Chapter 3

Harper was forced to stand outside Sienna's door. Hearing Callum gently comforting Sienna broke her heart all over again. She stood by the door till midnight and refused to apologize. Callum was furious, but when he saw how pale Harper looked and the blood on her back, his heart softened. He told the housekeepers to take her back to her room. Harper dragged her battered body to her room and refused the housekeepers' help to treat her wounds. She pulled out the delicate box he had put together when she was pregnant. Inside were the toys he had lovingly carved for their baby and the clothes she had made with her own hands. But their baby was gone. He had a new one now, and she would never get to be a mother again. She opened the box with trembling hands, only to find it empty. She froze for a couple of seconds, then started breathing rapidly, her chest heaving visibly. She slammed the lid shut and immediately opened it again, as if hoping she had imagined it all. But there was still nothing inside. Everything Harper and Callum had prepared for the baby was gone. Her mind went blank, and a loud ringing filled her head. She collapsed backward like a marionette with its string cut. A pair of arms caught her just in time. "Watch out!" Callum enveloped Harper, and she instinctively clutched his shirt, like a drowning person clinging to a lifeline. Her lips trembled as she stammered, "I-It's all gone." He had no idea what she was talking about. When he saw the empty box on the bed, he realized what was going on and chuckled. "I gave everything inside the box to Sienna." He met her stunned gaze and added without a twinge of guilt, "Our child is gone anyway. What is the point in keeping those things? Better to give them to Sienna." Harper flinched, then suddenly shoved Callum away. Her vision went dark for a second, and the taste of blood welled up in her throat. But she swallowed it back. She had to retrieve her baby's belongings. She staggered out of the room, and he frowned as she followed her. When she entered Sienna's room, she saw that the baby clothes she had made were already torn to shreds. When Sienna saw them, she tossed the torn baby clothes onto the floor and scraped them across the floor with her foot like a rag. She remarked with a grin, "The wooden toys you gave me were lovely, Callum. But those clothes looked so cheap, so I turned them into rags." Harper's throat burned with rising blood. Before she knew it, she was already on the floor, yanking the clothes from beneath Sienna's feet. Sienna exclaimed, "What are you doing, Harper? Stop touching my legs." Her expression changed drastically as she fell over to one side. "My baby." Callum caught Sienna in his arms, then slapped Harper hard across her face as she was getting up. The sound cracked through the air, and she hit the floor again. Seeing this, he instinctively reached out to help, but when Sienna groaned and clutched her stomach, he turned to her immediately. "You have to apologize this time, Harper Vaughn!" It was the first time Callum had ever snapped at Harper like that. Standing in front of Sienna, he looked like a husband defending his wife. Harper didn't say a word or even spare them a glance. All she did was crawl forward, gathering each scrap of torn fabric and holding them in a tight fist. Her behavior set him off. In the end, Harper still faced the punishments she had been spared earlier. This time, Callum was the one who gave the word. With Sienna sitting next to him, he looked down at Harper as she was being punished. After 50 lashes, Harper could barely hold herself up. She fell forward with blood pouring out of her mouth. Her back was ruined. It was covered in overlapping lash marks, and every line was swollen and grotesque. Only then did panic and guilt hit Callum. "Harper." That was all she heard before she became unconscious.