on Sophia back then, make things hard for her. I didn't think it would blow up like this."

"If I don't go back now, Robert's going to marry some other woman. That would ruin everything, wouldn't it? I didn't think my sister would be so useless. I gave her three years, and she still couldn't win his heart."

"Mom and Dad already know. They'll help me explain. As for Robert—he loves me so much. I'll just sweet-talk him a little."

Sophia's eyes went wide. Her whole body trembled.

It was Margaret. She wasn't dead!