Married to My Enemy

My father was framed and thrown into prison. To save him, I married the Grand Chancellor, the most powerful man in the palace.

On our wedding night, my husband was relentless. He took me again and again. Each time, he came close to losing control.

But the very next day, a royal decree arrived. My father had been sentenced to death.

I knelt outside my husband's door for days, begging him to save my father. He looked at me coldly and said, "If your father hadn't reported mine back then, my father wouldn't have died such a miserable death. I wouldn't have been sent into the palace either, forced into a life that stripped me of everything I was.

"Now things have changed. If you behave and serve my family obediently, I might consider sparing your family."

On the day my father was executed, my husband wore a richly colored cloak and personally oversaw the beheading.

He even brought the daughter of the man who framed my father into our home and made her his second wife.

For three years after that, he never stepped into my room again.

I cried and resented him, but he used my family as leverage to keep me in line.

It continued until the case was reopened one day and fully investigated. The king himself cleared my father's name.

I was granted a special royal pardon that allowed me to make two wishes.

My first wish was for my family to live in safety and comfort.

My second was to sever all ties with the Grand Chancellor forever.

When I returned from the palace, a light rain had already begun to fall. The droplets gathered at the ends of my hair, weighing it down before falling onto the back of my hand.

For the first time in a long while, I felt a strange sense of ease.

The wife of the Grand Chancellor was supposed to travel in a carriage, escorted and attended at all times. However, I had none of that.

I didn't have a carriage, and not even a single attendant followed behind me.

If this were any other household, no one would believe it.

But in Blackwood Estate, it was entirely believable.

Everyone knew that the Grand Chancellor Yuvan Fletcher didn't love his wife.

Wherever I went, those who recognized me would glance over with quiet mockery and whisper among themselves. I never reacted anymore, having long since gotten used to it.

"My lord husband is busy with palace affairs. He finally had time to take me to the gardens today, but then it started raining. I even stepped straight into the mud."

As I entered the back courtyard, I heard Sabrina Walker's sweet and soft voice.

I meant to slip past and return to my room without being noticed, but she saw me anyway.

She called out to me with a smile on her lips, her gaze sharp with open challenge, and walked straight toward me.

"Kayla, since you're free most days anyway, why don't you help me clean my shoes?"

She had someone bring over a chair and sat down in front of me like she owned the place. Then she lifted her foot, raised an eyebrow, and said, "Be careful and don't ruin my shoes. Lord Fletcher picked them out for me himself."

I didn't move right away.

Instead, I looked up at Yuvan.

When our eyes met, he looked at me coldly. He raised an eyebrow, as if waiting to see what I would do.

I understood exactly what he meant.

Without a word, I lowered myself in front of Sabrina.

I knelt and gently took one of her shoes in my hands, using a handkerchief to wipe the mud from the sole.

I moved as carefully as I could, but she still suddenly let out a sharp cry.

She kicked me in the chest, and I fell back onto the ground.

"Oh no! I didn't mean to. You hurt me. Yuvan, tell her I didn't mean it."

Yuvan frowned, and his expression darkened. He shot me a cold glance and spoke sharply, not caring at all that I was only using a handkerchief through her shoe and that there was no way it could hurt her.

"Be gentler. Sabrina has delicate skin. She's not like you, rough and unrefined by nature."

Rough and unrefined?