“You’re right,” Scarlett said abruptly, sweeping away the remaining sympathy in the room like a brisk wind. “Matthew and Olivia have been engaged for years. If she helped him through a crisis, it’s only natural. Whatever gossip makes headlines about the Hartman family is likely fabricated nonsense designed to sell scandal. Nothing more.”

The shift was instant. Faces in the room grew disinterested, turning away as the thrill of the drama evaporated. Gossip without a vein of controversy is hardly worth savoring.

Yet none of it mattered to Scarlett. Her bitterness surged at the sheer absurdity of having to justify herself over the baseless accusations that made her life a public spectacle. And still, it paled in comparison to the suffocating realization of what her days among these people truly amounted to—an endless sequence of wasted breaths, feeding desperation and contempt.

Scarlett did what she always did: endure. “Excuse me, grandfather,” she murmured while backing out of the hall, “I won’t trouble you further. You have matters to discuss, and I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

She turned away, her retreat trailing the faint whisper of her aching pride. But his eyes followed her—Matthew’s penetrating gaze, darker than midnight, heavy with a hostility that stopped her breath. Yet what did it matter now? Whatever fate awaited her in the Hartman household, she had resigned herself to its cruelty long ago.

By the time Scarlett returned to her quarters, the heavy atmosphere of the main house had faded behind her. Her mother, Emily, arrived shortly after, her face tight with frustration. Though married to Matthew’s less successful second brother, Emily and her husband were perpetual outsiders in the family. Her bitterness, like a snake waiting for the right moment, slithered toward Scarlett, always finding her weaknesses.

“You’re out of your mind!” Emily spat, gripping Scarlett’s arm tightly. “Do you realize what you threw away?”

“What opportunity are you talking about now?” Scarlett shot back, pulling away.

“Do not play dumb. I saw you when you came back last night. You know Matthew owes you. He would’ve been at your mercy if you played your cards right. Instead, you let Olivia march over you without a fight!” Emily’s voice crescendoed with frustrated disbelief.

Scarlett laughed dryly, a sound as sharp as shattered glass. “You think having to drug someone and climb into his bed uninvited is the path to a ‘good life’? You think that’s the future for me here?” She met Emily’s glare. “Trust me, if this family has reduced me to such depths, there’s nothing good left in store.”

Emily froze. For once, words abandoned her. And though her anger lay dormant for a moment, Scarlett knew it would return before long, like an undying flame.

Her fingers trembled as she reached for her phone later that night—a scarlet reminder of the date’s significance appearing on the screen. Ovulation. Her breath hitched. The nightmare crystalized as she faced the implications; the desperate weight of what had happened to her the night before crushing her resolve.

“Mom, do you happen to have any emergency contraceptive pills?” Scarlett asked suddenly, her tone both vulnerable and steeled.

Emily raised an eyebrow, wary but compliant. “For what? Why would I have something like that at my age?”

“Can you help me get some?” Scarlett said, her voice trembling. “Please. I need this.”

There was no hesitation after that point—not even when Emily handed off the errand to a servant rather than fetching the medication herself. Gossip might have consumed others, but Emily believed herself safe from it as long as she delegated—and delegated she did, unthinkingly.

When Emily returned later with the pills, wrapped discreetly in opaque packaging, Scarlett’s relief came reflexively—temporary and fleeting. She stared at the tablets, her mind spinning back to moments she wished she could rip free from time and bury where they might decay forever. Her fingertips grazed her abdomen, flat and lifeless. Memories of another life filled her with anguish. Her daughter, her ‘little star,’ born into anguish, had died alone on a sterile hospital bed while rain poured relentlessly outside.

She thought of that little girl, of all the joy she’d never had the chance to live—how could she condemn another innocent being to such cruelty?

Scarlett didn’t hesitate further. Swallowing the pill should have been simple. The water she used to chase it down was warm, but it tasted cruelly cold as her throat struggled to consume the tablet. Tears fell unbidden, carving paths on her cheeks despite all her resolve.

“Forgive me, my Amelia,” she whispered through trembling lips. “In your next life, may you find a mother who can love you the way you deserve. Someone better.”

But she wasn’t given time for the sentiment to settle. The door to the room slammed open as if struck by lightning, shaking the walls with its weight. Before Scarlett could react, servants stormed in under Hartman Patriarch’s orders, seizing her arms in merciless silence.

Moments later, Scarlett found herself once again cast into the cruel spotlight of the family’s judgment. Her body collapsed before the tea table in the main hall; cold marble pressed against her knees. She looked straight up into the gathering of disdainful gazes, and Matthew’s frost-colored silhouette in the crowd loomed larger than life.

A box fell before her, its contents scattering across the floor like broken promises—packs of pills rolling every which way. Frank slammed his palm against the table, sending echoes through the room.

“What is this nonsense? Explain yourself!”

Scarlett swallowed, bitter truths pressing against her lips. “I… It’s emergency contraceptive,” she murmured.

Matthew’s gaze narrowed, his voice dripping with icy malice, “Emergency contraceptive, huh? Indeed?”

There was something slight—a cruel curl of his lips—and Scarlett felt her blood freeze. Her eyes darted to the spilled pills; the packaging was unmistakable: labels and logos claiming fertility aid, not contraceptives. Panic clawed at her chest.

Silence weighed in; the room buzzed with unspoken accusation. Scarlett didn’t dare lift her head, even as Matthew’s stare remained unyielding—a predator toying with his next prey.

Under the sharp and chilling gaze of Matthew, Scarlett pressed her lips tightly together, willing herself to remain calm, to feign composure. Yet, the torment of eight years in her previous life lingered still, its echoes trembling at her fingertips as she turned her face away in a gesture of defiance and pain.

Matthew allowed no reprieve. His voice, laced with contempt, sliced through the tense air. “You planned to sneak off and get pregnant, didn’t you?”

Scarlett’s brows furrowed in silence, her peripheral vision catching the figure of Emily, who stood crumpled under Matthew’s ice-cold regard. The medicine—Emily had procured it. Could it be that Emily still harbored delusions of manipulating her into marrying Matthew? But the moment Matthew's gaze fell on her, Emily quivered like a leaf facing a bitter wind—her fear of Matthew far outweighed her dread of his grandfather. She couldn’t have dared to act deceitfully under Matthew’s shadow.

Then what was this?

Scarlett lifted her eyes, now encircled by stares. Each piercing glance seemed to strip away her defenses, though one stood apart from the rest—a pair of observant, calculating eyes that haunted her memory with cruel familiarity: Olivia.

Her lips curved in a subtle, teasing smile, a smile that dredged dark recollections to the surface of Scarlett’s thoughts. They had always been entwined in this manner—her adversary drawing first blood with the precision of a practiced predator.

Just as her wariness sharpened, Olivia faced away from the crowd and clutched Scarlett’s hand in an almost maternal gesture, her voice soft with what could easily be mistaken for compassion. “Scarlett, I need to apologize. I couldn’t help you lie to Matthew or Frank. I had to confess. But I didn’t expect that you would exploit me to calm the rumors, only to plot this—this secret attempt at assisted conception behind everyone’s back.”

“Had I not overheard your plan when going to comfort you, none of us would have known, and you might have succeeded. If you were truly pregnant, where would that leave me… and Matthew?”

As she finished, tears sprang forth, cascading with practiced ease. Her voice cracked and trembled under the weight of her righteous grief—a sound so perfectly pitched in sorrow that its orchestration was all but invisible.

The room ignited. Fury erupted like a wildfire, each voice aligning with Olivia’s orchestrated indignation.