Chapter 3

#Aveline

The air in the grand master bedroom felt thin. I stood in front of the vanity mirror, staring at a woman I barely recognized anymore. My skin was translucent, almost grey, and the dark circles beneath my eyes looked like bruises carved into my flesh by the sheer weight of my exhaustion.

Six months.

I reached into the pocket of my cardigan and pulled out the folded medical report. The text was blurred slightly by the moisture of my trembling hands, but the words *Advanced Malignant Carcinoma Stage IV* stood out in stark, unyielding black ink. It was a deadly sentence. The doctor had been gentle when he broke the news, his voice dripping with professional pity as he told me that treatment at this stage would only prolong the agony, not save my life.

*“Go home, Mrs. Calloway,”* he had said, not knowing the cruel irony of his words. *“Spend what time you have left with your loved ones. Surround yourself with the people who matter most.”*

I let out another hollow, breathless laugh that died instantly in the quiet room. Loved ones. The people who mattered most were downstairs, currently celebrating the arrival of my replacement. They were constructing a new family portrait, and I was merely the picture they were preparing to paint over.

A sudden, sharp wave of nausea hit me, followed by a burning pain that ripped through my stomach . I collapsed against the marble edge of the vanity, gasping for air, my fingers digging into the cold stone to keep my knees from buckling. The illness was loud now. It was no longer a silent thief stealing my energy in the night; reminding me with every heartbeat that my time was running out.

I couldn't just drift into the dark without a word. Not out of a desire for their pity, heaven knew the Calloways didn't possess an ounce of mercy but out of some deeply buried, pathetic shred of human dignity. I needed Rhett to look me in the eye and know exactly what he was doing. I needed him to know that when he discarded me, he wasn't just throwing away an inconvenient wife; he was turning his back on a dying woman.

Forcing my legs to move, I straightened my spine and walked out of the bedroom.

As I reached the bottom landing, the doors to the parlor opened. Rhett stepped out first, his tall, imposing figure casting a long shadow across the marble foyer. Celine followed close behind him, her fingers casually laced through his as if she had already assumed the mantle of the lady of the house. Behind them came Lyra, still skipping, the plastic tiara tilted slightly on her head.

"Rhett," I called out. My voice wasn't loud, but in the dead silence of the mansion, it carried a strange, heavy finality that made all three of them freeze.

Rhett stopped at the base of the stairs, his grip tightening on his leather briefcase. The moment his eyes landed on me, the relaxed, warm expression he had shared with Celine vanished, instantly replaced by a deep, irritated scowl. "Aveline, I thought I told you to go lie down. I have an empire to run, and I don't have the patience to deal with your melodrama tonight."

"This isn't melodrama, Rhett," I said, my voice remarkably steady despite the storm raging inside my chest. I took two steps down, standing on the third step from the bottom, looking down at the man who had promised to protect me when I was twenty-one. "We need to talk. Right now. Alone."

I pulled my hand out of my pocket, holding the white piece of paper tightly between my fingers. My heart hammered against my ribs. "I went to the clinic today because the pain hasn't stopped. The doctor ran the scans, Rhett. It's not a headache. It's not an imaginary ailment to get your attention. I am sick. I am deeply, terminally ill. I have six months left."

Before Rhett could even process the words, Celine stepped forward. She let out a soft, overly dramatic gasp, her manicured hand flying to her chest as her face morphed into a mask of pure, exaggerated pity.

"Oh, Aveline... six months?" Celine sighed, her voice dripping with an insincere, honeyed sweetness that felt like razor blades. She tilted her head,a mocking smirk flashing in her eyes that only I could see. "Wow. That is... incredibly convenient timing, isn't it? Just today Rhett decides to fix his family lineage, and suddenly you have a terminal illness? Sweetie, if you wanted Rhett to stay home for dinner, you could have just asked. You didn't need to write a whole tragic movie script."

"Celine, back off," I whispered, the sheer malice behind her fake sympathy making my stomach turn.

"No, I'm just deeply concerned for you!" Celine countered smoothly, her voice rising as she turned toward Rhett, her eyes instantly welling with perfectly practiced, theatrical tears. She grabbed Rhett's arm, shaking her head with a look of ultimate martyrdom. "Oh, Rhett... look at what I've done. I can't do this. I don't want to be the reason the two of you have problems! Aveline is clearly so desperate to keep you that she's making up a fatal disease. Maybe I should just leave. I should take my things and go, because I can't bear to be the villain in her little melodrama!"

"Celine, stay right where you are," Rhett commanded, his voice hardening instantly. The sight of Celine acting distressed completely shattered whatever restraint he had left. He snapped his head back toward me, his eyes narrowing into slits of pure, venomous irritation.

"I don't care," Rhett snapped, his voice cutting through the foyer like a jagged blade, cold and entirely devoid of humanity. "I don't care if you're sick, Aveline. I don't care if you die. You have been a parasitic drain on this family for eight years. You haven't given me an heir, you haven't contributed a single thing to the Calloway name, and you spend every single day looking like a walking corpse anyway. If you think fabricating a medical crisis and stressing Celine out is going to make me call off the arrangement, you are sorely mistaken."

The words felt like a physical blow to my sternum. “I don't care if you die.” He didn't just dismiss the news; he wished for it.

"Daddy's right!" Lyra’s sharp, high voice broke the silence, stepping out from behind Rhett’s coat. She looked up at me on the stairs, her amber eyes filled with a terrifying, unchildlike coldness. "I don't want you either! You're not my real mommy anyway. You're always sad, you're always coughing, and you make everything ugly. I want you to leave this house! I want Auntie Celine to be my mommy!"

Lyra ran forward, completely bypassing my outstretched hand, and threw her small arms around Celine’s waist in a tight, protective hug.

Celine wrapped her arms tightly around Lyra, holding the little girl close against her side. She looked up at me on the stairs, the fake tears instantly drying up as a slow, vicious smile spread across her lips. She stroked Lyra's hair, her eyes locking onto mine with an icy, triumphant glare.

"Actually, Aveline, since we're sharing medical news, let me tell you about a real doctor's appointment," Celine purred, her voice dripping with absolute venom. "I went to the clinic today, too. And unlike your tragic little sob story, mine came with good news. I'm pregnant, Aveline. The early scan results came back this morning. It’s a boy."

The foyer fell into a suffocating, dead silence.

Celine stepped closer to the base of the stairs, holding Lyra with one hand while using the other to gently touch her flat stomach. Her eyes gleamed with a dark, mocking satisfaction. "I am giving Rhett the one thing you could never give him in your whole eight years of marriage. A son. An heir to the Calloway empire. So you see, your presence in this house isn't just exhausting anymore, it’s entirely obsolete."

I turned my eyes to Rhett, my chest heaving as I fought for oxygen. He didn't look shocked by Celine's sudden revelation. In fact, he looked down at Celine and Lyra with a quiet, proud satisfaction, entirely validating the mistress's words right in front of his wife.

"Celine is right," Rhett said coldly, his voice steady and completely indifferent to the way my world was shattering. "She is going to be Lyra's new mother, and she is bringing a proper heir into this family. Go to your room, Aveline. Don't make things difficult. It’s purely a practical matter now."

In that precise moment, the final, lingering shred of my humanity died. The suffocating pain that had trapped me in this mansion for eight years, the guilt of not being enough, the desperation of trying to please a man who despised me was instantly incinerated. It was replaced by a profound, chilling, and absolute wrath.

"Alright," I said. My voice was completely flat, devoid of emotion, yet it carried a freezing resonance that caused Celine's smug smile to falter for a fraction of a second.

I slowly turned on my heel and walked back up the stairs, my posture perfectly straight, my head held high. Behind me, I heard the faint rustle of Celine laughing, and the heavy sound of Rhett’s study door clicking shut once more.