Chapter 4After Giving Me Away In Marriage, My Brother Regretted It

"Yes, I love him very much," I replied truthfully.

Harlan’s anger only grew. I could feel the heat in the air from his furious breath. Meanwhile, my fingers instinctively reached for the photo in my wallet, a habit I had developed after Rhett’s sudden disappearance, as if holding onto it could keep him close.

Harlan caught this small gesture. Without warning, he snatched the wallet from me, pulled out the photo, and stared at it with a cold, dark expression.

"Violet, I had no idea you loved him this much. Maybe I made a mistake sending you to him in the first place."

As he spoke, he pulled out a lighter from his pocket. Right in front of me, he set the photo ablaze, watching as it slowly turned to ash.

The entire time, his gaze was fixed on me, waiting for a reaction.

But I gave him none.

It wasn’t that I didn’t care about the photo, but I knew that showing any kind of distress would only give him the satisfaction he craved. If Rhett were still here, he would never want me to get upset over something like this. He hated seeing me angry or sad.

I closed my eyes, forcing myself to swallow the rising sorrow.

When I opened them again, the ashes of the photo were scattered by the wind. Seeing that I was unmoved, Harlan’s frustration was evident. He leaned in closer and left me with a cryptic remark.

"If you love him that much, then I’ll take you to see him."

What? He knew where Rhett was?

I grabbed Harlan’s arm, my voice shaking with urgency. "What did you do to him?!"

Though his words filled me with hope, they also brought an overwhelming sense of dread. If Harlan knew where Rhett was, it could only mean that Rhett had been taken and hidden away. God only knew what kind of suffering he had been enduring.

Harlan, seeing the anguish in my face, remained unnervingly calm. He pressed a finger to his lips, signaling for silence.

"That’s why you need to behave, Violet," he said slowly. "Otherwise, I can’t promise my men will keep their hands off him. For now, they’re just watching over him. But if I wake up on the wrong side of the bed one day, well... let’s just say that simpleton might not have it so easy anymore."

"Harlan Greer, you’re doing this on purpose!" I screamed, balling my fists in rage, wishing I could tear him apart right then and there.

He tilted his head slightly, cracking his knuckles as he spoke with a chilling calmness.

"Exactly, Violet. So, you’d better start listening to me. Right now, I’m giving him a little lesson. But if you don’t fall in line, next time won’t be so gentle."

"I’ll be honest with you—I’ve gotten to where I am by stepping over a lot of bodies. So, what’s one more death to me?"

"You’re insane!" I yelled, my voice breaking under the weight of my emotions.

His twisted satisfaction only deepened as he left me with one last thing to think about.

"I’ll let you sleep on it."

Once he left, I collapsed onto the floor, drenched in sweat. My body was trembling, and the room felt like it was closing in on me.

After that, I had no choice but to agree to return home.

But it wasn’t my home. I was a prisoner in the Greer Mansion. Harlan had guards stationed outside my door, day and night, making sure I couldn’t escape.

I didn’t resist. I simply watched the geese outside my window, flying in pairs across the sky, their movements lively and free—everything I wasn’t.

Sometimes Lila would come by to mock me, but I barely listened.

And Harlan? He often came home early, especially on days like this one, when he brought me a skewer of candy apples, hoping to stir some kind of reaction.

"Violet, you used to love these. Try one. See if it still tastes like when we were kids."

I shook my head.

I remembered the third month after I married into the Sinclair family, still lost in the pain of betrayal. Every time I cried, there was always a man following me around.

I found him annoying and ignored him. But Rhett didn’t seem to care whether I paid attention to him or not. He just kept bringing me sweet treats every day—sometimes it was cotton candy, sometimes little sugar figures.

"I don’t know why you’re crying," he would say, "but I asked around, and everyone told me you love sweets. So I brought these for you, hoping they’ll make you smile."

"I don’t understand all that scheming, but I do know one thing—anyone who makes my wife cry is a bad person. They need a good beating."

His goofy, innocent words made me laugh, and somehow, my tears stopped.

But now that Rhett was gone, sweets just didn’t taste the same anymore. The candy apples Harlan brought me were nothing compared to the treats Rhett used to give me.

And without warning, I felt a wave of nausea.

Before I could stop myself, I vomited right there on the floor.

Harlan panicked, immediately calling for the guards to help. They rushed me to his private clinic.

The doctor ran a few simple tests.

What he said next shocked everyone in the room.

"Mr. Greer, congratulations. Ms. Greer is pregnant. And judging by the ultrasound, the baby is almost full-term."

I placed my hand on my stomach, and amidst all the suppressed pain, I found a small sliver of joy.

I was pregnant?

I was carrying Rhett’s child…

That meant, when Rhett came back, he would see the baby I had for him, and we could finally reunite as a family—the three of us.

I was lost in the warmth of the thought, basking in the hope of our future, until Harlan’s sudden outburst pulled me back to reality.

In a fit of rage, he swept all the medical instruments off the table, sending them crashing to the ground, before grabbing the doctor by the collar.

"Check again! You must’ve made a mistake. That simpleton has the mind of a child—how could he have done something like that?"

The doctor remained silent.

Harlan knew the truth, even if he didn’t want to admit it. Rhett might have been slow, but he was still a man, and he was fully capable of fathering a child.

Harlan stood there for two minutes, letting the room’s heavy silence settle. Eventually, he let the doctor go, who quickly fled the room.

Now, it was just the two of us.

I stood up slowly, hands protectively cradling my stomach, and headed toward the door.

But I had only taken a couple of steps when Harlan’s voice, cold and distant, echoed behind me.

"Violet, get rid of the baby."

I froze, whipping around to face him.

"What did you just say?"

He was standing there, his expression unreadable, slowly walking closer to me.

When he got near, he tried to sound gentle, as if he was concerned for my well-being.

"This child’s father is a simpleton, Violet. If you have this baby, it will only grow up to be a simpleton too. You don’t want that for your child, do you?"

I felt panic rising in my chest, and I took a few steps back, retreating as far as I could.

But something had changed. Knowing I was a mother now gave me strength, a courage I hadn’t felt before. I raised my head and forced myself to meet his eyes.

"Even if the child is a simpleton, as long as it’s Rhett’s, I’m keeping it."

Harlan’s lips curled into a bitter smile, one filled with mockery.

He glanced toward the doorway where the doctor had fled, and then gave the order.

"Get rid of it."