After Redemption, I Became His Hidden Secret

For twenty years, Kyle and I were each other’s salvation. On the day he confessed his feelings, he promised to give me a warm and loving home.

However, everything changed when the Gill family found him and brought him back, naming him the Crown Prince of High Society.

Overnight, I went from being his proud fiancée to nothing more than his hidden canary in a gilded cage.

With another woman in his arms, his voice was cold and distant, “The eldest young master of the Gill family can’t marry an orphan.”

At that moment, my heart shattered completely. I left the capital that very night.

Later, I heard I had become the Gill family’s unspoken taboo.

That once-proud Young Master Gill ended up confined to a mental institution, clinging to a doll and whispering my name day after day.

[Curious whether Kyle will choose you or me? If you really want the answer, come to the Dynasty Hotel.]

The message from Madeline burned in my hand. At first, anger surged through me, only to be smothered by shame.

I was nothing more than the canary Kyle kept hidden away in a suburban villa, while she was the Gill family’s officially acknowledged future daughter-in-law.

She taunted me because she already knew the answer.

As for me…

I knew it too. Still, I wanted to hear him say it with his own mouth.

That way, at least, we would have an ending.

I arrived at the Dynasty Hotel, only to be stopped at the door.

The door attendant said apologetically, “I am sorry, miss. Mr. Kyle has booked the hotel for the night. No one can enter without an invitation.”

My eyes swept past him, over the glittering gowns and sparkling lights inside, until they landed squarely on the pair at the heart of the dance floor, locked in a blazing, breathless embrace.

It was Kyle and Madeline.

My face stung as though someone had slapped me. I watched the crowd cheer as they struck their final pose, then kissed passionately under the spotlight. My stomach churned at the sight.

At that moment, whatever feelings I had left for Kyle were gone.

The man whispering so intimately with another woman under the crystal chandelier was, in this moment, a complete stranger to the boy who once stood in front of me at the orphanage, shielding me with everything he had.

More than twenty years together, and in the end, it was nothing but a cruel joke.

I turned around to leave. Before I could, someone called my name.

I turned back to see Madeline approaching with her circle of friends.

Wearing that same gentle, gracious mask, she looked at me and said, “Nadine, why not come in since you’re here?”

The door attendant grew flustered. “It’s not that I wouldn’t let this young lady in, it’s that… she doesn’t have an invitation.”

Madeline pretended to be surprised. “What? Kyle, really… He invited all our friends to witness the proposal, and you, of