The Substitute’s Final Revenge

My half-sister gave me to Adrian Cole as her replacement. And I went willingly. I had loved Adrian for fifteen years, but my desperation could never buy me the love I wanted. I did everything I could to please that untouchable man. In the end, all I got was one simple sentence from him: “How could she ever compare to Vivian? Nora Hart is nothing but a slut. She’s no different from a woman who sells herself on the street. “You can have her for the right price. Want to try?” Everyone in A City’s elite circle knew I was Adrian Cole’s pet. Wherever Adrian went, he brought me along, as if he couldn’t bear to be away from me for even a moment. But whenever someone humiliated me, he never stepped in to save me. He watched coldly as wealthy heiresses mocked me. He watched as spoiled rich boys surrounded me and harassed me. He simply sat there, looking down at me from his superior position, his eyes cold as ice. There was only one time Adrian ever defended me. Someone had tried to slash my face with a piece of broken glass. Adrian finally stood up. He walked over and knocked the man to the ground with one punch. Then he stood above him, his icy gaze nearly freezing the man in place. “You can play with her however you want. I don’t care. But no one touches her face.” I stood behind him, my entire body cold. I had always longed for his protection. But his words poured over me like a bucket of ice water. That was right. I had almost forgotten. I was nothing more than a substitute. Vivian Hart’s substitute. Aside from my face, which resembled Vivian’s, Adrian didn’t care about anything else. I was a toy my half-sister, Vivian Hart, had personally given to Adrian. “To keep you from being too heartbroken, I found you a replacement.” “This is my father’s illegitimate daughter, Nora Hart. Her status is low enough to make the perfect substitute.” “But you can’t touch her. If you dirty yourself with her, I’ll never want you again.” With that, Vivian arrogantly delivered me to Adrian’s mansion like a package. Her tone was full of disdain for me and possessiveness toward Adrian. She had every right to be proud. As the little princess of the Hart family, Vivian had been the brightest star in A City since childhood. When she won first place in the children’s division of an international piano competition, I was the one turning pages for her. When she became the lead ballerina, I was the one arranging her costumes. And when Adrian confessed his love to her, I stood silently in the shadows, holding the handbag he had given her and watching with envy. It wasn’t until she personally gave me to Adrian that he finally noticed me. The day Vivian left, Adrian shed tears for the first time in years. Those tears burned my heart. I longed for the day he would shed one for me. Just one would have been enough. Ever since I was brought back to the Hart family, I had been bullied. Everyone looked down on me because I was an illegitimate child. Worse, my father, Richard Hart, and his wife, Laura, had always been seen as the perfect couple. My return tore the fig leaf from their marriage in front of everyone. It proved that their supposedly perfect love was nothing but a joke. Laura allowed the household staff to mistreat me. Vivian had never seen me as anything but a servant. And my father, Richard, hated me to the bone. Every day, he whipped me until my body was streaked with blood. The day Adrian saved me, Vivian had thrown a party at the Hart estate. One of her friends deliberately pushed me into the pool. I sank lower and lower beneath the water as darkness closed around me. I remember thinking that maybe it would be better to die. But I never expected even that darkness to hold a sliver of light.Adrian pulled me out of the pool. From that moment on, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Even now, I still remember the warmth of his arms. My clothes clung to my body, soaked through, but his heat seemed to melt me from the inside out. I looked up at him. His profile was sharp and striking. In that moment, he truly seemed like a god descending from the heavens. He became my salvation, my love, the person I was willing to devote my entire life to. From that day forward, I loved Adrian for fifteen years. But Adrian never loved me. He had always loved Vivian. Even the day he pulled me from the pool, he had mistakenly thought the person drowning was Vivian. After Vivian left, he seemed to lose his soul. He loved her so much that he treated her words like commandments. When Vivian told him to use me as her replacement, he truly did. He took me home and dressed me according to Vivian’s preferences. Vivian had a slimmer figure than mine, so he ordered the staff to stop feeding me until I collapsed from hunger. Vivian had a more defined nose, so he had a piece of cartilage taken from my ear and implanted into my nose. Vivian loved wearing dresses, so even though my legs were covered in scars, he forced me to wear princess dresses every day. The more I came to resemble Vivian, the more time Adrian spent with me. He brought me to every event. It was as if I were a songbird trapped inside his cage. He often stroked my face, gazing at me with a dazed expression, as if he were looking through me at someone else. But he never touched me. He never kissed me or slept with me. Even when I deliberately tried to seduce him, he would shove me away in disgust. Adrian scrubbed fiercely at the place where I had kissed him, his expression like a man who had swallowed a fly. He threw me to the floor, naked. I lowered my eyes and hid my disappointment. From that day on, there was no softness left in his gaze. Yet while he despised me, he couldn’t let go of the face that looked so much like Vivian’s. Finally, he decided I would bear him a child. A child that looked like Vivian. A child that belonged to him. And because I loved him so much, I willingly agreed to become his surrogate. An egg-retrieval needle longer than my forearm was inserted into my body. I lay there expressionlessly, enduring the unbearable pain without making a sound. Adrian stood to the side and watched. There was a trace of reluctance in his eyes, but he never told them to stop.They retrieved twenty-two eggs from me. When I finally got off the hospital bed, my abdomen no longer felt like part of my body. There were still countless procedures afterward—blood tests, imaging, implantation—and each one came with its own kind of pain. Only after the fertilized egg was successfully implanted did Adrian finally relax. “You’ve worked hard. Get some rest.” Adrian was rarely this gentle with me. His hand moved softly over my stomach, as if the embryo inside me already had a life of its own. I felt completely satisfied. I would have endured any amount of suffering willingly. As long as Adrian was willing to take one step closer to me at a time, there would come a day when he forgot Vivian. As my stomach grew, Adrian treated me better and better. Sometimes he even took me out for walks. There were also nights when he listened for the baby’s movements before going to sleep. “Did the baby kick you today?” His voice was warm. Every time he spoke, it soothed the anxiety that plagued me during my pregnancy. I became addicted to his kindness, losing myself in his gentle smile. But everything would eventually be shattered. The life before me was nothing but an illusion. Vivian was coming back. The news spread through A City’s upper circle. Everyone was preparing a welcome party for her. The young heirs and heiresses gathered together to discuss the details. Naturally, Adrian became one of the organizers. After I got pregnant, I became a canary Adrian kept locked away. I received no news from the outside world, and he stopped taking me anywhere. So Adrian had no idea I had come to find him. “Why didn’t Adrian bring his little pet today?” “Are you kidding? The princess is coming back. Do you really think he has time for her?” The private room was loud with laughter and teasing. I stood frozen at the doorway when I heard that Vivian was returning. For a moment, I couldn’t react. But it didn’t matter. I touched my stomach and thought, I already have Adrian’s baby. So what if Vivian comes back? The baby was my confidence. Proof that I was closer to Adrian than she was. I was about to push open the door when Adrian’s careless voice drifted out. In that instant, my entire body turned cold. “You mean Nora? How could she ever compare to Vivian?” “She’s nothing but trash. An illegitimate daughter who wasn’t even allowed to use the Hart name.” “What, are you interested? I can bring her out for you to play with in a few days.”