I should have walked away from this relationship long ago.
And yet, in that moment, I felt an odd, fleeting gratitude toward him—gratitude for his cruelty. Because it forced me to wake up faster than I ever could have on my own.
Once the camera equipment was in place, I shot in three different styles.
With every click of the shutter, Rhea’s smile thinned.
"Starlene, are you doing this on purpose? Trying to get back at me?"
"What’s the difference between these dull shots and any other wedding photos?"
"Don’t play innocent. I saw the wedding photos in your room—the ones you took with someone else. That’s the style I want."
She was talking about the sample shots I had taken with Justin back then. In the final edits, I had erased his face for artistic effect.
His gaze swept over me, calm and cold, his tone carrying an unshakable certainty.
"Is this too hard for you, Starlene? You wouldn’t forget something you shot yourself, would you?"
"I remember. So… please bear with me one more time?"
I knew I had no right to refuse. My voice could not hide the weariness seeping into my bones.
Rhea’s intentions were too obvious.
And yet Justin didn’t even bother to intervene.
Thousands of shots later, she still wasn’t satisfied.
It wasn’t that I failed to capture the way Justin looked at her with open admiration.
It was that I kept "getting the lighting wrong," "missing the right pose," "choosing the wrong moment."
Only when the camera memory was completely full did she finally nod in approval.
"That’s it. Though, of course, the very first one was the best."
After that, they turned toward the car together.
"Starlene, the sports car only seats two. I’m afraid you’ll have to find your own way back."
"The passenger seat belongs to her anyway. She knows her place."
I let my arms drop helplessly. After holding the camera for so long, my muscles ached too much to even lift it again.
By the time I returned to the villa that night, it was well past midnight and the mountain of photo edits was still waiting for me.
Rhea had suddenly decided to move the wedding up by an entire week.
It now landed squarely on the date that was once meant for my own wedding.
Over the next three days, I scraped together barely five hours of sleep in total.
On the morning of the wedding, my phone buzzed nonstop with messages from relatives back home.
They wanted to know why I had suddenly canceled my wedding and whether something had gone wrong between Justin and me.
The family group chat was packed with messages urging me not to be impulsive.
They reminded me, again and again, that the Harlow Family’s background was far beyond my reach.
Every word meant as comfort only pressed deeper into my wound and I couldn’t bring myself to reply.
The vast villa was silent, only the maid and I remained. Rhea had given everyone else the day off before the wedding "to avoid distractions."
For six hours straight, I ran from room to room, making sure every last decoration was in place.
I had thought that after these grueling days, I might be able to watch this wedding, the one that wasn’t mine, with a kind of detached calm.
But the moment I saw Rhea wearing the wedding dress I had spent half a year choosing, my vision blurred.
Her lips curved in a smile.
"Am I really that beautiful, Starlene? Why are you crying?"
"They decided at the last minute to switch to a conventional wedding style. The makeup artist didn’t know how to adjust for it, so she quit."
"By the way, you’re so good at makeup. Why don’t you do mine today?"
She was about the same size as me, so the gown fit her perfectly and no alterations were needed.
Dizziness hit me and the staircase seemed to tilt beneath my feet.
Suddenly, a figure appeared behind me and I stumbled into a broad chest.
Rhea tilted her head, pouting in mock grievance.
"If you don’t want to, just say so, Starlene. No need to make a show of refusing me, okay?"
Turning around, I met Justin’s eyes—cold, sharp and threatening.
"She wouldn’t dare, would you, Starlene?"
In that instant, the dam inside me finally burst.
