Never Too Late to Return

Cassian released me at once and turned to steady Sorrel.

Her body sagged, collapsing forward—straight onto me.

A sudden warmth spread down my legs. I looked down. A bright red pool was blooming beneath her. Sorrel clutched her stomach, her sobs piercing.

“I told you I wouldn’t fight you anymore! Why won’t you even spare my child? You stopped taking the medicine and pretended to have amnesia—just to take revenge on me today, didn’t you?”

The words detonated in Cassian’s mind like a thunderclap. His expression turned black, his voice sharp enough to cut.

“Search!”

The servants ransacked my room and dragged out a dust-covered box from under the bed. Inside lay the pills I had hidden away for years. Untouched.

Bang!

The slap threw me to the ground. Pain stung my cheek, but Cassian’s words cut deeper, spat through clenched teeth:

“So you’ve been lying to me all these years.”

“You never loved me at all!”

They locked me up. They pressed my fingerprints onto the divorce papers.

From the servant who brought me food, I learned the news: Cassian would marry Sorrel.

In the official statement, I was branded the mistress. My marriage had been nothing but a revenge ploy. The world believed everything was set right.

I was the one being sent abroad.

Even then, Cassian overdosed me with medication, clouding my mind until days and nights blurred together. He never stopped dosing me—because deep down, he still believed I would never love him.

The night before my flight, he came to my room. His hand stroked my face with a tenderness more frightening than his violence.

“If only you could love me.”

I smiled back at him, vacant, foolish.

At dawn, they bundled me onto the plane. My body wrapped tight, unrecognizable, I sat among strangers.

All around me, passengers whispered excitedly about Cassian and Sorrel’s historic wedding. Their voices buzzed with envy and admiration.

I only wondered absently—who was Cassian?

By the time the plane lifted into the sky, I had already let the question go. The affairs of strangers were none of my concern.

…

At the wedding, Cassian toasted from table to table, his smile polished and triumphant.

An old high school classmate—someone he had not seen in years—offered his congratulations. Like him, this man had once been humiliated by Elowen’s money.

After a few drinks, he asked lightly, “Is Elowen doing well?”

Cassian’s brows furrowed. “She humiliated you too. Don’t you hate her?”

The man gave a bitter laugh.

“She smashed what I treasured. It cost me three years of living expenses. But it also won me sympathy. If I hated her, wouldn’t I be ungrateful?”

His tone turned sharp.

“But you and I—our situations were different. She sympathized with me.”

The man’s gaze grew heavy, almost mocking.

“But she liked you.”