Chapter 2

“Where have you been?”

The deep voice shattered the silence of the morning. Alex stood rigidly in front of Stella’s house, greeting her arrival with a sharp, demanding stare the moment the taxi pulled up in front of the property.

Stella had barely stepped out of the taxi, still carrying the remnants of last night’s exhaustion and wearing the same clothes she had worn the night before, when her body tensed. Without even sparing him a glance, she ignored him and quickened her pace through the gate, intending to get inside the house and lock herself away.

Elsewhere, Ethan’s phone rang softly in the pocket of his suit. A short message from his younger brother appeared on the screen:

You don’t need to look for my fiancée anymore. She’s already home.

Sitting in his study, Ethan immediately let out an amused chuckle. His fingers casually typed a reply without a hint of concern:

Right. She just left here.

Back at Stella’s house, the woman’s steps came to an abrupt halt when a strong hand suddenly seized her arm. Alex had followed her all the way to the porch, yanking her around until she was forced to face him.

“Let go of me!” Stella shouted angrily, struggling with all her strength to free her wrist from his grip.

“You don’t want to answer me? Where were you all night? You just came home at the crack of dawn!” Alex shouted, his jaw tightening with anger. “We were supposed to get married today, Stella! And instead, you disappeared and ruined everything!”

With a forceful jerk, Stella ripped her hand free from Alex’s grasp. She lifted her chin and glared straight into his eyes, her gaze burning with deep hatred.

“I’m not the one who called off our wedding! You’re the one who destroyed it by cheating on me with Mia!” Stella screamed, her voice trembling as she fought back the sobs pressing against her chest. “To hell with both of you! Go ahead and get married if you really love each other!”

Alex scoffed coldly. Rather than feeling guilty, he stepped forward, roughly gripping Stella’s chin and forcing her to look up at him. A cold smirk curled across his lips.

“You can’t just call off our wedding like that, Stella. This isn’t some game. This is a marriage between two families!”

“I already told you, I’m not the one who destroyed it—you did! You and Mia… you acted like heartless animals!” Stella snapped. Tears finally spilled down her cheeks, yet she refused to lower her gaze.

Instead of getting angry, Alex let out a quiet laugh. He roughly released her chin, then reached into his pocket and held out his phone.

“Fine, if that’s what you want,” Alex said casually before sending several photo files to Stella’s phone. “Take a look.”

With her hands suddenly cold and trembling, Stella grabbed her own phone as it vibrated with the incoming messages. Several old photographs appeared on the screen: her late father, William Moore, seemingly fast asleep in bed beside a strange woman who was definitely not her mother.

“W-What is this?” Stella whispered, her breath catching in her throat.

Alex laughed in satisfaction at the shock on her face.

“You called me an animal for sleeping with Mia. So… was your father an animal too? Look for yourself. He was sleeping with another woman behind his wife’s back.”

Stella’s eyes widened, filling with tears as she desperately refused to accept what she was seeing. Her chest heaved violently. The photographs were too clear to dismiss.

Her father…

The man she had respected and admired so deeply while he was alive had apparently been hiding a secret this dark.

Clinging to the last remnants of her pride, Stella raised her face and glared at Alex, hatred and horror mingling in her eyes.

“What do you want by showing me this, Alex?!” she demanded through clenched emotion.

“Don’t get angry yet, Stella. You should know there’s something far more interesting than just those cheating photos,” Alex replied with a victorious smile.

Alex swiped across his own phone before showing Stella one final photograph.

“Take a look at this little girl. The last one. You’ll definitely recognize her.”

Stella lowered her gaze to Alex’s phone. An old photograph showed a little girl being held in the arms of her late father.

Stella frowned, studying the child’s face closely. After being Mia’s best friend for years, she knew almost every detail of her friend’s life, including the childhood photographs they had often laughed over together.

Stella’s heart seemed to stop.

“Mia…?” she whispered, unable to believe what she was seeing.

“Yes! That’s Mia,” Alex said with chilling certainty, his words striking Stella’s ears like a bolt of lightning. “Your best friend… she’s actually your father’s biological daughter too.”

Stella froze.

Her entire world seemed to collapse in an instant, leaving a deafening ringing in her ears before an even greater fury erupted from the depths of her heart.

“Don’t make things up!” Stella screamed, refusing to believe the filthy truth that had just been thrown in front of her.

Mia stepped forward casually.

“Alex isn’t making anything up, Stella. I am Mr. William’s daughter. The woman in that photograph is my mother.”

A faint smirk appeared on Mia’s lips, completely erasing the mask of friendship she had worn all these years.

The moment Stella heard the confession, all the strength drained from her body. Her knees weakened, nearly sending her crashing to the floor. She quickly grabbed the edge of the nearby table for support.

She stared at Mia and Alex in turn, unable to believe the bitter, ugly truth that had just shattered her life all at once.