Chapter 2 A Different Wish
670 Words
Thinking I had finally fallen in line, Julian turned to Chloe and shared a triumphant smile. Chloe beamed back, looking like she had already won the lottery.
But their smug smiles froze the moment the words left my mouth.
In my previous life, when I asked for the necklace, Ruth had actually given me an out, gently hinting that I should reconsider my wish.
I had been too blind to catch her drift. Pressured by the expectant glares from Chloe and Julian, I stubbornly insisted on the jewelry.
Finally, Ruth gave it to me, but I entirely lost her favor.
Now that I had a second chance, there was no way I was repeating that fatal mistake.
Under Julian's intense stare, I spoke loud and clear, "I'm twenty-two now, but I haven't been in a relationship yet. I was hoping you could help me find a reliable guy from a well-matched family."
Ruth was taken aback for a second before letting out a warm laugh. "You're a sweet girl, Hannah. I'll personally see to it."
With her public endorsement, the snobby socialites who had previously ignored me completely changed their tune. Whispers erupted across the room as they desperately tried to figure out my background.
Meanwhile, Chloe was humiliated. Not only did she lose the necklace, but she also felt I had stolen her spotlight.
The second the banquet ended, she threw a crying fit in the car. Once she finished sobbing, Julian finally dropped his Prince Charming act.
"Is your little marriage hunt more important than your sister's happiness?" he demanded, his face darkening with rage.
Of course it was.
In my previous life, Chloe wore that necklace for less than a month before she dropped dead. Our parents were devastated, and they carried that grief for a long time.
They kept digging into what killed Chloe, only to make a horrifying discovery. The sapphire necklace, the one Chloe had guarded like her own heart, was heavily radioactive. Prolonged exposure had rapidly weakened her immune system, causing her organs to fail and her body to literally rot away.
But since the whole city knew Julian was engaged to a daughter of our family, and he was supposedly madly in love with my dead sister, he ended up reluctantly marrying me. Out of nowhere on our wedding night, a letter written in blood was delivered to us. It was a suicide note.
[If I can't live as your wife, then my ghost will haunt you forever. In the end, I still found a way to marry you.]
Julian gripped the note tightly. Overnight, the grief took such a toll on him that his face became completely gaunt and unrecognizable.
From that night on, he never laid a finger on me intimately.
Fed up with the cold shoulder, I constantly picked fights, turning our home into a war zone.
During one of my worst breakdowns, he slapped me across the face so hard.
"If you hadn't begged for that damn necklace, Chloe would still be alive!" he had roared.
He pinned Chloe's death entirely on me. For the rest of our days, he treated me with an icy indifference. He would often get drunk and beat me ruthlessly. I was forced to watch a revolving door of women take turns by his side while he fathered one illegitimate child after another.
Ultimately, those very children plotted together and had me killed in a secluded suburban villa. Down to my final breath, I was utterly, terribly alone.
That monster had already ruined my previous life. I would be damned if I let him pull my strings again. Snapping back to reality amidst his relentless scolding, I met his furious gaze.
"With the Vance family's immense wealth, are you telling me you can't find a single necklace better than this one?" I said indifferently. "You refused to buy one and tried to use me as your errand girl. At the end of the day, you just don't care about her enough, do you?"
- Writer
