My General Mother Ruined Me For My Cousin—Then Regretted It Too Late Chapter 04
That night, the pain was unbearable. I lay on my stomach, my back feeling like someone had taken a belt sander to it.
Sienna let herself in without knocking. She set a tube of wound ointment on my dresser. “Aunt Victoria asked me to bring this. For your back.”
Her eyes drifted across the damage on my back. Her smile deepened.
“I poured the ink on my own gown, you know. Chloe was following my instructions the whole time. And your grandmother’s gown—it’s hanging in my closet right now. Aunt Victoria said the craftsmanship was too fine to waste on you.”
The door clicked shut.
Tessa uncapped the tube. The instant it touched my wounds, I screamed. I bit down on my arm, convulsing.
Tessa’s face went gray. She smelled the tube. “This isn’t ointment. It’s corrosive gel. This will eat through your skin.”
“I’m telling the General.”
I grabbed her arm. “Don’t. She’ll take Sienna’s side. She always does. You’ll be the one who pays for it.”
I swallowed. “Tomorrow. Go to a clinic. Get proper medicine.”
Tessa knelt by my bed and held my hand, her eyes wet. “How do you survive this, Miss Mia? How?”
I buried my face in the pillow. Just sleep it off. I’d been telling myself that since I was eight.
Sometime in the blur between sleep and fever, I saw a shape in the doorway.
My mother.
I knew the silhouette. My mouth opened—and closed. No. She’d be in Sienna’s room. Planning the engagement. Being the mother she never was for me.
But her voice drifted through the cracked door. She was talking to the housekeeper in the hallway. She thought I was unconscious.
“I shouldn’t have punished her.” A long pause. “But she forced my hand. If I don’t break that stubbornness, she’ll destroy herself.”
“The match I arranged—Owen—he’s not what I’d choose, but he’ll keep her in D.C. Once Sienna’s engagement is settled, once things calm down, I’ll make it up to Mia. All the years. We’ll have time.”
I let my eyes close.
She wasn’t going to get the chance.
Three days later, a convoy of black SUVs pulled up to the Hart estate. My mother and the household staff swept out the front doors, expecting the Caldwell family.
Damien Blackwood stepped out of the lead car. He was tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a perfectly tailored dark suit. He wasn’t here to play political games—he was here for me.
His eyes found me immediately. Whatever he saw in my face made his expression harden. Before he said a single word to anyone else, he turned to the man beside him: “Get the doctor in here. Now.”
Then, to the crowd: “I’m here to ask Mia Hart to marry me.”
My mother’s expression froze. She looked from Damien to me, trying to piece together what was happening. I could see her recalculating—Helena’s defense of me at the gala. The way Helena had looked at me. It wasn’t Adrian Caldwell I had feelings for. It was Damien Blackwood.
She opened her mouth, probably to say I was already engaged—
Damien was already extending a leather portfolio. Inside: a marriage agreement, drafted by Blackwood’s attorneys. Witnessed. Notarized.
“I never authorized—” my mother started.
A voice cut through from the back of the crowd: “I gave him my blessing.”