A Love Built On Scorn Chapter 03
After I got home from the IV infusion, Kayla came charging out of Sebastian’s study.
Her eyes were red as she blocked me at the staircase.
“Were you the one who posted these pictures on my school forum?
“Ms. Vernon, I thought you truly didn’t care about anything, just like you pretend not to!
“I never imagined you could be this vicious!
“If Sebastian hadn’t found out in time, you would’ve ruined me!”
Her shrill voice echoed through the stairwell, painfully sharp.
The photos were flung hard into my face.
I lowered my eyes and glanced at them. The images were explicit enough that even a single look was enough to make someone’s face flush and pulse race.
I explained patiently, “Ms. Ludlow, I don’t even know what school you attend. How could I have posted those photos?”
But Kayla had completely lost control. Crying, she rushed at me and hit me with all the strength she had.
“Who else could hate me this much if not you? You hate that Sebastian doesn’t love you. You hate that he’s good to me. That’s why you tried to destroy me like this!”
Her punches came fast and hard. Instinctively, I raised my arms to shield myself.
But in the next second, her foot slipped. Even in that flash of panic, she still remembered to drag me down with her.
The dizzying rush of weightlessness and fear hit me all at once.
My back slammed hard against the floor, and after a heavy thud, my body finally stopped falling.
Pain flooded through me in an instant, surging outward like a tide.
Somewhere through the haze, I heard footsteps rushing closer, quick and frantic.
Sebastian’s voice was full of panic, his words tumbling out in disarray.
But the piercing ringing in my ears was so sharp I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
The last time I had heard Sebastian sound that panicked was the day I discovered my dad had cheated. When I cried for my mom and demanded justice for her, only for my dad to slap me hard across the face.
Back then, Sebastian had stepped in immediately and pulled me behind him. After anxiously checking over me again and again, he used the business partnership between the Wofford and Vernon families to force my dad to lower his head and apologize to me.
Finally, the piercing ringing in my ears faded, and I could hear Sebastian clearly.
“Caitlin, you disgust me.
“I just finished handling the photo issue for you and preserving your reputation, and now you’re trying to get her killed.”
His words came down like a lightning strike, shattering the dream I had almost believed in just moments earlier.
My explanation sounded weak and colorless, my voice shaking from the pain. “It really wasn’t me…”
But Sebastian had no interest in hearing me out.
Before he carried Kayla out, I fought desperately against the sob rising in my throat and called after him with what little consciousness I had left.
“Sebastian, tomorrow’s auction…”
His body paused for a fraction of a second, and when he spoke, his voice was tight with furious restraint. “I’ll go. But only if Kayla is all right.”
The front door slammed shut with a bang.
Only then did the servants dare shriek and call an ambulance.
The next day, I slipped out of the hospital against the doctor’s orders.
People streamed in and out of the auction house. I waited from sunset until moonlight spilled across the ground, but I never once saw the familiar figure I had been hoping for.
Winter in New York was brutal, the damp cold cutting to the bone as the wind swept through.
My body and mind were both in pain, and both numb.
He wasn’t coming.
“Mrs. Wofford? Why are you still here?”
I turned stiffly, and the moment I saw Jonas, a thread of hope rose inside me for no reason at all.
I grabbed his hand, suddenly flustered, my words stumbling over each other. “Did… did Sebastian send you to the auction?”
Under my expectant gaze, Jonas slowly nodded.
There were 32 lots in total, but the emerald bracelet never appeared.
The blood that had just rushed warm through my body froze solid in an instant.
In that moment, I felt like the biggest fool in the world.
“Today is Ms. Ludlow’s birthday. They’re all at the house having a party. Mr. Wofford urgently wanted these items to coax Ms. Ludlow, so he paid extra and had the auction house move things along faster…
“The emerald bracelet… Ms. Ludlow said something that belonged to a dead person was bad luck, so that item was withdrawn…”
I stood in the cold wind, my face frozen stiff, and I had already lost count of how many times tears had blurred my vision.
Sebastian had broken his promise.
I hadn’t gotten Mom’s keepsake, and the remarriage had lost all meaning.
After an unknown stretch of time, I stiffly took out my phone and sent Sebastian a message. “Sebastian, let’s get divorced.”
The message went through, and his reply came almost instantly. “Whatever you want.”
Suddenly, someone slammed hard into my shoulder.
“You, Sebastian’s wife?”
The man abruptly held up the very emerald bracelet I had dreamed of getting back.
“My boss wants to see you.”
In the decadent, liquor-soaked private club, I immediately recognized the man sitting across from me. He was one of the Wofford Group’s biggest rivals.
He got straight to the point.
If I wanted the emerald bracelet, I had to find a way to make Sebastian give up that piece of land downtown.
I lowered my eyes. After a long silence, I rose to my feet. “Sebastian wouldn’t give up anything for me. I’m not the one he loves.”
The man let out a low laugh. Propping his chin on one hand, he smiled with lazy amusement. “So that means you’re completely useless, then?”
The moment he said that, the men behind him stirred. Their sticky, lingering stares made cold spread through my entire body.
I sensed at once that something was wrong. I turned to run, but it was already too late.
“Sebastian’s woman. None of you has had your fun with one of those before, right? Take your time.”
With a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed the emerald bracelet aside.
It hit the floor hard and shattered into pieces.
There was nowhere for me to run. All I could do was watch helplessly as I was dragged into a hellish abyss.
Third Person’s POV
The next day.
Sebastian was shaken awake by a panicked-looking Jonas.
A video had just come through to his phone.
Sebastian was about to swipe it away and delete it in irritation when he accidentally opened it instead.
The person in the video gave a cold, ugly laugh.
“Sebastian, Caitlin had a great body. My men had a hell of a good time with her last night. The only disappointing part was that right up until she died, she kept screaming your name, begging you to save her…”
