CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Heaven’s POV

I let out a shaky exhalation, my eyes brimming with unshed tears as I darted my gaze towards Avery, who was lying on her back, hoisted on both of her elbows, clad in nothing but shamelessness. 

“Get up and put some clothes on, now.” The calmness in my voice was a maddening contrast to the anger that brewed inside me, boiling my blood. 

“What on earth is your problem, huh?” She rose to her feet with suddenness that had me taking a step back, my brows furrowed slightly at her outburst. 

“I will not do this with you,” I shook my head, turning away from her to walk out of the room, but her hand on my wrist halted my movements. 

“You know, I’m glad you found out the truth,” she said, the corner of her lips tugging up in a smirk. “I was honestly tired of snooping around behind your back to get some good sex.”

I turned around abruptly, her lack of remorse for her actions shocking me to the marrow of my bones, and she continued like she never stopped, throwing her hands around in exaggerated gestures. “I continuously asked Kyle when we were going to break the news to you, and he kept saying it wasn’t the right time.”

“Avery! Don’t you have even an ounce of remorse!? I just caught you in bed with my boyfriend. Do you realize what you did!?” I screamed, unavailable to believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. 

“Nah, nah,” she waved a finger in my face before plopping down on the mattress, crossing one leg over the other, and perching her hands on her knee. "What’s there to be sorry for? Kyle loves me, and I love him. You were the gullible one to think he was in love with you."

“I mean, look at you! Who would choose you over me?” She said with a breathy laugh, mockery underlying in her tone. 

“I’m not going to do this with you,” I repeated, storming out of the room to find Kyle. 

Just as expected, he was outside in the parking lot, pacing in front of his black Ford Explorer, a worried look marking his face. 

On hearing the sound of my footsteps approaching, his head shot up in my direction, and he started to walk towards me. 

“How dare you!?” I screamed angrily at him, jabbing a finger in his chest. “How dare you come to my house, and think it’s okay to sleep with my sister!?” My voice resonated through the vast space, the evening wind - as if angry for my sake - howled aggressively, disheveling our hairs.

“Babe, I—“

“Don’t you ever, for as long as you live, call me that again,” I cut him off, uninterested in whatever story he must have cooked up. “How dare you cheat on me, Kyle? And that too, with my sister! You’re disgusting, despicable!”

“Can you just calm down!?” He shouted back, frustration evident on his features, but I could really not give a flying elephant. 

“Calm down!? Are you insane? If you had caught me in bed with your brother in your own house, would you calm down!?” I shoved against his chest, an action that barely faltered his stance. 

“When were you going to tell me?” I sobbed. “When were you going to tell me that you were going-at-it with my little sister behind my back?” I asked, my gaze pinned on his face, searching for any emotion, any ounce of remorse, but I found none. He wore an expressionless face, one that had the veins in my head ticking like time bombs. 

“Tell me,” I urged, feeling all my energy drain from within me, as I struggled to stand on my own two feet. 

He let out a short sigh before speaking. “You know, I think this is the right time to let you know the whole truth.”

Heavy, thick, eerie silence filled the vast space surrounding us for a few seconds as I stared into those brown orbs that once gleamed in love and adoration for me, morphed into something else, an emotion I couldn’t name. Something dark and terrifying. 

“I don't know why you’d do this to me. You said you loved me!”.

“Love?” He asked with an emotionless chortle. “I don’t love you, Heaven I never really did. You were naive to think I actually did. . . ” The remainder of that sentence was cut short when my palm collided with his cheek in a dirty slap, the sound reverberating through the expanse. 

“How could you stand there and demean what we shared with so much ease? Like what we had was never real, Kyle?”. I asked, tears streaming down my face, as I stared at the man I loved who seemed to have morphed into another entirely different person. 

He brushed his thumb against his bottom lip, meeting my gaze before resting his weight on the car behind him. “Don’t get me wrong, Heaven. What we had was real, okay? But I don’t love you. It’s that simple.”

“These aren’t the words you said to me ten months back, Kyle!” I yelled back. 

“I know, I know,” he raised his hands in mock surrender, the nonchalance in his voice and demeanor causing my already broken pieces of my heart to crumble to shards. “But I thought you were the heir to your family’s fortune, you see?” 

I stumbled back, my brows furrowed in confusion. 

“But then, I figured out recently that your sister is the heir to the family fortune, not you.” His shoulders rose and fell in a casual shrug. 

My mouth fell ajar as I stared in utter disbelief, searching for the man I fell in love with, because this could not be him. 

“You don’t expect me to marry you, a spare, and defy myself of such an opportunity now, do you?” He raised a questioning brow, tucking both of his hands in his pockets. 

“You can’t be serious right now, Kyle. Stop this prank! It isn’t funny anymore". I wailed, wrapping my arms around his middle in a bear hug, my tears ruining his shirt. “You love me, Kyle!”

“Heaven. . .” He trailed off, tearing me away from him with a firm hold on my arms. “Get over it, okay? This isn’t a prank!”

“I refuse to believe that I’ve lived a lie with you for ten whole months!” I bawled, my voice cracking at the end of the sentence. 

“This isn’t how I wanted you to find out, but. . .”

“Kyle, no! You can’t do this to me!”. I cried, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt as I trashed around. 

He let out a sigh, shoving me away slightly before turning around to walk to his car, settling down in the driver's seat. 

“Kyle!” I ran after him, trying to force the door open, slamming my fist against the reeled-up tinted windows that prevented me from seeing through. 

The car engine roared, and the sound of my cries increased, and without giving me as much as a glance, he drove out of the compound, leaving me in my misery, as emptiness ate every part of my being. 

I let out an ugly scream that tore through the quietude of the night, my legs failing to hold up my body as they eased me to the ground. 

I clutched my hands against my chest and hurt as though it was being pierced by a thousand knives, sinking deep into my skin. Each breath I inhaled came out as breathless gasps, each exhale increased the immense pain in my chest. 

What was once whole has shattered; where once was peace is emptiness, echoes of a love I put everything into. 

~•~

 

Dinner had been an uncomfortably quiet affair that night, just my father, my stepmother, and me. The sound of forks and knives scraping against the plates echoed through the dining room like an unwelcome reminder of the tense silence between us. That was, until Avery burst through the doors, her cheeks flushed and eyes gleaming with a mix of excitement and defiance.

"I'm pregnant!" Avery announced, panting slightly as if she had sprinted down the stairs. The room fell into a stunned silence, the kind that screamed louder than any verbal chaos.

My stepmother was the first to break the deafening quiet. 

"Avery, how could you?" she spat out, her words sharp like knives.

My father's face darkened, a storm brewing in his once calm eyes. "This is a disgrace. Do you realize how this will reflect on us? 

“You’re supposed to get married in two weeks, and you do this? Damn!” he boomed, slamming his fist against the dining table, the sound of glass meeting glass resonating through the room. 

Avery, ever the rebel, rolled her eyes, her indifference fanning the flames of their anger. But it was what she said next that made my world come crashing down.

“It's Kyle's", she declared with a mix of insolence and a weird sense of pride, a smile spread across her lips like she had just apprised the best news ever. 

Kyle. My Kyle. Or so I thought. The betrayal sliced through me, leaving me gasping for air as a tidal wave of emotions crashed over me. Was I more heartbroken or enraged? I couldn't tell.

My father's voice was low, dangerously so. "Kyle? Your sister's boyfriend, Kyle?"

“They’re not together anymore,” she replied with a casual shrug. 

“We’re not together anymore because I caught him in your bed, Avery!” I took angry steps forward, my fingers pointing in her face. The corners of her lips were tugged up in disgust - a look that almost had me raising my hand to give her a resetting slap. 

The dining room erupted into chaos. My father and stepmother barraged Avery with a volley of accusations and disappointment. Avery, in her typical fashion, refused to back down, throwing back retorts that only escalated the argument. Eventually, she stormed off, her mother hot on her heels, their harsh words fading as they ascended the staircase.

         

        

        

        ~•~

        

I couldn't believe the wedding was still happening. Not mine, Avery's. Workers paraded the place, seeming in a rush to put everything in place. I sat in my room, in a pink dress instead of the white dress I was meant to wear until the whole "Boyfriend cheated, sister betrayed me" thing. I sat on my bed for what felt like hours, my mind wandering as I wallowed in my own sadness.

        

 Avery had successfully taken away my happiness. My fiancé, my wedding, and now she was about to have a baby with the man I was meant to marry and still somehow get married to another man?

I couldn't even pretend to be happy for her. I shouldn't. She didn't deserve my stolen happiness, but what could I possibly do to her? Absolutely nothing. That was the sad part.

My phone pinged beside me, indicating I had received a message. I sighed and picked the device up to read the text sent to me. It was from my stepmother. My eyebrows furrowed, confused as to why she was texting me.

        : Come over to Avery's room now!

        The text read.

 Avery's room? I wasn't ready to face Avery yet. To look at her. I screamed in frustration into my hands and begrudgingly left my bedroom.

By the time I had gotten to her room, expecting a smug-looking Avery, but I was met with a panicking Stepmother.

“She's gone!" Avery? God, what the hell is this girl trying to do now?

“She said she was only going to marry Kyle ! God! What are we going to tell the guests? That the bride ran away from her own wedding? What about the Millers? Oh God, Avery." She collapsed on the bed looking distraught and horrified.

 I stood there, not knowing what to do or say, or how to comfort her. Avery ran away with Kyle? Just great. Fantastic.

"What on earth is happening?" My father slipped into the room, asking his wife. 

“She ran away." She cried and my dad's jaw clenched, eyes burning in fury.

“That child-"

"Heaven, you will marry Adrian," he stated matter-of-factly. Adrian, the supposedly disabled heir to a vast fortune, someone Avery was originally engaged to before she chose Kyle.

I was aghast. What? Why? The protest died on my lips, knowing full well the answer. In their eyes, I was the spare, the one who would clean up the mess Avery had left behind.

My father's words were cold, detached. "It's the only way to save face."

That night, my world turned upside down. Betrayed by my fiancé, Kyle, to someone I considered a sister and then handed off like a mere asset to save my family's image. Avery's pregnancy was the scandal of the year, and I was the band-aid solution to cover it up.