After 99 Forgiveness, I Faked My Death and Vanished

### Chapter 5

Randolph sat on the couch, clothes half off, Lily coiled around him like a snake, her face flushed nearly red enough to bleed.

The moans and ragged breathing mixed with the sound of the couch knocking against the wall, and the cold spread through me.

When she saw me, Lily screamed.

Randolph froze for a second, then yanked his shirt over to cover her.

The scene in front of me was like some warped nightmare, the sour smell of it rolling toward me. I forced down the shaking in my body and asked him,

"Why did you destroy the nursery? Why did you burn the letters I wrote to my baby? Why give her the pacifier too?"

Lily's eyes went red at once. She shrank into Randolph's arms, her voice catching on a sob.

"I—I'm sorry, I get so anxious, I keep biting my nails, so Randolph gave the pacifier to me."

"I didn't know the ashes in the sachet were the letters you wrote to your baby. If I'd known, I never would have taken it."

She wept in little hiccuping gasps, as if she were the one who'd been horribly wronged.

I clenched my fists, the nails driving deep into the cut in my palm, blood running down.

Randolph only let out a contemptuous little laugh. He kissed Lily's cheek to soothe her, his tone utterly indifferent.

"They were just worthless junk. Put to use on you, they're worth more."

Worthless junk?

That room. From the first day I knew I was pregnant, I had poured every ounce of love into it.

I'd painted the picture on the wall stroke by stroke. The pacifier had taken months of searching the world over, asking everyone I could, before I settled on it. The letters I'd written night after night, deep into the dark. I'd thought I would keep writing them until she was grown, a gift to hand her when she came of age, the most precious thing she'd ever receive.

All of it ruined by her own father, just to make his mistress smile.

My voice scraped out of my throat, hoarse.

"Randolph, those things took me searching all over the world to get. I put so much into them—"

"Enough." He cut me off, his voice thick with irritation. "Can you stop making a scene? Lily's not even holding the past against you. She's willing to be the child's godmother. You should learn from her. Be more forgiving. Be kinder."

Destroying everything I'd poured my heart into for my baby, all to win his mistress a smile.

That was forgiving? That was kind?

"My child does not need a mistress for a godmother!"

I closed my eyes and held back the tears about to spill over.

I had always believed that, at least when it came to the child, he would do right by it. Only now did I understand how foolish I'd been.

The baby wasn't even born yet, and already he could strip away everything that should have been hers without a second thought, just to please another woman.

I didn't dare imagine it. If this child were really born, would she end up like Snow White, denied her father's protection, driven step by step into a corner by someone else?

I had still held one thin sliver of hope that Randolph could be a good father. In that instant, he destroyed my last illusion without mercy.

I couldn't speak.

His dark gaze dropped to my belly. Then he set Lily down gently, pulled his pants on without hurry, and walked toward me.

"All right, don't act like I've done something terrible to you." He hooked my chin up with a fingertip, the way he handled his mistresses. He looked at my red, swollen eyes. "Poor thing. I'll make it up to you."

His face wore that charming smile he always had, the smile that had once made me feel I was everything to him.

But when I looked at him now, this face I had spent ten years beside and loved for five had become so strange to me, twisted like a devil's.

The highest point in this city had once been where we began.

We had fought side by side here, building the new map of the Farley empire under the late-night lights, sketching out our dream of an empire on blank paper.

Dawn would break across the skyline, witness to an understanding that belonged only to us. On that couch, two figures had always lain sprawled, drained to nothing.

But now there was only a filthy stain left on it.

Precious documents scattered across the floor, trampled, footprints stamped over them.

Everything before me was foul beyond words.

"No need. Save it for your mistress."