?Chapter 649:


    Outside, the wind howled as rain battered the garden, ttening the once-blooming flowers.


    A deafening thunderp cracked through the air, followed by lightning tearing across the sky.


    For a fleeting second, Lydia’s still expression glowed in the sh before darkness returned.


    Time lost meaning as she waited, until footsteps broke the silence. Jeffry stepped inside, rain dripping from his soaked ck suit, his hair stered to his forehead. Lydia lifted her eyes to him.


    Jeffry behaved as if everything was perfectly normal. “Why are you sitting in the dark? Have you eaten?” he asked as he flipped on the lights.


    Augh nearly escaped Lydia’s lips, but it caught in her chest. How could he act like nothing had happened? He was married, but the bride wasn’t her. She had been kept in the dark, like a fool, in this little house.


    “Don’t you have anything to say to me?” Lydia rasped, voice rough as her gaze pinned him down.


    As the living room lights came on, Lydia, having been in the dark for so long, instinctively closed her eyes.


    When she reopened them, Jeffry had already shed his jacket. With practiced ease, he loosened his tie and popped open the top buttons of his shirt as he walked past. “You already know, don’t you?”


    Lydia’s heart squeezed painfully. How could he be so indifferent? Was this all their bond meant to him?


    Dropping her gaze, Lydia gave a bitter smile. Had she been this naive all along? But she wasn’t ready to give up. She lifted her eyes once more. “Say it to me yourself.”


    Jeffry’s frown deepened, annoyance shing across his face. His voice turned sharp. “Don’t be dramatic.”


    Dramatic? Lydia’s breath hitched. That was what this was to him? She wasn’t being dramatic at all! All she needed was for him to say he had recently married another woman.


    Lydia had been captivated by Jeffry from the very first moment. She had taken the first step, the one who opened the door to what they had. But did that mean she deserved to be cast aside like this? She wasn’t someone who clung to people who had no room for her. If he indeed married another woman, she would walk away from his world without hesitation.


    A sharp, pained grin tugged at her lips as her eyes shimmered with hurt. “Jeffry, I’m not here to argue. Just say it inly. Did you just marry another woman?”


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    Jeffry’s mood had been sour all day, and Lydia’s persistence frayed what little patience he had left. Without a word, he sank deeper into the couch, fished a marriage certificate from his pocket, and flung it onto the table between them. “What more do you want from me?”


    His tone was cold as steel.


    The marriage certificate felt like a dagger in Lydia’s chest. Her face turned pale as her shaky hands reached for it. There it was, in ck and white—Jeffry’s name next to Evelyn’s.


    Lydia stood frozen for a moment, trying to fullyprehend what she had just learned. Jeffry had recently secured a marriage certificate with another woman but kept it from her.


    Biting her lip to keep her rising emotions in check, Lydia asked, “If Elena hadn’t told me, would you have intended to keep this from me forever?”


    Was it his intention to forever leave her in the shadows, merely a secret lover in his life? The idea of being the unsuspecting “other woman” was something she had never imagined for herself. She bit her lip so hard that it began to bleed.


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