CHAPTER 2: The Return of the Heart's OwneTwo weeks had passed since that gray wedding anniversary night. Time moved slowly, dragging Elena into a gripping, lonely routine inside the grand residence of the Vance family. To her, this luxury house was nothing more than an empty labyrinth confining all her hopes.
That afternoon, the bias of the western sunlight began to penetrate the large glass windows, illuminating fine dust floating around. Elena was kneeling in the living room, cleaning a mahogany wood table with a piece of cloth. The small scratches on the table surface reminded her of her own heart—heavily blemished, wounded, yet forced to keep looking clean from the outside.
Suddenly, the roaring sound of a highly unfamiliar sports car engine rumbled in the front yard. Not long after, a clicking sound from the main door handle was heard, followed by steady footsteps. It was still afternoon, and it was unusual for Arthur to return home this early. Normally, the man would only step foot in the house after midnight, leaving Elena awake in solitude.
Elena placed her cloth down, neatened her simple cotton house dress, and walked toward the front corridor with a racing heart. She hoped that maybe Arthur's mood was good today. Maybe today there was a little room for a normal conversation.
However, Elena's footsteps instantly stopped at the threshold of the living room. The entire supply of air around her seemed to be sucked dry.
Arthur was not alone. Beside her husband stood a woman with platinum blond hair styled very gracefully. The woman wore a Paris designer haute couture dress wrapping her curvaceous body very fashionably. A luxury branded bag hung from her elbow, radiating the aura of a high-class, sophisticated socialite. The woman was Victoria Belmont. Arthur's first love, the woman who went abroad right before their ridiculous matchmaking could be carried out.
"Arthur, you know? This city hasn't changed at all since I left for Paris," Victoria said with a crisp, spoiled voice. Her tone of speaking was so familiar, as if she had never gone anywhere. Very casually, she linked her arm through Arthur's muscular arm, pressing her body close without awkwardness.
Elena was fixed in her place, frozen like a wax statue. Her heart beat rapidly, hammering her chest cavity with a painful sensation that suddenly felt suffocating.
'Why does Arthur let another woman touch him like that? Even during these three years, he always brushed off my hand every time I tried to draw close merely to neaten his tie before he left for work. Why can that woman do it so easily?'
Before Elena chanced to utter even a single word to greet them or rebuke that intimacy, Arthur looked up. His sharp eyes directly collided with Elena's pair of eyes. However, there was something very different today. The grey line of sight that was usually so cold, sharp, and full of hatred every time it looked at Elena suddenly softened. That look changed drastically as Arthur looked down, staring at Victoria's face inside his embrace.
"You only need to accustom yourself to the atmosphere here again, Victoria. I will accompany you around the city this weekend," Arthur said. His voice, which usually boomed full of commands, now sounded so gentle, trembling with a deep tone of attention.
'That voice... so he can speak that gently? A tone of speaking full of warmth and protectiveness like that, I haven't heard even once during three full years of suffering being his wife. Why does destiny feel this cruel to me?'
Hearing Arthur's voice, Victoria then shifted her line of sight from the man and stared straight at Elena. A triumphant smile expanded on her lips painted with bright red lipstick. A flash of mockery was clearly visible in her eyes. With a movement deliberately made slow, she released her link from Arthur's arm, then took steps approaching Elena with a highly artificial, graceful style.
"Oh, Elena. Long time no see," greeted Victoria. Her eyes moved down, staring at the cloth still held tightly by Elena, then shifted to look at Elena's loose and cheap house clothes. "Good to see you are still... as diligent as before. I thought after three years of marriage with Arthur and living in a mansion as luxurious as this, your taste would improve a little. It turns out you still look exactly like a domestic servant."
The sentence slid out so smoothly, yet its impact was like a blade slicing Elena's skin. Elena clenched her hands firmly behind her back, trying to restrain her body from trembling violently in front of this woman.
"What are you doing here, Victoria?" asked Elena, trying hard to keep her voice flat and not broken by the tears suddenly pressing in her throat.
"Victoria just returned from Paris, and she will frequently help me in the Vance Group's grand projects ahead," Arthur was the one who answered. The man took steps forward, cutting the distance, then stood sturdily precisely beside Victoria as if emphasizing where his position was. "And watch your speech, Elena. Victoria is my guest of honor in this house."
Victoria let out a small laugh, a laughing sound that sounded like a mockery in Elena's ears. She covered her mouth with slender fingers adorned with a glittering, expensive diamond ring. "It's all right, Arthur. I understand. Besides, we all know how she managed to be in this luxury house. Married because of an old will from a grandmother who was already dying... truly a grand stroke of luck for an orphanage child, isn't it?"
An extraordinary heat traveled across Elena's cheeks, as if she had just been slapped in public. The humiliation was that blunt, demeaning her lonely, solitary origins. Elena stared at Arthur with a pleading view. She hoped her husband, the man legally bound by marriage vows to her, would rebuke Victoria for trampling upon his own wife's self-esteem inside their house. However, Arthur only stayed silent. His face was bent indifferently, not at all disturbed by the cruel insult launched at Elena.
'Arthur, please speak. Say something for the sake of my self-esteem. I am your wife. How can you let another woman enter our house and treat me like filth right in front of your own eyes?'
A painful silence wrapped the room. Elena drew a long breath, gathering the last remnants of bravery she possessed as the mistress in this house.
"Victoria, please get out of here. This is my marriage," Elena said with an emphasized tone, even though her heart was already crushed to pieces.
"Enough, Elena!" snapped Arthur suddenly. His voice booming like thunder broke the silence, making Elena jolt backward in surprise. The anger on Arthur's face now completely returned, specifically directed at Elena.
"You don't possess even the slightest right to drive Victoria out from here!" continued Arthur with eyes flashing in fury. "You want to know why she is here? Because she is the woman who should have stood beside me from the very beginning! She is the true owner of this house, not you!"
Those cruel words came straight out from Arthur's mouth, sliding without brakes, without caring about how ruined Elena's feelings were upon hearing them. The sentence collapsed the remaining defense fortress that Elena had built with patience all this time.
Arthur stared at Elena with eyes full of a deep flash of annoyance. "Don't ever dream you can replace Victoria's position in my heart, Elena. You must know your place. You are only a temporary replacement wife, a doll I was forced to display. Your presence in this house is nothing more than just fulfilling a ridiculous and wrong command from my late grandmother about an old-fashioned matchmaking of the past."
Victoria smiled contentedly, glancing at Elena with a highly distinct demeaning look. She again pressed her body to Arthur's arm, deliberately showing off their intimacy in front of Elena's eyes, emphasizing that she was the true winner.
Elena felt her world collapse instantly. All the joints in her body suddenly turned numb. The tears she had been withholding to the death since afternoon finally escaped, flowing to wet her cheeks without being able to be dammed anymore. Elena's chest rose and fell, withholding an extraordinarily intense suffocation that made it difficult for her to breathe.
'Three years... these three years I was always foolish thinking that his cold attitude was only due to his rigid and reserved character. I always hoped, with my patience, obedience, and sincere service every day, one day his frozen heart would melt. It turns out I was completely wrong. I only wasted time caring about a man who considers me nothing more than a mistake.'
Elena witnessed with her own eyes how Arthur held Victoria's waist gently, guiding the woman inside his study room which was forbidden for Elena. Before stepping inside, Arthur closed the large oak wood door with a powerful slam precisely in front of Elena's face—locking Elena out from their life, forever.
Inside the gripping, cold silence of the house, Elena finally truly understood her position very bitterly.
'It's not that he cannot behave gently. It's not that he doesn't know how to love or treat a woman with respect. He just doesn't want to give that gentleness to me. The entire room in his heart is already full, and it belongs only to Victoria Belmont. I truly never existed, and will never be valuable in his life.'
