“I’ve been thinking about my mother. Just thinking about how much I owe her… sometimes keeps my sleep away.” She was telling the truth. Ever since the day to see Ophelia drew near, her emotions had just gotten kicked up. Her pregnancy might have amplified it, too. Brendan was silent for a moment. When the car stopped at a red light, he held her hand and squeezed. “You don’t have to think about it. She’s coming back.”“I know.” She turned away from him and said nothing more.They returned to the mansion, where Mrs. Engel heard about Deirdre’s trip to the hospital. Concerned, she began to make a broth according to a herbal home remedy she knew to be effective and helpful. As she brewed, she vented, “It must be that Charlene again, isn’t it? She doesn’t talk with any filters, and she’s a walking jinx magnet. Anyone would catch a cold from looking at her soul. Lord knows how glad I am that her butt is being sent to prison!”Deirdre gave a perfunctory chuckle—until she had to drink
Deirdre swore her strength had just left her entire body. But then, quite suddenly, she felt something pop through her lips. She opened her mouth and realized it was a piece of candy. Mrs. Engel was surprised. “That is brilliant, Mr. Brighthall! I forgot to prepare some sweets myself!”Deirdre was quite taken aback, too. It was the first time she ever noticed how perceptive and mindful Brendan could be. “T-Thanks.”The candy was very sweet. As it melted and spread across her mouth, she felt the broth’s taste subsiding. Soon, all she felt was the sweetness of the candy. “If you like it, I’ll put a can of the same candies in the kitchen. You’re allowed to pop one in every time you finish Mrs. Engel’s herbal remedy on top of your medicine.”Wait! It had to be those two combined!?Deirdre’s expression froze. “How long am I supposed to drink that?”Mrs. Engel smiled. “Just a week! It’ll be over like a breeze!”-Charlene’s sentence came three days later. The police had also cle
Now, while these two were meek, they were not stupid. One of them even managed to launch a counter-argument weakly. “Brendan Brighthall? Give me a break. How can someone like him even be remotely related to you? And if you really were his fiancee, he wouldn’t have let you be incarcerated in the first place.”Charlene was infuriated. She chucked the pillow at that woman’s face and snarled, “You f*cking tw*t! With an IQ this sh*tty, no wonder you two could only rot in prison for the rest of your life!”The woman jerked backward in fright and squeezed herself at the end of the bed, putting herself as far away from the pillow as she could. Charlene, though, interpreted it as the young woman being terrified of her. She beamed.“Aww, are you scared? Then get your *ss over here and massage my shoulders! I think it’s high time I change the power dynamic in this cell. From now on, a new queen rules this place!”A new voice suddenly joined the conversation from outside. “Oh yeah? Who’s that?
“Get over here, the two of you! Get her down, nice and easy!” Yael ordered. The two women immediately shoved Charlene down to the floor while Yael pushed the pill into her throat. Then, squeezing her jaw, she said, “Your plastic surgery looks like sh*t, darling. I should help fix you up. Give you a fresh new look…”-When Sam’s call arrived, Brendan was working from the living room couch. He saw who it was and ignored it.Deirdre saw his phone flashing by accident and felt even more perplexed. Why was he squeezing into her couch when his study was literally there?The phone rang for a while before Brendan finally answered it on loudspeaker. “What, Sam?”There was a moment of hesitation before Sam answered, “Charlene’s child is gone.”Deirdre sat straight. Her child was gone? How?Brendan did not even care. “What, that’s it?”“No, that’s not all. She seems to have gone through some serious mental breakdown. She’s so unstable, the police’s floating the idea of sending her to a
It actually felt… upsetting. Now that she thought about it, Brendan had always treated Charlene well. Had that woman not disappointed Brendan as much as she did, she would have become Mrs. Brighthall, no contest. “Are you cold?” Brendan stopped the car next to her and opened the door. Deirdre sulkily went inside and leaned her head against her seat. “If I tell you I’m tired, can I not go?”Brendan said nothing for a long beat before starting the engine. “Sorry. Please be a little patient. I’ll drive as quickly as I can.”He turned up the heater, and yet it did not dispel her nipping annoyance. When she was the one who became the victim of someone's scheme and subsequently lost her eyes and child—all of which was worse than whatever ordeal Charlene had gone through—Brendan had never thought of coming to see her. Sure, Steven Young had duped him back then. He was none the wiser. But what he was doing today proved that he could have always gone to see Deirdre while she was in pr
Madame Brighthall’s smile blossomed from her lips, and suddenly it seemed like spring had dawned on a face fraught with illness. She even coughed less. “Go and make them some nice, warm chicken soup. By the time they are inside, they’ll have something to enjoy.”The maid caught her mistress’s infectious joy. “Okay, ma’am. But please, you stay in here and don’t go out to join in on the fun, okay? It’s very cold out there,” she reminded Madame Brighthall. “Unless, well… they take too long, I guess.”“I know, dear.” The older woman ran her finger through her hair bun and shot an annoyed look at the maid as if a little disgruntled. “What was that supposed to mean? I’m not a kid, you know. I’ve long grown bored of snow. Why would I want to get out there and join in on the fun?”The maid tittered and left. Deirdre and Brendan did not spend too much time out there, either—the weather was just too cold. Brendan could tell from the way her hand started to lose warmth, so he led her insid
“Oh God, you’re right!” Madame Brighthall nodded in realization. “Blasted sickness has turned my brain into mush! Bren is at a critical moment when everything he does and says is under scrutiny. If you two marry now, you’ll be dragged into the storm too, Dee!”She smiled. “Ah, I should check if the soup’s done.”Brendan waited until his mother had left before stating hesitantly, “Dee, about the thing between us… Can you please hide the truth from her at the moment? She hasn’t been feeling well, but all she cares about is… well, us being happy together. If you tell her you’re going to leave after our child is born, it might hurt her a little too much.”Deirdre finally understood why Brendan interrupted her. He was worried she might accidentally let the cat out of the bag and crush Madame Brighthall’s hopes. “Don’t worry about that. She’s more than just your mother. She’s also one of the kindest people to me in this entire world. I wouldn’t say anything that could break her heart ev
“Sure thing.” Even after the maid held Madame Brighthall by her hand and led her away, Deirdre remained by the door to the child’s room and continued to look inside, regardless of the fact that she saw nothing. “Brendan, what does it look like?”He entered the room and stood next to her. It was a small room, but it had everything—toys of all shapes and sizes and a cot leaped into one’s field of vision. Madame Brighthall’s care was evident. She was worried that her granddaughter might not like pink as much as she had hoped, so she tried to balance it with other colors. “Do you want to know?”She nodded. Brendan took her hand. “I’ll let you feel it.”He held her fingertips, letting them outstretched to the baby mobile hanging above their head. “This is a mobile of the night sky. The moon, the stars, and the planets.”“This is the wallpaper. Pink and blue stripes. Cartoon pictures dot them, and every single one of them has my mom’s writing embroidered on it.“This is the cot. M