- 6.
“Anya Hayes!” Julian Thorne, eyes bloodshot, stormed onto the stage. “Who gave you permission to marry him?!”
Liam Blackwood stepped in front of me. “Brother, Anya is the bride chosen by millions of viewers. Your wife is waiting for you behind you, so please don’t interrupt my wedding.”
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PP་ས་་་ ་་པ་་་པ་
for you behind you, so please don’t interrupt my wedding.”
He emphasized the word “chosen.”
Maya Hayes stumbled after him, but Julian Thorne didn’t even spare her a glance. He pointed at Liam Blackwood, sneering, “A crippled illegitimate son, how dare he…”
“Enough!” I cut him off. “Are you afraid of me entering the Blackwood family, or are you afraid…” I deliberately lowered my voice, “your secrets will be exposed?”
Julian Thorne’s face instantly went ashen, his fists clenching audibly.
“Three seconds,” I held up my fingers. “Either sit down and watch the ceremony, or…” I gestured towards the microphone.
“Fine! Excellent!” He laughed in fury, sinking heavily back into his seat, but could only watch helplessly as Liam Blackwood and I completed our wedding.
After the wedding, he spat a harsh threat at Liam Blackwood, “Let’s see if you can protect her for life!”
I clutched Liam’s hand, saying nothing.
It wasn’t time yet.
But less than three days later, my car was intercepted on the way home.
The last thing I saw before losing consciousness was a fleeting dark shadow.
When I opened my eyes again, the familiar musty smell filled my nostrils.
Julian Thorne’s villa basement.
Memories of a life worse than death instantly flooded back. I instinctively curled into a ball.
As if he’d noticed I was awake, the iron door creaked open.
But the person who entered was Maya Hayes.
“What’s your relationship with Julian Thorne? Why is there an oil painting of you in his villa basement?”
Maya gripped my chin, forcing me to look at the oil painting in the corner.
On the canvas, a girl smiled on a grassy lawn.
I saw that face every day in the mirror.
But only the unique mole on the tip of the nose proved it was Maya.
That was our only difference.
In my past life, when I was imprisoned, I had accidentally stumbled upon Julian Thorne pleasuring himself while staring at this painting.
“Looked for her for five years” Iulian Thorne bad murmured
burning in his evec D
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“I looked for her for five years,” Julian Thorne had murmured, choking my neck, a sick obsession churning in his eyes. “I forgot everything… I only remembered that I had to find her… It’s all your fault… I finally found her…!”
But why would Maya say the person in the painting was me?
I unconsciously voiced the question in my mind.
“Ha!” Maya suddenly poked at the background of the oil painting. “This dirt–poor, backwater village looks exactly like your wretched hometown! I even saw this lawn in that valley when I went for my art project.”
She fiercely scraped her fingernail across the nose of the person in the painting–and that brownish “mole” fell off like
dust.
“Anyone who’s studied art can tell at a glance…” she mocked. “Paint oxidation forms a film, but this is just dirt stuck on
later.”
Before I could fully process this fact, I heard the door behind me creak open.
Julian Thorne burst in like a raging beast, grabbing Maya’s throat. “What did you just say?”
His fingers trembled nervously. “That painting… who is it of?”
But before she could answer, his fingers suddenly loosened, and Maya fell to the floor like a rag doll.
He stared fixedly at the oil painting, then slowly turned towards me, chained up. The bright, smiling face of the girl in the painting perfectly matched my pale face before him.
“So… his voice was hoarse, almost breaking. “I was looking for… all along…”
