He married the woman everyone called “the ugliest” daughter of a powerful family for money. But on their wedding night, he found bl00d beneath her dress. She whispered, “My father did this.”

In exchange, Manuel had to marry Rosalie.

During their only private conversation before the wedding, Rosalie had spoken plainly.

“My father says you are desperate.”

“And I was told you hate dishonesty,” Manuel replied.

“They probably told you I’m unbearable.”

“I’ve heard many things,” he said. “I would rather know you before believing them.”

It was not love, but no one had ever spoken to Rosalie without mockery or pity. She accepted because she needed to escape her father’s control.

Her mother, Lorelei, had died twelve years earlier after falling from the veranda of their lake house. Police called it an accident, but Rosalie never believed that.

Afterward, Emmett kept her isolated through paid doctors, powerful medication, and false claims that she was emotionally unstable.

The night before her wedding, Rosalie found a tiny key hidden inside her mother’s sewing box. She believed it opened a locked archive Emmett had guarded for years.