Red wine was poured straight over Serena Caldwell’s head. Her long black hair clung messily to her pale cheeks as she knelt on a floor littered with shattered glass. Blood mixed with the wine, the bright red on the ground harsh enough to sting the eyes.
Around her, the insults just kept coming, ugly and nonstop.
"Look at this country bumpkin. She marries Mr. Mercer and really thinks she’s the lady of the house now? Has she even looked in a mirror? Does she seriously think she’s worthy?"
"That spot should’ve belonged to Miss Caldwell from the start. If you’re gonna be a bootlicker, at least stay in your lane. This punishment is already going easy on her. She totally asked for it."
"She actually thought Ethan Mercer would fall for someone like her? And she even dared hurt and provoke Miss Caldwell? She’s got a death wish or what..."
"What kind of tricks did she use to make Mr. Mercer force Mr. Mercer to marry her? Gotta admit, her methods were next level..."
"Mr. Mercer told her to kneel and she dropped right down. The way she acts so cheap is honestly disgusting."
The crowd’s mockery came sharp and mean, but beneath it, some of the women clearly couldn’t hide their jealousy either. Why should a nobody like Serena get to become Mrs. Mercer?
The broken glass dug into her knees, and the pain made Serena’s body tremble ever so slightly.
But none of that hurt as much as the man’s cold words.
"You disgust me more than a lapdog."
That one sentence cut straight through her heart.
She kept staring at the man holding another woman in his arms, not blinking once.
Ethan Mercer stood there in black slacks and a white shirt, the top buttons undone just enough to show the clean line of his collarbone. His features were sharp, his gaze deep and severe, and his whole presence carried that dangerous, grown-man edge that made people instinctively back off.
Too bad the way he looked at her held nothing but disgust and indifference.
"Drink all of these, and I’ll let this go. Otherwise, I won’t forget that you hurt Vanessa," Ethan said, his voice icy.
On the table sat more than a dozen glasses, some filled with liquor, some with red wine.
"Ethan, no matter what, she’s still your wife. This is a bit much. The glass only left me with a tiny cut. It’s really nothing serious..."
Vanessa Caldwell spoke in a soft, aggrieved tone from his arms, like she was trying to defend Serena. But when her eyes met Serena’s, the challenge in them was completely undisguised.
To her, Serena was just some dirt-poor nobody. So what if she had become Ethan Mercer’s wife? Vanessa never took her seriously.
No matter when, as long as she made the slightest move toward him, Ethan would come right back.
If she hadn’t gone abroad for five years, how could this shameless woman have stolen her place?
"I’m standing up for you." Ethan Mercer’s voice was cool and flat, almost empty of emotion.
Just one hard sentence, leaving no room to argue, and making it crystal clear he was backing Vanessa Caldwell.
Did he really think he couldn’t see through Serena Caldwell? He’d warned her on their wedding day already: don’t play games with him. If she wanted to stay, then be Mrs. Mercer properly. If not, get out.
Maybe he’d been too lenient with her lately. So lenient that she’d started pushing her luck, even daring to hurt Vanessa.
"Heh..." Serena let out a soft laugh. The curve of her lips was full of mockery, but the light in her eyes faded bit by bit until there was nothing left except bottomless sorrow.
In the end, she was the one who’d been wrong. Wrong in the most ridiculous way.
Five whole years. Everything she had given, all of it, still meant less than the woman who had thrown him away and left.
So the so-called white moonlight really was every man’s soft spot.
It was obviously Vanessa who had deliberately loosened her grip on the cup Serena passed over. It smashed onto the floor, and the flying glass just happened to cut her leg. Yet somehow, that turned Serena into the scheming villain who wanted to hurt his precious white moonlight.
The one who is loved will always be favored. The one who isn’t loved is just tragic, plain and simple.
She had given with all her heart, and in the end, she still lost. She could not make him fall for her.
He was Ethan Mercer.
Not her Ayan.
Just a stranger carrying Ayan’s heart. No matter how much she gave, that heart was no longer Ayan’s. It would never beat for her again.
Her Ayan would never have made her hurt like this, let alone wound her with his own hands.
He would always, always have protected her first.
But Ayan had been dead for a long time.
She had been living like a walking corpse, and she should have snapped out of this fantasy ages ago.
At last, she understood.
What she wanted was to protect Ayan’s heart, not keep treating Ethan like Ayan and trampling herself into the dirt.
"I’m not drinking."
Serena Caldwell braced one hand on the table and slowly pushed herself up from the floor. When she spoke, her voice was rough and hoarse, but every word landed in the room like a stone dropped into still water.
The fantasy was over.
She was finally awake.
She was still running a fever. She had taken cephalosporin earlier, and her head was still foggy, heavy, like it was stuffed with cotton. She knew exactly what it meant to drink all that alcohol in this state. If she did, she might just die on the spot and go straight underground to see Yan.