Chapter 2

Seraphina’s POV

I met Silas Wolfe when I was seventeen.

Back then, I was still living in Saint Mary’s orphanage.

It was raining heavily that night and the orphanage director locked me outside as punishment for fighting older boys who stole food from a little girl.

I sat trembling near the gates soaked from head to toe wishing I could turn eighteen quickly and leave that hell forever when a black luxury car suddenly stopped in front of me.

The rear window slowly rolled down and for the first time, I saw Silas Wolfe.

He was twenty-one then. I still remembered thinking he was the most handsome man I had ever seen.

He stared at me silently for a very long time before suddenly opening the car door himself.

Back then, his eyes were warm and gentle, almost heartbreaking.

“What’s your name?” he asked quietly.

“Seraphina.”

He looked at me strangely after hearing my answer. Then he removed his expensive coat and wrapped it around my freezing body carefully.

“Come with me.”

That single sentence changed my entire life.

Silas rescued me from the orphanage, paid for my education, protected me, and stayed beside me.

At eighteen, when boys from another school confessed love to me publicly, Silas drove across the city in the middle of an important meeting just to drag me into his car angrily.

Back then, I laughed while teasing him.

“Why are you so angry?”

Silas stared at me coldly for a few seconds before suddenly pulling me onto his lap.

“Because you’re mine.”

My heart almost stopped that night.

At twenty-one, when business rivals attacked him inside a nightclub, I was the one who took a bottle to the head protecting him.

I still remembered waking up inside the hospital and seeing Silas sitting beside my bed with bloodshot eyes.

The moment I woke up, he hugged me so tightly it hurt.

“Are you insane?” his voice shook violently. “Why would you block it for me?”

When I joked weakly that I didn’t want him dying before marrying me someday, Silas suddenly lowered his head and kissed me.

“If you want it that badly,” he whispered against my lips, “then marry me.”

Three months later, we secretly registered our marriage.

Back then, I truly thought I was the happiest woman alive.

At twenty-three, I collapsed from a high fever after working thirty-six hours straight helping Silas stabilize Wolfe Group during a financial crisis.

When I woke up, I found him sitting beside my bed.

The great Silas Wolfe had stayed beside me the entire night personally changing my cold towels and feeding me medicine.

Back then, his exhausted eyes stared at me quietly while he brushed my hair away from my face.

“You scared me,” his voice was low. “Don’t leave me alone, Seraphina.”

At twenty-four, I once asked him quietly while lying against his chest,

“What if you fall in love with someone else someday?”

Silas didn’t even look up from his documents.

“Impossible.”

Then he pulled me closer lazily and kissed the top of my head.

“I’ve already spoiled myself too much with you. No other woman could tolerate me this way.”

At twenty-five, I donated blood until I fainted after his car accident.

When Silas woke up, he held me and cried while kissing me feverishly in the hospital room.

I had joked and said his grandfather would see us.

“I don’t care,” Silas had said. “No one understands me like you. I was so scared something had happened to you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

As an orphan abandoned since childhood and desperate for love, Silas’s behavior made me think he was in love with me.

It wasn’t until Evelyn returned six months ago that I realized I had mistaken dependence for love.

Silas stopped coming home most nights.

The cold act he showed me publicly, which he always claimed was because of his grandfather, started following me into our home when it was just the two of us alone.

Then one night during a charity banquet — the same banquet I attended with Silas every year — he suddenly told me to stay home.

I arrived anyway, eager to surprise him.

Instead, I saw Evelyn walking past me wearing a white dress while holding Silas’s arm.

Silas barely acknowledged me.

He only texted me: Go home. You’re embarrassing yourself.

For the first time, I realized something horrifying.

Evelyn looked exactly like me. Or maybe… I looked exactly like her.

We had the same long black hair, the same blue eyes, the same smile, and even our voices sounded similar.

That night, I secretly searched through old online articles about Evelyn Hart and every picture felt like someone was slowly stabbing a knife through my chest.

Every single thing I thought Silas loved about me was written inside those old articles about Evelyn Hart.

Her favorite perfume brand was the same one Silas bought for me every birthday.

The piano songs he personally taught me to play were songs Evelyn used to perform publicly years ago.

The long black hair he always insisted I keep tied up in a ponytail, the soft white dresses he always gifted me because he said he loved seeing me in white, even the way he patiently corrected my posture and smile before banquets… All of it was Evelyn’s style.

Back then, I thought Silas was polishing me into a woman worthy of standing beside him.

Now I finally understood the truth.

He was never shaping me into his wife. He was reshaping me into the woman who broke his heart.

And suddenly, I understood why Silas Wolfe rescued me from that orphanage ten years ago.

I was nothing more than a substitute. A stand-in he accidentally grew attached to while waiting for Evelyn Hart to return.

That night, after the abortion was completed, I contacted a divorce lawyer for the first time.

Because this time, I was finally tired of loving Silas Wolfe.