Part 3His Marriage Was a Backdoor to My Sister

Rhys was found and brought home, but he had significant memory loss.

I didn’t go to the hospital with them.

I knew the truth of what happened at Rhys and Genevieve’s engagement party years ago. Someone had spiked Rhys’s drink, and I had been trapped with him in a secluded room.

His heavy breathing was hot on my neck. I was screaming, terrified, when finally someone found us. I stumbled out, clutching my torn dress, reeling from the terror.

But when I looked up, everyone was staring at me with a look of vile judgment.

My father’s hand swung across my face. The slap made my ears ring, and he was breathing heavily, his chest heaving with rage.

“Shameful!” he roared. “How dare you destroy your sister’s engagement party like this?”

Rhys, the drug's effect now fading, and Genevieve looked at me with pure disgust.

“Sister, your engagement to Rhys was an outdated arrangement by our parents,” Genevieve said, her voice dripping with scorn. “He doesn't love you. Why are you grasping for something that isn't yours?”

Rhys added, his voice ice cold, “Did you stoop this low because I broke off the engagement? I always thought you were just dull and boring. I underestimated your sheer malice.”

“Get out. I never want to see you again.”

No matter how I explained, they refused to believe me. I became a transparent ghost in my own home. Slowly, I stopped speaking altogether.

The only person who claimed to believe me was Callum.

Though even he said, “Aubrey, of course I believe you.”

“But apologize to Genevieve. It’s her important day, and you ruined it.”

Later, he proposed, saying that marrying him would silence the gossips.

Now, Genevieve was sobbing in his arms, venting her frustration over Rhys’s memory loss. Callum’s hand stroked her shoulder, an endless stream of tenderness in his touch. Genevieve, needing a reaction from Rhys, asked Callum to pretend to be her boyfriend and provoke him.

The next thing I heard was that Rhys and Callum had gotten into a fistfight.

They stood confronting each other like two lions defending their territory. Rhys, predictably, was being cruel.

“I suddenly remembered, isn’t your wife my ex-fiancée? You just go around picking up my sloppy seconds, don’t you?”

Callum grabbed Rhys’s collar, squeezing so hard Rhys could only gasp for air.

“What are you so proud of?” Callum spat out, his face a mask of fury.

“If I hadn't been watching Aubrey’s every move and sent someone to find her, your little plot to drug him would have worked. You would have been completely out of the picture!”

The last wire holding my sanity snapped.

The only fragile strand of trust I had clung to—that Callum had married me out of true compassion—was just his self-serving lie: “I watched her, so she couldn't do anything worse.”

“I sacrificed my own happiness, and I’ve been putting up with Aubrey for you for years! That’s enough!”

They tossed me between them like unwanted trash.

Callum took Genevieve away for a vacation. Three days after they left, a whole design team and a contractor arrived at the house.

“Mr. Thorne instructed us to complete the remodel before his return.”

I saw his long list of requirements: the room layout, the flowers in the courtyard, the furniture brands. Everything was to be changed to fit Genevieve's preferences.

I packed my own belongings and watched as they took down my illustrations, turned my art studio into a music room, and tore out all the flowers in the garden to replant them.

I remembered the day we moved in, when Callum had affectionately ruffled my hair. “I used to live here alone, but now it’s ours. We can design it exactly the way you like.”

Back then, no matter what I suggested, Callum would smile warmly and say, “Yes, whatever you like is fine.”

He never interfered, never questioned.

Now I knew. It wasn't devotion; it was indifference. For the person he truly loved, he was diligent and devoted, fussing over the temperature of the room.