The Substitute Bride Is Reborn and Loves Her Husband No more - Chapter 118

Chapter 118: Don’t make the same mistake twice.

Rolan was pacing once more.

Not peaceful, thoughtful pacing—but stalking. Like a caged animal. Shoulders rolled up, jaw locked so hard it seemed to hurt. His boots thudded against the floor with resolve, as if each step was meant to hammer down whatever storm was raging in his mind.

Rose said nothing. She didn’t need to. Every abrupt change, every dark glare hurled into the air told everything.

Zara tried it. Again.

“Okay,” she said, too bubbly by half for the atmosphere, “I propose we do a five-minute feelings check and then stuff chocolate until someone gets a sugar high.”

No one responded to her.

Rolan stopped pacing long enough to shoot a glare Damien’s direction. “Got something smart to say, or are you gonna just keep smirking like a jackass?”

Damien refused to rise to the bait. He didn’t even stop leaning against the nearest surface, arms crossed as though he had eternity. “Didn’t know I needed permission to smile.”

“You’re pushing it.”

“I’m standing still.”.

Zara let out a sigh and collapsed theatrically. “This is what I get for believing in group bonding. You two need therapy. Or a punching bag.”

Damien grinned, slow and smug. “Why waste the energy? She didn’t say no, did she?”

Rolan tensed.

Rose’s stomach twisted, but she didn’t crack up. She stood there—eyes locked on Rolan.

Rolan spun, slow and careful, as if even that motion cost him. “You think you won something?”

Damien raised an eyebrow. “I think you lost the moment you walked away.”

Zara sat up, appalled. “Okay, nope, we are not doing this again. We’re not drawing lines like some breakup sitcom, okay?”

Rolan didn’t blink. His eyes stayed locked on Damien’s. “He’s enjoying this. That’s what makes it worse.”

Damien didn’t deny it.

Rose sat back, still quiet. Letting it all fall apart.

Rolan’s fists were balled. “You think you’re better for her?”

“I don’t need to think it,” Damien said evenly. “I’m not the one she’s avoiding.”

That landed like a gut punch.

Rolan’s entire body coiled, like he was seconds from snapping. But instead of speaking, he looked at Rose.

Her expression gave him nothing.

The memory was still sharp, cutting into her thoughts without warning.

It had been a normal night—except that it wasn’t. That night, Rose had been by himself, thinking he was there, thinking she was safe. She hadn’t known that Rolan had chosen Jennifer over her.

He’d shoved her aside, disregarded her texts, her phone calls, as if she were some kind of intrusive detail, some unimportant detail. He hadn’t even called to inquire when she’d left the office that evening. He was too busy with Jennifer, with someone whose opinions mattered. And Rose, in love with him all along, had tuned it out.

Until they took her.

The abductor—some faceless stranger, a ghost at night—had caught her, dragged her off, his arm cold and suffocating. She’d screamed. She’d fought. But her screams were stifled, drowned by the stillness of the night. Her phone, useless in her pocket, was not enough to save her. Rolan hadn’t even tried to call out, hadn’t noticed she was missing until hours later.

By then, she was already bruised, already broken.

She had expected him to come for her. But he hadn’t.

And instead, she found out in the worst way possible that during those times when she was held captive and helpless, Rolan was standing at Jennifer’s side, making excuses and spinning lies. He had not cared enough to look after her. He had not cared enough to see signs, to hear her cries for help.

He had not cared about her whatsoever.

When they were able to locate her, it was too late. She was shattered—body, mind, and soul—and Rolan’s apology had accomplished nothing. Indifference was all that was left in him. He’d not been present for her when she’d needed him. He’d let her be dragged away from him, had left her to die with Jennifer around.

In her resurrection, Rose kept him at arm’s length, shutting herself off from the man who had chosen someone else, who had allowed her pain to be without lifting a hand. She was done with him. Done with the idea of ever being second.

And yet, now as she looked at Damien, his eyes rock-solid and unyielding, Rose couldn’t help but ask herself.

Would Damien ever depart? Would he ever leave her to perish, the way that Rolan had left her to perish?

Damien was different. He hadn’t betrayed her—at least, not yet.

.

Rolan sat by the fire, alone, staring into the flames. His jaw was tight, his shoulders tense. He hadn’t said much all night. Not to her. Not to anyone.

Damien moved closer to Rose, quiet as ever. “Here,” he said, handing her a blanket. Their hands brushed briefly as she accepted it. Gently done, but still there for an instant. A fraction too long, maybe, but just enough.

She did not pull away.

They looked at each other, for but a moment, but in that moment, there had been a moment between them.

What’s going on Rolan looked at red eyes

Rose did not look away.

Damien stepped back, but not much. His expression was cool professionalism no storm of silence like the one that rolled off Rolan.

Later,, Rose tried to sleep, but sleep would not come.

Rolan didn’t sleep, either.

She cocked her head, barely, to regard him standing there, alone. His gaze latched onto her and Damien, too close, too blatant.

He cursed under his heart that he must be him, why him instead of Damien and so close to her. His fingers were tightened into a ball around something. A photograph. One that she recognized from many years ago.

An old picture—him and she, when things weren’t as shattered as this. When things weren’t disintegrating.

Rolan’s fingers tightened into a fist, his knuckles white. His gaze rested on the photograph for a moment longer before he glanced at her, his expression unyielding.

On the back of the photograph, a note.

“You already lost her. Don’t make the same mistake twice.”

Roland’s gaze moved from the photo to them once more, but he did not say anything. His hold on the photo was firm as though it could grasp something that was lost a long time ago.

Rolan merely believed that Damien was a cunning Bastard. The man appeared innocent to Rose but all this time he has been cutting corners to keep Rose at bay.