Chapter 4

Isabella' s campaign of terror escalated. She decided to frame me. One morning, her diamond necklace, the one she wore to the party, went missing. She made a great show of searching for it, her voice rising in theatrical panic.

"I can't find it anywhere! It was a gift from Julian. It's priceless!"

Of course, it was found in my room, tucked under my pillow. The housekeeper, a woman with frightened eyes who always avoided my gaze, "discovered" it during her morning cleaning. Isabella held it up for Julian to see, her expression a perfect blend of sorrow and betrayal.

"I can't believe it," she said, her voice trembling. "After all you've done for her. To steal from us..."

"I didn't do it," I said, my voice flat and tired. I knew it was useless. The trap had been perfectly laid. "She put it there."

Julian' s eyes were like chips of ice. He didn't even look at Isabella. His gaze was fixed on me, burning with a cold, righteous anger. He didn't question, he didn't investigate. He passed judgment instantly.

"You will kneel in the main hall," he said, his voice quiet but absolute. "From now until I say you can get up. You will kneel there where a thief belongs, so everyone can see what you are."

It was a public shaming, a medieval punishment designed for maximum humiliation. He wanted the staff, the delivery men, anyone who came and went, to see me brought low.

As he turned away, his inner voice lashed out, a strange and twisted justification. She has to be punished. It's for her own good. She's becoming like them, greedy and grasping. I have to save her from it. This is how you save someone. This is the only way. It was the logic of a madman, a torturer convincing himself he was a savior.

I was forced to kneel on the cold marble floor of the grand entrance hall. The stone was hard and unforgiving, pressing into my kneecaps. Hours passed. The staff walked by, their eyes averted. A delivery driver stared openly, his expression a mix of pity and curiosity. Each glance was a fresh wave of shame.

I closed my eyes, retreating into the one place they couldn't touch: my mind. I thought about my illness, about the doctor' s words. My life was a finite thing, a candle burning down. In a strange way, it gave me a sense of peace. This pain, this humiliation, it was all temporary. In the grand scheme of my short life, what did a few hours of kneeling matter? This stoicism was my armor.

Late that night, long after the house had fallen silent, Julian came down. He stood over me, a dark silhouette against the moonlight streaming through the tall windows. He didn't say a word. He just looked at me for a long time. Then, he placed a small bottle of pills and a glass of water on the floor beside me before turning and walking away. It was my pain medication, the one I took for the constant ache in my chest.

It was a gesture of shocking, contradictory kindness. A flicker of the man I used to know. A sliver of hope pierced through my despair. Maybe he wasn't completely lost.

But the hope was short-lived. The next morning, as I struggled to my feet, my legs numb and weak, Isabella appeared. She saw the pill bottle. She picked it up, a slow, cruel smile spreading across her face.

"Oh, look at this," she said, her voice a purr. "He does have a soft spot for you, doesn't he?" She opened the bottle and emptied the pills into her hand. "But we can't have you getting comfortable." And with a flick of her wrist, she tossed them into a nearby trash can. "You don't deserve his kindness."

Her mask of civility was gone. This was pure, unadulterated hatred.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked, my voice hoarse.

She leaned in close, her perfume cloying and sweet. "Because I earned my place here," she whispered, her voice venomous. "I gave up everything for him. My career, my family. I have sculpted myself into the perfect woman for a man like Julian Vance. I will not let some pathetic, sick charity case from his past ruin what I have built."

Her words hit me with the force of a physical blow. She wasn't just jealous. She was fighting a war for her own survival, and I was the enemy she needed to annihilate.

"He will be mine, completely," she continued, her eyes blazing with a terrifying intensity. "And I will erase every last trace of you from his life. I will make him hate you. I will make him destroy you. And he will thank me for it."

She straightened up, her composure perfectly restored. "Now, get back to work. The conservatory glass is filthy." She turned and glided away, leaving me standing there, my body aching, my hope extinguished, and the full, terrifying scope of her malice laid bare.