“Marcella, don't you worry!”
“When Stuart gets bored of you, come find me. I'll make sure you're well taken care of.”
“Get lost, don't you already have a wife at home?”
“Marcella, you should come to me instead. I'm single. If you could handle Stuart, I'm sure your bedroom skills can't be half bad.”
“Heh, let me get a taste too.”
In that moment, I was nothing more than an object on display, picked over by strangers. Powerless and seething with hatred.
“Stuart Gilbert. Lucinda Harding. Remember what you did here today.”
“Because when the time comes, I will repay you tenfold.”
“I will bring your precious families to ruin, and it will be because of you.”
The room erupted in sneering laughter the second the words left my mouth.
“You? Some country girl? What could you possibly do to bankrupt our families?”
Lucinda charged at me while I couldn't move and slapped me across the face.
Her nails dragged across my skin on purpose, tearing it open. My cheek burned.
“You slut. The thing I hate most is this face of yours, always luring men in.”
“And let me tell you something else!”
“After the bet's settled, I'm going to have them catch those cockroaches and shove them down your throat.”
“Disgusting women deserve disgusting food, don't you think?”
“Heh, and once you've had your fill, the boys can have their fun with you.”
I met her gloating stare with ice-cold eyes：“Careful. When the time comes, it might be you choking on cockroaches. And you they're passing around.”
“You bitch!” She struck my other cheek. By now, the foam in the tub had dissolved a little more.
Lucinda's smile turned sly. The men behind her grew even more restless.
“Damn, my ten million!”
“If I'd known Stuart loved Lucinda that much, I never would've taken that goddamn bet.”
“Marcella, you useless piece of trash. You cost me money. I'm going first to get my money's worth.”
Stuart stood there with a cigarette pinched between his fingers, a mocking curl at the corner of his lips.
“I haven't gotten bored of her yet and you're already talking like that?”
“Hahaha, then I'll ask Lucinda. You spoil her rotten. No way you can resist when she pouts.”
“Right, Lucinda?”
Lucinda, eager to twist the knife deeper, turned to Stuart with a coy smile.
“Stuart, just do this for me, won't you?”
“Today's wedding was fake, sure, but I'm still a little upset about it.”
“End things with Marcella. Right here, right now.”
“Fine, fine. Whatever you want.”
Did these two really believe that because they had powerful families behind them, they could control other people's fates?
That they could trample someone's dignity whenever and wherever they pleased?
My stepmother's family had taught me to be ruthless and decisive. But Stuart and Lucinda were teaching me something far worse: how to take revenge without mercy.
“Marcella, I did love you once. But your background only ever qualified you for this much.”
“So hating me is pointless. If you want to hate someone, hate the family you were born into.”
Someone stomped a cockroach flat, picked up the carcass, and flung it at my face.
They wanted to provoke me. Every time I flinched, every time I reacted, the foam shrank a little more.
My eyes were bloodshot as I stared at every single person who had humiliated me, burning each face into my memory.
“Your arrogance will cost you.”
“Ha! If you were someone with real power, maybe. But you? You're different.”
“What are you gonna do, beat me with your little fists in bed?”
“Hahaha!”
“Stuart's really something, huh? She stood by him from rock bottom all the way to the top, and this is what she gets!”
“So what? The Gilbert family isn't some nobody clan. You think they'd let a woman with zero background become the family matriarch?”
