The scandal enraged the Gilbert patriarch. He demanded Paul take responsibility and marry me. Paul knelt in the ancestral hall for three days and endured dozens of lashes, but the old man wouldn't budge.
We were to be married.
From that day on, Paul's eyes held nothing but pure hatred for me.
On our wedding night, he didn't make love to me. He punished me. He tormented my body until dawn, venting his rage.
Just before darkness claimed me, my phone lit up with a message from Anna.
[Sister, if you think you can just break off the engagement with Paul, you need my permission first.]
[I won't let you get what you want. Paul will hate you for the rest of his life—you'd better be prepared.]
My vision blurred as I read the messages. A chill settled deep in my bones, freezing the blood in my veins.
After Paul took over the company, he became a ghost in our home. On the rare occasions he returned, it was only to spew venom. He called me scheming and sinister, a woman who used dirty tricks to climb the social ladder.
He said looking at me made him sick.
Yet in the bedroom, he was ruthless. Paul never used protection. Whenever he discovered I was pregnant, he dragged me to the clinic to scrape it away.
"Serena Whitmore, didn't you want to be Mrs. Gilbert?" he would say, his voice devoid of warmth. "This is the price."
In three years of marriage, I miscarried four times.
Even when the doctor issued grave warnings about my health, Paul ignored them. A cruel smile played on his lips. "She stole Annie's position. She has to pay."
I cried. I begged for a divorce. But he only swatted my hand away and told me to stop dreaming. He even hunted down the birth control pills I secretly took and flushed them all away.
After the fourth miscarriage, I lay in bed, a hollow shell. That was when Anna sent a photo of her pregnancy test.
[Sister, I'm pregnant! Paul is already picking out names for the baby.]
[It's a pity some people will never see their own children born.]
Something inside me snapped. I dragged my broken body out of bed to confront Anna.
But the moment I got close, before I could even touch her, Anna threw herself to the ground.
Bright red blood pooled beneath her. Paul rushed onto the scene, shoving me aside with enough force to bruise. He scooped her up, his eyes wild with panic as he ran for the hospital.
His parting words were a blade to my heart.