Chapter 3

Clara POV

The next morning at breakfast, when I came downstairs, Stella was already sitting next to Liam.

My seat was now Stella's.

The atmosphere at the dining table was pleasant; the staff served with smiles.

Liam took a sip of coffee, tapped his fork against his glass. The sound wasn't loud, but everyone fell silent.

His gaze swept across the room, finally resting on me. His tone was casual, as if announcing a minor detail.

"From now on, Stella is my girlfriend."

He paused, then added,

"I'm going to marry her."

My hands, holding the fork and knife, didn't stop. I continued to cut my fried egg.

He pointed his fork in my direction, his voice sharpening with a warning.

"Especially you, Clara. Be polite to my future wife. Don't cause me any trouble."

Future wife.

My knife scraped the plate, a sharp, grating sound.

I looked up and nodded.

"I understand, Liam."

I finished everything on my plate, put down my fork and knife, and prepared to leave.

"Liam..."

Stella, beside him, suddenly had tears welling up in her eyes. Her voice was soft, a tearful sob filled with grievance.

"Clara... she... she doesn't welcome me, does she? If she doesn't like me, maybe I should just leave..."

As she spoke, tears clung to her lashes, as if she'd suffered some great injustice.

This, of course, infuriated Liam.

"Sit down!"

He barked at me, his voice dripping with undisguised fury.

"Who told you to leave?"

I sat back down as ordered.

"Is that how you behave?"

He stared at me as if inspecting a flawed product.

"Is this how I taught you? Stella will be the lady of this house from now on. Don't you even know basic etiquette?"

I lowered my eyes, saying nothing.

I ate this breakfast slower than ever.

Half an hour later, my room door was abruptly thrown open, hitting the wall with a loud bang.

Liam stormed in, carrying a chill.

He slammed the door shut behind him, approaching me step by step, his eyes dark.

"Why are you avoiding me?"

He stood before me, looking down, "What was that attitude at the breakfast table?"

I looked up.

"I wasn't."

He let out a humorless laugh, grabbing my chin and forcing me to look up.

"Are you upset? Because of Stella?"

His tone held a hint of pathological pleasure, as if my jealousy satisfied some secret vanity of his.

I remained silent.

My silence completely infuriated him. He let go of my chin, turned to my desk, and roughly pulled open a drawer.

He pulled out a thick stack of letters, scattering them across the floor with a flick of his wrist.

They were love letters I had written for ten years but never sent.

His leather shoe stepped on a letter, the sole grinding over my handwriting.

"Clara, you truly disgust me."

He humiliated me word by word, his voice cold as ice.

"You know Stella is the only one in my heart, yet you secretly write these things. Do you think I don't know your intentions? Your secret, hidden love disgusts me!"

I looked at the letter under his foot. I had written it when I was sixteen, with a crude drawing of a small figure and "Happy Birthday, Liam" beside it.

Liam bent down, leaning close to my ear.

His breath brushed my ear, his voice barely a whisper, meant only for us to hear.

"Luckily," he said,

"It's a good thing you didn't offer yourself to me as an antidote yesterday, or I'd be disgusted for life."

He straightened up, giving me one last look, his eyes filled with undisguised contempt.

"You're not worthy."

He slammed the door shut.

I stood there for a long time.

Then, I picked up the scattered letters from the floor, one by one.

I didn't read them. I just neatly stacked them and fed them into the shredder under my desk.

The shredder hummed, turning ten years of my love into unrecognizable confetti.

After doing all that, I reached under my bed and pulled out a dusty handbag.

It opened to reveal seven items lying silently inside.

I took out the first one.

It was a pen, engraved with my initials, his sixteenth birthday gift to me.

I gripped both ends of the pen, using all my strength.

Snap.

I snapped the pen cleanly in two.

I let go, and the two broken pieces dropped into the nearby trash can.