She Was Never Just a Pretty Face novel Chapter 119

The lights flicked on, illuminating an unfinished painting.

The color palette and brushstrokes were identical to The Bibliophile's.

Hilda was The Bibliophile.

Hilda was actually The Bibliophile!

Luther stood there gripping the canvas, his body rigid, his face a mask of utter shock.

Words couldn't describe what he was feeling in that moment.

The artist he so deeply admired and cherished was Hilda.

The phrase he had endlessly pondered over, the phrase that had sparked a longing in his heart, was written specifically for him by Hilda.

Her social media post had only revealed half the quote. The full sentence was meant to be:

—*Luther, your eyes hold the sea, the blue in the haze.*

Yet he had asked her for a divorce.

The night deepened.

Luther stood there holding the painting, completely oblivious to his own exhaustion. He just stood there, unmoving. He didn't know what was wrong with him; he only knew he felt a suffocating tightness in his chest, as if he had lost something incredibly precious.

Later, he sat in the living room, smoking cigarette after cigarette.

He paced back and forth for hours.

He still hadn't figured out exactly what he had lost.

He only knew it was something vitally important.

Jolie was worried.

She called him dozens of times.

But Luther didn't answer a single one.

He sat there, hollow and defeated.

From night to midnight, to the early hours, until the sky began to brighten.

Dawn broke.

The eastern horizon began to lighten.

The man's eyes burned from a sleepless night.

Just then, the doorknob shifted slightly. The lock clicked open, and a slender silhouette walked in. Upon seeing the figure seated on the sofa, the woman startled slightly, her voice raspy. "Luther, why are you here?"

Luther sat bathed in the dim light.

The shadows cast his features in sharp, unforgiving lines.

His eyes were bloodshot from staying awake all night.

He stared fixedly at the woman by the door, his Adam's apple bobbing. His voice was incredibly rough: "Should I call you Hilda, Mrs. Sanford, or The Bibliophile?"

Hilda stood in the entryway.

Her gaze fell on the oil painting resting by his hand.

It was *First Love*.

Then she noticed the blood on Luther's fingers.

She didn't know what was wrong with him.

"But no matter how many times we went through this, you would always mercilessly abandon me and our child to be with Jolie. I've long since gotten used to it. As for how you're feeling right now, it's easy to explain—you're just infatuated with the halo of my title. Now that I've told you what I went through, you should consider yourself lucky. I'm not some spoiled heiress. During those four years you abandoned me, I worked countless grueling, degrading jobs. I even waited tables at a diner, all because I needed the money."

By the time she finished, Hilda's voice was choked with emotion.

Her journey had been so hard. So incredibly bitter.

She wasn't saying this to gain his sympathy.

She certainly wasn't trying to win him back.

She just wanted him to know she was an ordinary woman, and he didn't need to look at her differently just because she was The Bibliophile.

Her words carried an underlying message—

Just sign the divorce papers already.

Stop with all this drama.

I'm tired, I'm drained, and I don't want to be entangled with you anymore.

But how could the man accept that?

He demanded, word by word, "Are you on a first-name basis with Harrell now?"

His eyes were burning, completely bloodshot.

He forcefully tore open Hilda's trench coat.

Underneath, she wore only a lace camisole, her skin porcelain and alluring.

It was highly intoxicating to a man as sexually repressed as Luther.

He wanted to take her right then and there.