Chapter 20
Chapter 20
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Claudia struggled to maintain her fake, syrupy smile. “Sweetie, you’ve got it all wrong. That’s not what I meant. I’m just so happy you’re home. If you’d told me in advance, I could’ve had the staff prepare some of your favorite dishes.”
The way she kept calling Rosalie sweetie, as if she really thought of herself as Rosalie’s mother, made Rosalie sick to her stomach.
She didn’t bother responding and simply stepped past Claudia, heading further into the hall. Her gaze landed on the young woman seated on the sofa.
The girl’s complexion was unnaturally pale, her cheeks sunken, and her lips devoid of any color, a telltale sign of chronic illness.
This was Helena–the illegitimate daughter Edward and Claudia had conceived behind Rosalie’s mother’s back.
Rosalie had once pitied her. As a child, she had genuinely felt sorry for Helena, thinking her little stepsister was unfortunate -fatherless, frail, and sickly. She had even treated Helena like a real sister, showering her with care and affection.
But reality had proven her foolish. Helena wasn’t some helpless damsel in need of sympathy. She wasn’t even that much younger than Rosalie–just a few months, in fact. A detail that, in hindsight, should have made everything glaringly obvious. Tonight, Helena was dressed in a pristine white cashmere sweater paired with a light brown knit skirt. Her long hair cascaded over her shoulders, framing her delicate, sickly features, making her look every bit the fragile, pitiable beauty.
Helena could feel Rosalie’s gaze on her, unwavering and silent. As she compared Rosalie’s radiant, stunning face with her own pale, frail appearance, a wave of envy surged within her. She had long been consumed by jealousy toward Rosalie.
Helena envied Rosalie’s prestigious lineage, the fact that she was the legitimate daughter and not an illegitimate child. She envied Rosalie’s beauty, how she was effortlessly alluring, a woman who could turn heads wherever she went.
Meanwhile, Helena, though also Edward’s daughter, could never claim her rightful place as the heiress to the Graham family. She was nothing more than a burden, an unwelcome afterthought, living in the shadows of her father’s world. She thought bitterly, ‘Why? Just because her mother was Dad’s first wife?‘
Now, as Rosalie gazed at her with that detached expression, Helena felt like nothing more than an object being scrutinized, weighed, and dismissed.
Helena’s deep–seated insecurity, buried beneath years of resentment, surged to the surface all at once.
