Chapter 4
Charlotte rushed over and swept Lily into her arms. The moment her fingers touched the warm blood, her heart nearly stopped.
"It hurts," Lily whispered, shivering in her arms.
Charlotte bit her lip hard, tasting blood. She looked up, her eyes meeting Alexander's piercing gaze.
He loomed against the light, his tall figure and sharp black suit making him look like an executioner. He stared down at them, but his expression was utterly indifferent.
Without a word, he turned and wrapped a protective arm around Vivian's waist, walking away without a backward glance.
Charlotte glared after them, anger scorching through her.
Alexander would let Vivian do anything.
Getting Lily settled with their father, Charlotte went home.
Just as she expected, there was a divorce agreement waiting on the table.
Alexander's signature sprawled across the page in bold strokes, but she caught a subtle hesitation in one of the letters.
She let out a scornful laugh. Alexander, who felt nothing for her, wouldn't hesitate for a fraction of a second to sign this.
All the other times she had deluded herself into thinking she saw a flicker of warmth in his cold eyes.
She signed her name and handed the document to the housekeeper, Nina Potts. "Give this to Alexander."
Nina glanced up in surprise but still kept quiet.
Charlotte began to pack. She was finally free of him.
As she opened her walk-in closet, a dark blue silk tie slithered out from a drawer and pooled at her feet.
On their wedding night five years ago, he had ripped it off and tossed it onto the sofa. She had secretly saved it, hiding it in her jewelry box.
She had dreamed that one day, he would want her to tie it for him.
Her finger brushed against the lining and snagged on a rough patch of embroidery. It was his initial, an "A," that she had secretly stitched there. The needlework was as clumsy and flawed as their marriage.
She remembered that terrible blizzard last winter. She had stayed up three nights straight knitting him a scarf but never got the chance to give it to him.
He had changed his flight and never come home that night. She had waited at the airport until dawn for a call from his secretary.
At twenty-three, she used all her savings on a Montblanc pen for him. When she had given it to him, he didn't look up from his video call, let alone open the box. He just muttered, "Put it over there."
Suddenly, Charlotte realized how few of her things were in this vast mansion.
And there were no memories that truly belonged to them.
She had spent five years trying to warm someone who had never once let her in.
"Does it hurt?" Alexander asked softly.
In the living room, Alexander held Vivian's paint-stained wrist in his hand.
His thumb gently stroked her skin, which was red from the friction of holding a paintbrush.
His voice was soft, laced with a tenderness Charlotte had never, ever heard directed at her.
"Use a softer brush next time," he murmured.
Standing in the shadows, Charlotte remembered her past life. This man, who ran his life by the second, had once postponed a multi-billion-dollar international deal for Vivian.
This man, whose body temperature always seemed colder than normal, had warmed Vivian's chilled fingers in his own.
It wasn't that the glacier would never melt. It was just that Charlotte was not his sunshine.
Back in her room, Charlotte took a deep breath. Soon, none of this would be her problem.
Suddenly, her phone buzzed violently, the sharp ringtone shattering the silence.
She looked down. The word "Dad" flashed on the screen, and her heart plummeted.
"Charlie, it's Lily..." On the other end, Richard's voice was hoarse and broken, like fear itself had him by the throat.
"What's wrong with Lily?" Charlotte shot to her feet, her nails digging into her palms so hard that she should have screamed, but she felt nothing.
There was heavy silence for two seconds, and then Richard choked out. "Just come home."
The front door of Evans Villa was wide open. An icy wind howled through the foyer, making the curtains whip and snap like angry flags.
When Charlotte burst into Lily's room, the sight that met her eyes felt like a bolt of lightning to the chest.
Her sister, who was always laughing, was curled into a tight ball in the corner of the bed. Her hair hung in snarled ropes. Her clothes were torn to shreds. Bruises and bloody scratches covered her exposed skin.
Lily was hugging her knees, her eyes staring blankly at nothing, as if her soul had been ripped out, leaving only a broken shell behind.
"Lily..." Charlotte's voice was a mangled sob. She lunged forward to hold her sister, but the moment her hand touched Lily, the girl recoiled violently, shrinking away like a terrified fawn.