I Wore White While He Told Me I Was Never the Bride Chapter 08

I Wore White While He Told Me I Was Never the Bride Chapter 08

The locks on my mother’s house had been changed.

With the police present, Grant had a licensed locksmith open the door.

The moment it swung inward, the smell of mildew washed over us.

Cardboard boxes were piled across the living room floor. My mother’s books had been thrown into a corner, and several picture frames had been smashed.

A new carved wooden heart hung from one of the magnolia tree’s branches, engraved with Mia and Julian’s names.

I stared at it, then reached up and tore it down.

The wooden heart struck the ground and split in half.

Mia screamed.

“What gives you the right to touch my things?”

I turned toward her.

“This is my mother’s home.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

She started to curse at me, but Julian grabbed her arm.

He looked around at the wreckage, his voice painfully hoarse.

“Did you do all this?”

Mia’s eyes reddened.

“I was only cleaning the place up.”

“It’s bad luck to keep a dead woman’s things around.”

Julian raised his hand and slapped her.

“Shut up.”

Mia covered her face, staring at him in disbelief.

“You hit me?”

Julian did not look at her.

His gaze had landed on a broken frame near the wall.

It held a photograph of my mother as a young woman, holding me in her arms.

He slowly bent down and picked it up.

A shard of glass cut his hand, but he seemed not to feel it.

“Evelyn, I’m sorry.”

I ignored him and walked straight into the study.

At the bottom of the bookcase, I opened a hidden compartment.

Inside were a stack of yellowed documents, a diary, and an old voice recorder.

The attorney pulled on gloves and began carefully sealing each item as evidence.

Grandma picked up the recorder first and held it out to me.

“Whether you listen is up to you.”

I pressed Play.

Static crackled for several seconds.

Then my mother’s voice filled the room, soft and exhausted.

“Evelyn, if you’re hearing this, it means I still failed to protect you.”

“I was never the other woman.”

“When I married Richard Sloan, Vanessa was still working at a nightclub.”

“Later, he wanted the Bennett family’s money, but he refused to give up the woman he was seeing.”

“He had Vanessa pretend to be the victim and made me take the blame.”

“I tried to explain.”

“But he used you to threaten me.”

“He said that if I ever tried to report him, he would make sure you could never hold your head up again.”

The recording went silent for a long time.

When my mother finally spoke again, her voice was choked with tears.

“Evelyn, don’t make the same mistake I did.”

“If someone ever uses love to force you to submit, run.”

No one in the living room spoke.

Dad was on his knees, his face deathly pale.

My stepmother lunged for the recorder.

“It’s fake!”

“All of it is fake!”

The attorney stepped directly in front of her.

“Ms. Sloan, the police will determine whether the recording is authentic.”

Grant placed an old newspaper on the table.

“There’s also this.”

“The defamatory story was originally sent from Vanessa Sloan’s email account.”

My stepmother collapsed onto the floor.

Mia stood frozen.

She had spent years using the lies about my mother to wound me.

Now she knew that her own mother had been the one who wrecked another woman’s marriage.

Julian stood in the doorway without a trace of color in his face.

He looked at me, his voice barely holding together.

“Evelyn.”

“I didn’t know.”

I raised my eyes to him.

“Julian.”

“You knew exactly where I was most vulnerable.”

“And you chose to hurt me there anyway.”

His lips trembled.

“I was wrong.”

I nodded.

“You were.”

“But I don’t forgive you.”

…

After that day, the scandal spread faster than I had expected.

Clips from the wedding livestream flooded the internet.

The footage of Julian slapping me and ordering his guards to strip off my wedding dress was cut into countless videos.

Sterling Holdings’ stock fell for three straight days.

Business partners rushed to terminate their contracts.

The Sloan family business fared even worse.

Once the forged mortgage documents came to light, the bank immediately froze its line of credit.

Dad and my stepmother were taken in for questioning.

Mia did not escape scrutiny either.

She was suspected of falsifying a medical report confirming a pregnancy, unlawfully entering my mother’s house, and deliberately destroying my mother’s belongings.

On the day she was summoned for questioning, she was still causing a scene outside the Sterling residence.

“Julian, you can’t abandon me!”

“I’m your wife!”

Julian stood on the front steps, exhaustion filling his eyes.

“Sign the divorce papers.”

Mia tore them to pieces.

“In your dreams!”

“If I’m going to be miserable, I’ll make sure you are too.”

“Don’t forget, you were the one who promised to make me Mrs. Sterling.”

“You were the one who abandoned Evelyn and went to City Hall to marry me.”

Julian closed his eyes.

“Yes.”

“And I deserve to pay for it too.”

He did not look at her again. He turned and got into his car.

That evening, he came to my mother’s house.

I was supervising the workers as they cleared away everything Mia had destroyed.

Beneath the magnolia tree, Grant stood talking with Grandma.

Julian stopped outside the gate with our engagement ring in his hand.

He had lost a great deal of weight, and his suit was wrinkled.

“Evelyn.”

“I only came to return the ring.”

I glanced at it.

He had placed that ring on my finger when he proposed.

That night, he had knelt beneath the magnolia tree, his hands trembling with nerves.

He had said, “Evelyn Bennett, I will never leave you alone again.”

I believed him for seven years.

Now, clutched in his hand, the ring looked like a cruel joke.

“Throw it away,” I said.

Julian’s eyes immediately reddened.

“Do you really feel nothing for what we had?”

I asked, “When you ordered your guards to strip off my wedding dress, did you feel anything for me?”

His throat tightened.

After a long silence, he said quietly, “I thought that as long as the wedding went on, you would still be there.”

“I was afraid the wedding would fall apart. I was afraid the Sterling family would be humiliated, and I was afraid Mia would make a scene.”

“The one thing I never considered was that you might be scared.”

I looked at him.

“So it wasn’t me you loved.”

“You loved the version of Evelyn who would never leave and would always forgive you.”

Tears slid down Julian’s face.

“I understand that now.”

“Evelyn, give me one more chance.”

“I’ll turn myself in. I’ll apologize publicly. I’ll give you my shares in Sterling Holdings.”

“I’ll do anything you ask.”

Grant walked over and stopped one step behind me.

He did not interrupt.

When Julian saw him, pain flashed through his eyes.

“Are you already planning to be with him?”

“That has nothing to do with you,” I said.

Julian suddenly laughed, though it looked worse than crying.

“You’re right.”

“I don’t even have the right to ask.”

He placed the ring on the stone step beside the gate.

“I’ll leave it here.”

“You can throw it away if you want.”

I turned to the butler.

“Put it in the trash.”

The butler immediately picked it up.

Julian watched as the ring disappeared into a black garbage bag, and his body swayed.

Grant suddenly spoke up.

“Mr. Sterling.”

“It’s time for you to leave.”

Julian looked at him.

“Will you treat her well?”

Grant answered calmly, “You’re the last person who gets to ask that.”

Julian said nothing else.

He walked away with his back bowed.

He looked as though he had aged ten years overnight.