Chapter 3

I didn't reply.

When I woke the next morning, the first thing I saw was a text from the bank.

Benedict had wired me a huge sum, nearly every cent he had.

Then the doorbell rang. The wooden lamp and the wedding photos his mother had smashed the day before were all delivered to my door.

He'd had every single one of them remade overnight.

On top of that, there were a few designer bags I'd once mentioned in passing but had never let myself buy.

A card sat on top, with a single line.

【Everything I've owed you, I'll make up for, little by little.】

I had no time for whatever game Benedict was playing.

I'd been dealing with something far messier — financial fraud.

The one who had cooked the books and then reported himself was Lester James.

Not only had he been with us since the company's earliest days, he was the finance head I'd promoted myself.

Back when the company was so broke we couldn't even make payroll, he was the one who'd sat with Benedict and me going through the accounts line by line, chasing funding wherever we could find it.

So I couldn't understand it for the life of me.

Why, in the space of a single year, he'd used Benedict's trust to get him to sign a stack of falsified documents.

And then, on the eve of the IPO, sent word through someone that he was going to report himself, and drag the whole company down with him.

That was why, on the day of the family reunion, I hadn't gone to the Delgados' for dinner.

I'd been frantic, half out of my mind trying to reach Lester, to ask him what he actually wanted.

But I never found Lester that night. Instead, I found out my husband was cheating.

Today, Lester reached out to me himself.

"Let's meet. There are some things I want to make clear to you."

"The Los Angeles Grand Hotel, eight o'clock tonight."

I was just about to reply when Angela came up to my desk, hugging a paper bag.

She looked at my phone, all curiosity, and said with a soft, sugary smile,

"Looks like there's something new going on, big sis. Guess Ben doesn't have to worry about no one wanting you after all!"

I locked my phone at once and turned to her, cold.

"Did you need something?"

She set the bag on my desk. Inside were some newly bought baby clothes, with a prenatal checkup sheet on top.

The keyboards around us, which had been clacking away, went noticeably quieter the moment she mentioned there was "something going on" with me.

Angela acted as if she hadn't noticed, and gave me a sheepish little smile.

"I don't mean anything by it."

"It's just that Ben keeps saying lately that he can't eat well, can't sleep well, and I'm scared I won't take good care of him."

She bit her lip.

"You were with him ten years. You know his habits best. I wanted to ask, big sis — what does he like to eat, is there anything he can't have?"

Some of them nearby couldn't hold back and started murmuring.

"Married into money, huh. Talk about how devoted they are, and behind the scenes it's all this."

"I thought Ms. Sullivan was so pitiful, but turns out she's got someone on the side too. Maybe Mr. Delgado caught her at it... and that's why the divorce..."

I swallowed my anger and said flatly,

"Go ask Benedict about all that."

"And I'm not your big sis."

Angela's eyes went red on the spot.

"I'm sorry."

"I just thought, after all these years, even divorced you two would still be friends... Maybe I shouldn't have come?"

I didn't answer. I just turned my computer back on.

She stood there a moment, then finally left with her things, eyes rimmed red.

I thought that would be the end of it.

But that afternoon, my mother-in-law marched straight up to my desk and slapped me across the face.

"You ran around with men when you were young and wrecked your own body, and now that you can't have children, you won't even let anyone else give Ben a baby?"

"You drove Angela all the way to the hospital! Are you only going to be satisfied when you've left the Delgados with no heir at all?"

So it turned out that after Angela left me, she'd gone straight to the hospital in tears, saying I'd called her a mistress and forced her to get rid of the child.

My mother-in-law raised her hand to hit me again.

Benedict rushed over, caught her wrist, and pulled me behind him.

"Mom, enough."

Then he frowned at me.

"If you can't bear to divorce, just say so. There's no need to take it out on Angela and the baby."

I let out a furious laugh and looked straight at my coworkers.

"You were all here this morning when she came."

"Did I ever tell her to get an abortion?"

Several of them shook their heads at once.

"No."

"Ms. Sullivan only told Miss Swanson to take her things and go. She didn't say anything else."

Benedict's face froze.

It was a while before he offered, trying to save face,

"Maybe the pregnancy's made her oversensitive, and she misread what you meant."

Seeing the red marks his mother's nails had left on my face, he frowned again and dragged me out anyway.

"Let's get that treated first."

I shook his hand off and said outright,

"Since it was a misunderstanding, then let's get the divorce papers as soon as possible."

"It's better for me, and for Angela."

But Benedict fell silent. "Let's not go get them for now. We'll talk about this some other time."

Something felt off to me right away.

Sure enough, the next second he took my hand and said in a low voice,

"Eudora, I've been thinking."

"Ten years together — there's no need to divorce over one child."

"You're so against Angela. Isn't that just because you can't let me go?"

He looked like he'd finally made up his mind.

"Let her have the baby, and we'll bring it home for you to raise."

"All you have to do is let me take the child to see her once a month."

"That way my mother gets a grandson, and you don't have to leave me."