Once the Love Was Dead

At my wedding, the giant screen suddenly flashed a compromising video of me in a hotel room with Donovan's business arch-nemesis.

Donovan didn't fly into a rage. Instead, he silenced the room with a look and calmly finished the ceremony with me.

But the moment the reception was over, I found him with his arms around my stepsister, Blair, hissing that I was a disgusting liar.

For the next three years, he and Blair paraded through high-society events, turning me, his actual wife, into the laughingstock of New York City.

I tried desperately to win him back, right up until the day I lost our baby. That was the day I finally gave up.

Once the love was dead, I finally let go.

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1

When the doctor told me I'd miscarried, I could hear the envious chatter of hospital volunteers from the hallway.

"Mr. Hawthorne is so devoted to Blair! She had a little scare, and he dropped a deal worth hundreds of millions without a second thought just to be with her. The entire VIP ward is overflowing with lavish gifts and gourmet supplements. I just saw him feeding her soup himself!"

"That's so romantic! I guess that's how a Wall Street tycoon does romance! But isn't he married?"

"You mean that infamous liar? The one who cheated on her husband right before the wedding. Mr. Hawthorne's just being charitable by letting her keep the name and a roof over her head. She has no right to be called Mrs. Hawthorne otherwise."

Hearing the word "liar," I remembered our wedding night. Donovan had called me the same thing.

That night, I had rushed into our suite in my wedding dress. Before I could speak, I saw them—Donovan and Blair, tangled together on the sofa in the lounge.

The moment I recognized their faces, my first instinct was to hurl the first thing I could get my hands on at them.

Donovan shielded Blair, smoothed her rumpled clothes, and coolly called for a private car to take her home before his eyes finally landed on me.

My composure shattered. I was crying, screaming, demanding to know why.

He just flicked a piece of imaginary lint from his expensive suit.

"Drop the devoted wife act, Juliet. It doesn't suit a liar like you."

I cried until I dry-heaved. "Donovan, you can't do this to me! And why her, of all people!"

"You know what she and her mother did! They drove my mom to suicide!"

In the next second, Donovan's cold eyes turned bloodshot. He kicked the glass coffee table, sending it shattering across the floor.

"Now you know how it feels, don't you, Juliet?"

"I put you on a pedestal. For years, I held back, never touching you, even when it drove me insane, because I didn't want to scare you. And for what? So you could turn around and sleep with that bastard Jasper?"

"What do you take me for!"

It was because of that video.

The day before the wedding, someone had drugged me and Jasper Knight. We woke up in the same bed.

I got a medical exam immediately after, and it confirmed what we both remembered from before blacking out: nothing had happened.

I had planned to find the right time after the wedding to explain it all to Donovan, but I never imagined someone would play that maliciously edited video at the ceremony.

The pain was so sharp I could barely breathe. All I could do was sob and explain, "I don't know who set us up, but I swear nothing happened between Jasper and me!"

Donovan let out a frigid laugh, his voice laced with ice.

"Juliet, do you really think I'd still believe you?"

I lifted my head. "If you don't believe me, then why did you go through with the wedding? Why marry me?"

He suddenly grabbed the nape of my neck, his eyes utterly devoid of love.

"For revenge. You love to act? Fine. Then you'll live in this lie for the rest of your life."

"Juliet, I'm going to make the rest of your life a thousand times more painful than what you've put me through today."

The very next day, Donovan took Blair on a private jet to St. Barts for the honeymoon that should have been ours.

Donovan, who had always hated having his picture taken, hired a professional photographer for Blair. He posed for hundreds of intimate shots with her, just so she could plaster them all over her social media.

By then, the news of the "compromising video" had exploded across New York.