Chapter 2
I spent three days in the hospital, and Lucas spent three days trending on social media.
Day one: He rented out an entire stadium to help Jessica recover from her “trauma,” flying in all her favorite celebrities to perform her personal playlist for a full twenty-four hours.
Day two: He held Jessica on a yacht at the waterfront, using ten thousand drones to spell out a love declaration in the sky.
Day three: He walked out of a trillion-dollar international merger press conference because the little princess called him crying, “Lucas, I accidentally burst a water pipe and my landlord won’t let me leave until I pay for damages.”
Thanks to his very public displays, I ended up trending too.
The media dubbed me: “The Most Pathetic Abandoned Wife of the New Century.”
But I knew the truth-this was Lucas punishing me for defying him that day.
Did it hurt? I pressed my hand to my chest, but all I felt was endless emptiness.
After checking out of the hospital, I returned to the Sinclair mansion to find the living room filled with bright orange Hermès boxes.
I knew this was Lucas’s way of making peace.
Beat them down, then throw them a bone-that was his signature move.
But as I stepped over the scattered boxes and reached the second-floor bedroom door, Jessica walked out.
She was wearing my white nightgown, and her long black hair had been dyed and curled into a reddish-purple wave.
When she tilted her head down slightly, she looked almost exactly like me.
Seeing me, her expression filled with panic.
“Vivian-I mean, Miss Warren, I’m so sorry. My place got flooded and Lucas was kind enough to bring me here. I didn’t have anything to wear, so-”
I didn’t stop walking, just gave her a cold glance.
But when I saw the jade ring hanging from a chain around her neck, my eyes turned bloodshot.
I reached out and grabbed the chain.
“Take off what’s mine.”
“Miss Warren, please don’t-you’re choking me.”
Hearing the commotion, Lucas emerged from the bedroom.
“What’s going on here?”
When I saw Lucas, something stirred in my dead heart-a flicker of hurt I thought I’d buried.
“Lucas, this jade ring is the last thing my grandmother left me. You have one, I have one-you never take yours off, do you?”
My emotional breakdown made Lucas’s dark eyes turn even deeper.
“Vivian, Jess has been having nightmares these past few days. I gave her the jade ring to calm her nerves.”
“She’s your sister too, and your grandmother was also her grandmother. It’s not unreasonable for her to have one of the rings.”
The tears I’d been holding back finally spilled over.
I pointed at Jessica, who was sheltered in his arms, my voice shaking. “Her parents drove my grandmother to her deathbed. She was ten years old when she fed my grandmother soup laced with poison.”
“My grandmother’s jade ring can go to anyone-anyone-but it cannot hang around Jessica Manning’s neck.”
“Anyone?”
Lucas rolled those words around in his mouth, his expression turning ice-cold.
“It’s just a trinket. I already gave it to Jess.”
“I don’t consent to that. Give it back to me right now.”
Jessica sobbed quietly beside him. “It’s okay, Mr. Sinclair. If Vivian doesn’t want me to have it, I’ll just take it off and give it back to her.”
She spoke while trembling as she unclasped the necklace.
But as she placed the jade ring in my palm, she grabbed me and we both tumbled down the stairs from the second floor.
