The Marriage That Never Existed novel Chapter 36

Chapter10

– Richard Harrington’s Story

The first time I saw Evelyn Moore was at a corporate gala.

She already had a fiancé then, and she wasn’t even there for leisure. She was the lead planner for one of our partners‘ projects.

But the moment I laid eyes on her, I knew.

She was stunning.

Her pale–green gown flowed like mist over a river at dawn, untouchable, ethereal.

And yet, she refused me.

So I used business as my excuse. I cornered her. Took her by force.

That night, when she broke beneath me, I felt, for the first time, that the Harrington empire was insignificant compared to her.

To keep her by my side, I destroyed her fiancé’s company, locked her away, shackled her wrists with chains custom–made so she could never run.

That was how she conceived the triplets.

But their faces resembled mine too closely, and Evelyn grew despondent. Her sadness sank into her bones until it became depression.

Later, we had a daughter, Ruby.

Even then, Evelyn struggled. When Ruby turned three, Evelyn still hadn’t recovered.

One day, Ruby came to me and whispered that Mommy wanted to go

outside.

I thought it was just another excuse for Evelyn to escape. She had tried countless times in seven

years.

But her love for Ruby was real. That truth softened me, made me drop my guard.

And that was the day she left. Her former fiancé helped her flee overseas.

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I lost

my

tremble.

mind at Ruby that night. My rage crashed down on her small shoulders, making her

But if she hadn’t been so weak, I thought, Evelyn wouldn’t have left.

My power couldn’t reach across oceans. I tried extending my business abroad instead, chasing

deals that kept me gone, sleepless, desperate.

The more I buried myself in work, the more Ruby strayed, coming home late, wandering off.

The night my sons returned and she didn’t, I sent everyone to search. I spent the entire night

awake, sick with dread.

When Jenkins finally found her the next morning, I nearly collapsed with relief.

I remembered the last time I locked her in her room. She had cried herself unconscious within half

a day.

This time I used the wooden ruler. I didn’t strike hard, just enough to frighten her.

Still, her tears fell in glittering streams, and I hardened my heart.

Because that month alone, she had failed to come home on time three separate times.

So I struck her again.

Her wails tore through the house, endless, unstoppable.

She had always been a crybaby. Evelyn was the only one who could soothe her.

But I had no time for her sobbing. The next night, when she peeked out barefoot into the hall, hair

messy, she reminded me of Evelyn. My anger flared, but I swallowed it down.

I tried to coax her. She clung to my hand, not wanting me to leave. But a call came from overseas, and I stepped outside to take it.

Not long after, they accused her of stealing Chloe Baxter’s heirloom locket.

I didn’t want to believe Evelyn’s child would steal. But Chloe’s father was a firefighter, a fallen hero. Children don’t lie–or so I told myself.

Evelyn had never owned such a locket, and it looked old, valuable.

When Ruby refused to confess, I slapped her. I thought she had learned to lie, just like her mother.

She kept insisting, but I bought the locket anyway to settle the matter.

I forgot that children rarely lie, but adults often teach them to.

That night, Chloe’s grandmother came begging. Chloe had fallen ill, she said, and needed treatment. For the daughter of a man who had given his life in service, how could I refuse?

But I hadn’t expected Ruby to stagger out, saying she was sick too.

She sounded exactly like Evelyn, pretending, lying, just to steal attention.

I ignored her. Until she whispered she might die.

I lost control. I said the cruelest words of my life., “If you’re going to die, then do it far away from

me.”

That sentence haunted me ever since.

I could save strangers, but I didn’t save my own daughter.

Later, I discovered Chloe’s grandmother had staged everything, using her to extort money.

And when I asked Evelyn, she told me she had left Ruby a locket, her mother’s keepsake.

Of course. One look should have told me it was no treasure.

Ruby hadn’t lied. She really had been sick.

By the time I realized, it was too late. She wasn’t in her room, not at school.

We searched everywhere, until we found her in the basement.

Her tiny body burned with fever, her skin searing hot, her breath shallow. Even unconscious, she kept calling for her mother.

The doctor said if we had been an hour later, she would have died.

I stood outside the ER, my legs weak. For the first time in my life, I was afraid.

If she died, Evelyn would hate me forever.

I stayed by Ruby’s side for seven days until she woke.

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But the child who once clung to me, calling “Daddy” endlessly, now shrank from my touch.

She couldn’t speak. Her eyes, once bright with laughter and tears, now only held fear.

The report confirmed it. psychological trauma. Stress–induced mutism. No telling when, or if, she’d speak again.

I tried to be a good father. But it was too late.

Whenever Ruby looked at me, the terror in her eyes hollowed me out.

At first, I didn’t understand. Until Ms. Parker showed me the preschool’s security footage.

My sons, her brothers, had bullied her relentlessly.

So her fear wasn’t just for me. It was for them too.

I punished them myself. But it didn’t matter.

Ruby was gone. Not her body, but her spirit.

She no longer cried. No longer laughed.

She ate, only to vomit. Grew thinner and paler.

The slightest breeze seemed like it could carry her away.

In the end, she was all I had left to bring Evelyn back.

But when Dr. Bennett told me the truth, that Ruby could only heal away from me, I finally let

I delivered her into Evelyn’s arms.

1. go.

And when I saw her cry for her mother, screaming that Evelyn had abandoned her, I knew. That

was her first cry in a month. The only sound she made.

It was my fault. All of it.

My obsession. My cruelty.

I had turned our home into a prison.

From then on, I lived in the shadows, sneaking glances of her life abroad.

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After business dinners, half–drunk, I would sit with a photograph in my hands. Evelyn smiling by the sea, a tall man holding Ruby, their daughter glowing with laughter.

In that moment, I would hear her voice again, her small arms reaching for another man.

“Daddy, Daddy.”

But that “Daddy” was never meant for me again.

I never remarried. When the boys came of age, I cast them out of the Harrington estate.

All my wealth, all my legacy, I poured into a trust under Ruby’s name.

I didn’t care if she became rich or powerful.

I only hoped that for the rest of her life, she would never know hunger, never know fear.

That she would live free, unburdened, far from me.