Chapter 254

Chapter 254

The heavy memory crashed down like a stone, hitting Edward square in the chest.

He clutched at his shirt front, his breathing becoming broken and rapid. Sharp pain surged up from his stomach, tearing at him in waves like convulsions.

Forcing himself to look back at the years following their marriage, he reviewed every cruelty he had done to Victoria.

To follow Anne's "dying wish," and for the sake of so-called atonement, Victoria had completely given up her jewelry design studies—something she loved and had a clear future in. She stayed by his side, bound to a man who treated her like a criminal, voluntarily interring herself in a prison cell.


She endured his prolonged silence and distance, endured his deliberate coldness, endured his repeated humiliations.

And him?

Edward remembered how on some nights, Victoria would hide in the study drawing design sketches.

Those lines and structures felt like a door only she could open, a brief breath of air, and almost the last bit of control she had left.

When she was drawing, she didn't have to keep thinking about why Anne died, didn't have to calculate how to please Edward. She just needed to finish her work and get herself through that night.

But he would approach with a cold sneer, shredding the drawings before her eyes before throwing the scraps in her face.

"A murderer who killed her own sister, you think you deserve to hold a pen? Your designs belong in the trash!"

He remembered how her eyes would redden and her body would tremble, yet she never dared utter a word in her own defense.

He even used the Windsor family's survival as leverage, threatening her in all sorts of despicable ways, controlling her, cutting off what few design opportunities she had.

He threw her into underground gambling dens, forcing her to witness violence in those places. Edward locked her in a sealed room where the ventilation had been deliberately cut off, with venomous snakes inside, while Anne's singing played on repeat outside, as if trying to grind away her sanity bit by bit.

Edward had personally destroyed Victoria's life. He had driven that girl—who should have been called a genius designer at Varellia's haute couture shows—into a corner with no way out, He stripped her of her dignity until she developed severe schizophrenia until she broke entirely.


"Ah! I destroyed her! I killed the person I loved most."

Edward slammed his head against the wall repeatedly. He struck with such force that his bones felt numb and his skin split instantly.

Blood ran down his forehead, blurring his vision, and the room's outline began to sway.

Years ago on that overpass, Victoria had turned with a smile that was both desperate and somehow relieved, and jumped into the rushing river below. That scene was seared into his mind, an indelible image that tore open like an old wound every time he closed his eyes.

It was all too late.

The extreme pain and blood loss made Edward's consciousness begin to drift. In that almost suffocating pressure, his mind uncontrollably conjured up a crazy thought.

What if... what if time could flow backward?

What if on the day Victoria left Asteria City for Varellia, when he sat in that Maybach outside the airport, he could have been brave enough to face his true feelings, stop covering everything up with those fake excuses?

What if he had admitted he'd fallen in love with her long ago, and actually done something about it—wouldn't all the tragedies have been prevented?

Anne wouldn't have died. Victoria wouldn't have been tormented into jumping off that bridge. Everyone might have had completely different lives.

In that timeline he imagined...

Asteria City's summer was still sweltering, but the car's AC was running full blast. Edward gripped his phone, his palm covered in sweat.

On the other end, Anne's gentle voice came through again, "Edward, don't you have something... you want to tell her yourself?"

This time, Edward didn't dodge.

He gripped the phone tighter, his eyes red, his Adam's apple rolling violently from tension. Through the car window, he stared at that figure behind the glass curtain wall, watching her with her head down, her fingertips repeatedly rubbing that crabapple petal. She looked so fragile, like she could be swallowed by the crowd at any moment.

Edward's heartbeat was painfully fast.

"Yes, Anne." He spoke into the phone, his tone firm but his voice trembling from suppression. "I have to see her. I can't let her just leave like this."

The other end went quiet for two seconds, then came a very soft sigh, as if finally letting something go.

"Okay."

Edward took a deep breath and continued, "When I get back from the airport, I have some very important things I need to be honest with you about."

Edward knew better than anyone that with Anne's intelligence and perceptiveness, she couldn't possibly miss that suppressed emotion between him and Victoria. Anne making this call was her way of giving him one last choice.

"Go, Edward." Anne's voice remained gentle. "Don't let yourself regret this."

The moment the call ended, Edward violently pushed open the Maybach's heavy door.

The engine was still running. He didn’t stop to straighten his jacket before running into the blinding summer sunlight, breaking into a sprint toward the terminal.


Wind rushed past his ears, his heart pounding violently in his chest. Edward's eyes held no room for any more concerns or hesitation.

Only one nearly obsessive thought remained in his mind, he had to see Victoria today!

Edward rushed through the airport terminal like he was racing against time.His breath burned in his lungs and his steps were frantic, his expensive custom-tailored jacket pulling taut as he ran.


He searched frantically through the crowd.

Finally, near the boarding gate by the floor-to-ceiling windows, Edward spotted that slender figure in a white linen shirt and jeans.

In that instant, his heart seemed to skip a beat. The emotions he'd held back for too long, along with the tearing sensation of losing her in reality, broke through his last bit of restraint.

Edward strode over and, in her shocked and nearly blank gaze, grabbed her wrist without explanation, pulled her forcefully into his arms, and held her tight—as if loosening his grip even slightly would make her disappear.

"Victoria..."

Edward was breathing hard, his arms locked firmly around her waist. He greedily confirmed her scent—not the bloody smell from the overpass, not the cold smell of river water, but the real warmth of a living, healthy Victoria.

"What... Edward?!"

Victoria never expected him to suddenly appear. Her body went rigid, and the next second, panic and shame flooded over her like a tide. Her cheeks flushed rapidly. She struggled in his embrace, hands pushing against his solid chest, her voice shaking, both wronged and flustered.

"Have you lost your mind? Let me go! This is an airport! You're Anne's fiancé. This is completely inappropriate!"

The moment she said "let go" and "inappropriate," Edward's heart clenched sharply.