Chapter 1
At my engagement banquet with Callum Voss, he never showed up. All I received instead was a premature newborn baby and a recorded video message.
"Liora is struggling with postpartum depression. I need to take her away for a change of scenery to help her recover. Just look after the child for now. I promise I'll explain everything properly when I return. You've never been in the best of health and can't have children anyway. I feel perfectly safe leaving this little one with you."
The screen went blank, and the entire grand hall fell into a deathly hush. Every pair of eyes in the room turned toward me, eager to watch me squirm. I was overwhelmed by a deep, burning sense of humiliation.
To make matters worse, even my own family pressed me to take the child and raise it.
"Liora is your younger sister. Her baby might as well be yours! But right now, she simply cannot bear to be apart from Callum. Can't you be generous and let her have her way?"
I let out a hollow, bitter laugh.
That very same night, I packed my bags and left the country without a word.
*****
Five years later, I received an invitation to an exclusive high‑society gala. There, Callum suddenly appeared and grabbed my wrist tightly, his tone sharp and accusatory.
"Cerys! All I asked was for you to help care for a child for a little while. Was it really so unforgivable that you had to run off and vanish for nearly six whole years?!"
I wrenched my hand away instantly. Without a second thought, I raised my palm and slapped him hard across the face.
If that jealous husband of mine ever found out that another man had touched me, I wouldn't be walking straight for a week.
Callum stood frozen, completely stunned.
"What is the meaning of this?"
When I said nothing, his tone softened slightly.
"Look... I admit I acted without telling you first. But Liora was so unwell and at risk of doing something drastic. I could not just stand by and watch. I know you felt wronged back then. Come home with me now, and we can plan our wedding again properly..."
"What makes you so certain I would still be foolish enough to wait for you?" I cut in sharply, lacing my words with biting sarcasm.
I could not help but recall how he had abandoned me, leaving me the laughingstock of the entire social circle. I still trembled thinking of all those mocking stares and jeers that day, and the harsh blame heaped on me by my own family.
Long before this moment, I should have realized his heart had already changed, back when he gave in again and again to Liora's every whim, and joined my parents in pressuring me to yield time and time again.
Callum froze mid‑breath, his mouth opening to speak. Just then, I saw my father and mother hurrying toward us.
It had been seven years since I last saw them, yet the first words out of their mouths were not words of concern, but sharp, biting rebuke.
"Cerys! How dare you show your face here after all these years? You vanished without a word and never reached out. How did I ever raise such an ungrateful child?!"
I held back the wave of emotion rising in my chest and let out a weary, bitter smile.
"Didn't you yourselves drive me out of the family home back then? You even told me I should step aside and let Liora have my fiancé."
Hearing whispers and stares from nearby onlookers, my father's face flushed deep red. His voice dropped low and heavy, "Enough! She is your sister. Must you speak so cruelly?"
My mother quickly chimed in to back him up, "I know you still harbor resentment, dear. But we did it for the sake of the whole family back then. Did you truly want to watch Liora fall apart? Now that you are back, let all that be water under the bridge."
I wanted to tell her the past no longer mattered to me, and far more importantly, that I would never return to that house. But before the words could leave my mouth, another voice cut in from behind them.
"See? I have always said she is selfish by nature, nowhere near as obedient and sensible as Liora."
I looked up and saw my older brother, the same brother who had once doted on me more than anyone else, now staring at me with undisguised disgust, as if I were his greatest enemy.
My parents, too, wore faces full of blame and disappointment.
A dull, throbbing ache still stabbed through my heart, despite all these years.
At last, I forced a faint, calm smile. "You are right, I can never compare myself to her. If that is truly how everyone feels, then from this day onward, consider that I no longer exist in the family."
My mother immediately lunged forward and grabbed my arm tightly. "What nonsense are you saying? You are my own daughter!"
Yes, I should have been. If I had not secretly arranged a paternity test years ago, I too might still have clung to that belief.
Before Liora was ever taken into the family, I was the cherished, beloved young heiress of the Green household. Yet she had managed, simply by wearing that soft, innocent‑looking mask, to steal away my parents' affection, my brother's regard, and even the devotion of my own fiancé, without ever seeming to lift a finger. She was cunning and knew exactly how to win favor.
As for me, the pride and confidence I had grown into under their loving care had slowly been twisted into a flaw, a weapon they all used against me.
To plot against me, she had even been willing to ruin her own reputation, spreading lies that I had hired men to harass her. She had once even knelt before the entire family, begging me tearfully not to leak an intimate video she falsely claimed I had recorded.
Everyone believed I was arrogant and cruel beyond measure, and so I was cast out, while their adopted daughter was wrapped in endless love and protection.
Back then, I had consoled myself that no matter how little my family cared, I still had Callum. We had grown up side by side, surely he would never betray me. But in the end, he too broke that promise.
Thank goodness, by then, I had already found someone far more worthy of my trust, and far more capable of standing firmly by my side.
