Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Coincidentally, the date to get the marriage license landed on the exact day Lydia had planned to leave.
She glanced at the box holding the wedding dresses but didn’t open it. Instead, she got up and went to the villa across the
street.
Back in Lydia and Michael’s sophomore year, Dennis Finnian had fallen seriously ill and finally acknowledged Michael–the illegitimate child he’d left to be raised by servants.
Thrown into a battle over inheritance in a wealthy family, Michael’s situation had been far from easy.
Dennis gave him a small company to run–part test, part challenge.
But that company was already millions of dollars in the red. To pull in investors, Michael attended endless drinking parties and ended up with a bleeding ulcer.
Lydia sold the pair of antique apothecary jars her father Patrick had left her to help Michael through the crisis.
Later, she sold antiques three more times–all pieces Patrick had left behind.
Before he died, Patrick made her swear to protect those items, not even to give them to Rachel.
She’d thought she could buy them back one day. But after Michael became CEO of the Finnian Group, she could never
track them down again.
Last year, Michael bought the villa across the street and had it put solely in Lydia’s name. He said it was her home, and she could decorate it however she wanted.
She had the entire third floor turned into a showroom and moved all of Patrick’s antiques in.
She’d believed it was the safest fortress she could give them. But now, it had all fallen apart.
Patrick had devoted his life to studying history. Those antiques meant more to him than life itself.
Lydia couldn’t afford to lose a single one more.
She spent the whole day carefully packing each antique on her own, then loading them into the car with just as much
care.
That evening, Lydia was called out to the cottage in the countryside for dinner with her aunt Jane.
“Your mom called me,” Jane said. “She asked where the stuff your dad left is.”
Lydia froze for a second but kept a straight face. “I’m not giving those things to her.”
“You’re going back to Jettridge soon, Can you really keep those things safe?” Jane sighed. Thinking back, her expression turned grim. “Your mom is quite manipulative.”
In truth, Rachel wasn’t just manipulative–she was heartless.
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Lydia would never forget what she saw when she went to Rachel for money while Patrick was dying.
Back then, Rachel hadn’t even divorced Patrick yet, but she already had a son with another man–a boy only three years younger than Lydia.
“I’m going to marry Hayden Leonard,” Lydia said.
Even if the marriage was in name only, becoming Hayden’s wife would at least stop people from messing with her.
Jane immediately grabbed her hand. “You’re going back to Jettridge and leaving Michael for this? Lydia, don’t let your dad’s last wishes weigh you down. Nothing is more important than your own happiness.”
No one knew better than Jane how much Michael meant to Lydia. Lydia loved him deeply.
Lydia’s nose stung with emotion. She pulled out her phone, opened Ciara’s latest post, and handed it to Jane.
Jane only had to glance at it before she exploded. “How could she? I’m going to talk to her.”
Ciara’s parents never loved her. They’d even tried to marry her off the moment she turned eighteen just to collect the engagement gift from the groom’s side.
To escape them, Ciara had lived with Lydia at Jane’s house all through college. Jane had practically raised her like a daughter.
Lydia reached out and stopped Jane, pulling her phone back. “Don’t. She’s not the only one at fault.”
Jane understood heartbreak more than most. Her eyes shifted to a photo on the wall–her son, from his baby days to now at eighteen. His father had never come back.
That kind of powerless waiting made her feel especially furious.
“Call Michael here,” Jane said. “He owes us an explanation.”
Lydia set her fork down and gave a calm, faint smile. “Everything Ciara posted was visible to me alone. I’ve saved screenshots. I’ll send them to Michael–just not yet.”
Jane paused. She thought back to the first time she met Lydia, a stubborn little girl covered in bruises, refusing to shed a single tear.
Lydia had never been easy to push around. She always got even. And that included what the Hollander family did to her- she would return it all, one day.
That night, Lydia stayed over at Jane’s house. Around nine, Michael called once, asking where she was.
There was a hint of hesitation in his tone, like he had more to say, but he didn’t push further.
The next morning, when Lydia returned, she saw a group of movers outside the villa across the street.
The furniture being unloaded was from the most luxurious brand in Raventon. Back when she was decorating the place
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she had considered this brand–but couldn’t bring herself to splurge.
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She walked over, just about to ask the workers a few questions, when the supervisor stepped out with a delivery receipt in
hand.
“Careful with everything–if you break even one piece, you can’t afford to replace it,” he barked at the workers. Then he
noticed Lydia and gestured for her to move. “Please step aside.”
“This is my house.” Lydia held out her hand. “I want to see that receipt.”
The supervisor looked surprised, but still handed it over.
“This is your place? Then the woman inside… is she your family?” he asked.
Ciara’s name was printed clearly at the top of the delivery slip. And this was already the second shipment. The total cost was over two million dollars.
Lydia took a deep breath and handed the slip back. “It’s been paid for?”
The supervisor nodded. “All cleared.”
“Then go ahead and move it in,” she said.
Lydia crossed her arms and leaned against the porch. She waited until everything was unloaded and the movers had left before she stepped inside.
“Ms. Merritt, your pumpkin soup is ready–Mr. Finnian asked me to make it for you,” a middle–aged woman who seemed to be the cook called upstairs. Then she turned and caught sight of Lydia, clearly startled. “W–who are you?”
Lydia caught a whiff of the sweet scent of pumpkin soup in the air and found it almost laughably cruel.
She had studied countless recipes to help Michael’s alcohol–damaged stomach heal. One of the most effective ingredients? Pumpkin.
“Lydia?” Ciara’s voice called down from upstairs, full of shock. Her face showed panic, like Lydia was some kind of
monster.
“Lydia, w–what are you doing here?” she stammered. “Michael said I could move in. Please don’t be mad–I haven’t touched any of the wedding stuff you bought.”
She looked so pitiful, anyone watching might’ve felt sorry for her.
Lydia had been fooled by that act for years, thinking Ciara was innocent and sweet. She never imagined Ciara would turn out to be such an ungrateful, greedy little snake.
Lydia calmly picked up her phone and called the property management. “Someone broke into my house. Handle it immediately, or I’m calling the police.”
“Lydia, please don’t make me leave. I really-” Ciara panicked and tried to come downstairs, but her legs seemed to give out. She collapsed onto the steps in pain, crying as she pleaded.
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“Lydia, what are you doing?” A furious voice snapped from behind. At the same time, Lydia caught the flash of triumph in
Ciara’s eyes.
A man rushed toward Ciara. Of course–it was Michael.
The building management wouldn’t dare cross the CEO of Finnian Group. But now that things had escalated, Michael was clearly embarrassed. His face was as dark as a thundercloud.
“I told Ciara she could move in,” he said to Lydia. “You could’ve just called me. Why did it have to come to this?”
Ciara clung to his arm gently, looking pitiful. “Michael, Lydia said this is her house. She has every right to kick me out.”
“Her house? I paid for it!” Michael’s cold, mocking words stabbed straight into Lydia’s heart.
Back when she secretly sold off her father’s antiques to cover the losses in his company, Michael had told her everything he had was hers. And now–less than two years later–this was his response.
“Are you going to change the name on the deed?” Lydia asked, her tone icy. The question made something in Michael’s chest tighten.
Beside him, Ciara slowly stood up. “Michael, maybe I should go. I don’t want to be the reason you two are fighting.”
Her soft, understanding act hit the right nerve. Michael’s protective instincts flared. He scooped her into his arms. “Go? Why would you leave? If you can’t stay here, then you’ll just move across the street.”
“But… all this furniture?” Ciara said, unwilling to give it up–after all, it was worth over two million dollars.
Michael glanced at Lydia. “Pack it up. We’ll need it when we get married.”
Once Michael and Ciara were gone, Lydia pulled out her phone and called a flea market. “I have a shipment of brand–new
luxury furniture. Never opened. Selling for half price.”
