Back in the Stone mansion, I could not sleep at all, Damien’s kindness making me confused.
Wandered the hallway to distract myself, I was drawn by the distant sound of piano music.
A sweet–melody drifted through the air making me followed it barefoot, the soft coldness of the tiles passing through my body.
It was then I saw the doors to Damien’s room was open with a small crack in between them.
Inside, Damien sat by a grand piano. The Stone estate’s butler stood nearby, and another
man….a silver–haired doctor watched with a furrowed brow.
As soon as the melody began my smile froze completely.
That melody… I knew it.
At the age of fifteen a letter arrived at my gradma’s residence in countryside saying that I was the Winslet family’s daughter who was swapped but instead of happiness that very night our countryside residence caught fire.
Trapped in the smoke and fire I lost consciousness almost embracing death. For a month after that I went in and out of consciousness while getting treated and the only thing I remembered was this tune that I heard playing on piano.
Later when Alexander said that he loved piano, I naturally thought he was the person who saved my life.
My knees went weak.
“Mr. Stone” the doctor said firmly “You need complete bedrest but here you are exhausting your
body.”
“He won’t listen at all.” the butler added quietly. “Ever since Miss Lavina arrived he follows her no matter how much his body is hurting, he eats only when she eats. Sleeps only after she does. If this continues his health will deteriorate.”
“I warned you Mr.Stone” the doctor cut in, his voice lined with worry. “Your lungs still haven’t recovered from the toxin exposure. The fire corroded your system. Your nerves… they have
worsened.”
I gasped silently. Toxin exposure? Nerve damage?
“You lost the feeling in your legs” the butler added, his voice cracking “for her.”
My heart stopped.
“And yet you haven’t even told Miss Lavina the truth, that not only you saved her from fire and you nearly died for her.”
I pressed my palm to my mouth, my body frozen behind the wall. The room spun, my mind trying to make sense of the truth unraveling in front of me.
“There is nothing to tell.” Damien said finally, his voice low.
“How does that matters at all?I wasn’t there when they tossed her into the Winslet household like she was nothing. I wasn’t there when she was married off to a man who broke her like this and even let endangered her child!”
After Decided to Marni Another Mon MEN
་་
1/9
52.0
“But you were t
And so what he snapped. “She had to endure a seffion men
heartless family members saw he grandmother de white and ineless metered able to ith a fan
eender extreme
what’s
11 was so pathetic Samen mummured. Do you know what it’s veto watch comRESTE YOU COME qet mounted on her own sixteenth Drina Because her chest dicht in the centers that? I begged the staff to defe&STOLET LTE are too was all cou
a
He laughed bitterly, and it shattered something in TE
But Alexander intercepted it. Said it was too good for me aerere mads unftom oversized and wrinkled. The cake? Repleased with some raketed mess from the fee
My knees nearly buckled.
1 hated that I could do nothing that I had to rely on offers to protect her. Blertal Fales
The butler looked at Damien with a sigh. “Wester, you sem Wiss Lavine fovers set princa
You paid her hospital bills when she collapsed from not eating. When she finally had the courage to ask for a divorce, you fired the NINET WTTD TTEDe trappen and even forced free wonde to give her whatever arrangement she wished for
Domien set still, his hands resting uselessly on the rays.
Wester, you lied to Miss Lavine that the clothes in west wing belonged to your sise bu m reality you thorory reserched for which brands she like and bought frem exclusively for re You got her favorite books for her and even explicty warned the read cook that to four in thes household should contain almonds tell me master isn’t it because Wiss Lavina salego D
I stumbled backwards, eyes filled with tears. All those times I thought no one carer?? someone
Those glass slipper like that in Cinderella that I received on my seventeenth birthday?
The small cet on my eighteenth birthday.
An entire set of diamond earrings on Valentine.
All those birthday flowers that were delivered in my office like a lush carpet, all those bills than mysteriously vanished, all those protections in the background they were not given by Alexander..no it was all Damien, from the very beginning it was him.
“If I die tomorrow.” he whispered, “I want it to be her name on the Stone Empire. She was always my first love and only Levine deserves it.”
The air left my lungs.
From the very beginning it wasn’t Alexander..his actions that I feel in love with were never him.
It belonged to Damien.
My savion
And I never even knew
N
2:37 pm
All along this man did everything for me and I…I foolishly had fallen in love with the wrong man
2:37 pm
Chapter 17
