Chapter 2After Giving Me Away In Marriage, My Brother Regretted It

I woke up to the sharp, cutting voice of a woman.

Blinking my eyes open, I saw Lila Greer standing before me, her presence so different from my disheveled state. She was dressed in the height of fashion, her lips painted in bright red lipstick, exuding the air of a high-society debutante.

Watching me struggle to sit up, she looked down at me with a sneer.

“Three years, and this is what you’ve become? If anyone knew you were the eldest daughter of the Greer family, wouldn’t they just die of shame?”

She continued, “Harlan specifically told me to bring you home. If you still care about him, you’ll divorce that simpleton and stop wasting your life waiting for him to get out of prison.”

“I’m not getting divorced,” I said, laughing coldly. “You haven’t changed a bit, still just as sharp-tongued as ever.”

Lila was my younger sister, though unlike me and Harlan, she wasn’t raised with us. She was kidnapped at the age of eight by traffickers. By the time she was found and brought home, our parents had already passed away.

Because of this, Lila never had the poised grace of other high-society women. Instead, she carried a bitterness that showed in her every word, always ready to kick someone when they were down.

A flicker of something malicious crossed her face but quickly disappeared as she regained her composure.

“So what? Do you really think saying something like that would make me angry?”

“And don’t think that refusing to divorce him means Harlan can’t do anything about it. He saw this coming, you know. He sent me not just to bring you home but to give you something.”

A sinking feeling settled in my stomach as I watched her pull a piece of paper from her designer bag and toss it in front of me with a mocking smile.

“You let your own brother force you to marry a simpleton, and now that simpleton is rotting in prison, yet here you are, still waiting.”

“Violet, you’re such a fool.”

I didn’t listen to the rest of her taunts. My eyes locked onto the paper. My blood ran cold. My ears rang. It was a divorce certificate. My name was on it, my signature at the bottom.

But I had never signed it.

Harlan had forged my signature, legally severing my only tie to Rhett. Even the bond I had with him was now gone, stolen from me.

“No… How could he…?” I gripped the paper, trembling.

My stomach churned violently. Darkness crept into my vision as the shock hit me, and my weak body couldn’t take the strain. The world spun, and I collapsed onto the ground.

The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was Lila’s panicked face. She was terrified—if I died, she’d have to answer to Harlan.

I don’t know how long passed before paramedics rushed in and took me away on a stretcher. That’s when I finally let go, falling into a long, deep dream.

In that dream, I was taken back to the winter I was 22.

My adoptive parents had died in a car accident, the family business faced a dire crisis, and Harlan looked at me like a pawn, a mere tool. Then, he made the decision that changed everything—he married me off to Rhett Sinclair, the simpleton no one in their right mind wanted, in exchange for the Sinclair family’s help.

Lila had just returned to the family then, screaming and crying about how she had struggled for twenty years. But when it came down to it, Harlan had to choose between his blood sister and me, his adopted one.

By the time I knew what was happening, my in-laws were already waiting at the door to take me away.