Chapter 5
I carried Jayla home.
Marcus neither wanted to leave nor dared to come close to
+2 Bonus
me, so he could only hold Aaron’s hand and follow us from a distance.
I had no mind to deal with them, focused solely on getting Jayla home to treat her wounds.
Aaron was two years older than her, but he didn’t know his own strength and had scraped up both Jayla’s knees and elbows.
I patiently coaxed her while carefully applying the medicine.
When I turned around, I found Aaron looking at me with teary
eyes.
He said, “Mommy, my hand is hurt too.”
I looked at the scrape on his tender little palm with bits of gravel embedded in it, but felt nothing inside.
Once upon a time, my love for him ran bone–deep.
Even the smallest cut, or just a single cough from him, would have me worried sick.
“I have work this afternoon, so stay home and be good, or your
1/6
12:49
Chapter 5
wound will start bleeding again,” I gently instructed Jayla.
+2 Bonus
She looked at me with her big round eyes, glanced nervously at the two people behind me, then back at me.
She asked anxiously, “Mommy, are you going home?”
I found Jayla on a snowy day.
This little girl, not even four years old, was wearing an adult–sized long–sleeved shirt full of holes and had collapsed by the roadside.
Her exposed limbs were painfully thin, her short hair was a tangled mess.
Lucas told me that Jayla was Kayden Bauer’s child, and that Kayden was an alcoholic who eventually died of alcohol poisoning.
Jayla’s mother was someone Kayden had bought, and she’d run away years earlier.
Before she met me, Jayla had been starving for three or four days.
Looking at poor Jayla, I thought of my daughter who never got
to be born.
So I adopted her.
2/6
3
12:49
Chapter 5
I wanted her future to be filled with hope.
Jayla was smart and understanding. I didn’t want to hide anything from her.
+2 Bonus
So over time, I gradually told her that I had been married before and had a son.
Jayla didn’t cry or make a fuss. She just quietly pressed herself against me and asked softly, “Mommy, did it hurt?”
She was asking if it hurt when I was lying in that hospital bed
years ago.
I sighed, fighting back tears, and whispered, “It hurt very
much.”
Jayla reached up and gently patted my head, as if making some kind of resolution: “I’ll love you well from now on. Don’t hurt
anymore.”
From that day on, I had a daughter in my life, but no longer a husband and son.
My memories were interrupted by Aaron’s footsteps.
He had grown quite a bit taller and looked more and more like
Marcus.
3/6
12:49
Chapter 5
+2 Bonus
In the future, he’d probably be the type to make little girls‘ hearts flutter.
He said, “Mommy, can you help me put it back on?”
Aaron opened his hand, revealing the necklace I had thrown in the trash.
I stared at the necklace in a daze, but Jayla moved faster than I did.
She pushed Aaron’s hand away and demanded, “Mommy did so many hard and difficult things for you. But you broke this precious necklace. Now you have the nerve to ask her to put it back on for you?”
Aaron said, “I didn’t mean to…”
Aaron was only nine years old after all. Hearing this, his face turned bright red and he hung his head, not daring to look at me
anymore.
Marcus finally seemed to remember the effort I had put into that
necklace.
Back then, his heart still belonged to Sienna, and he would secretly fly abroad to see her from time to time.
Aaron had just turned four and desperately needed his father’s
company.
4/6
12:49
Chapter 5
+2 Bonus
He deliberately made himself catch a cold, trying to use this ploy to get Marcus to come home and take care of him.
I couldn’t reach Marcus. The doctor said Aaron had a weak constitution, and a severe cold could affect his health for life.
I was worried sick and stayed by his side day and night.
He had a fever for three whole days.
After that, I went to many places to find him a necklace that would keep him safe.
But when he tore that necklace apart with his own hands, the bond between us broke as well.
I said, “Mr. Bennet, please don’t disturb me and my daughter. If you don’t want me to hate you both, you can keep standing there.”
Upon hearing this, Marcus’s face instantly stiffened.
For him, swallowing his pride to come find me was already giving me plenty of face.
“Aubrey, I haven’t signed the divorce papers. I’m still your
husband,” Marcus said hoarsely. “And Aaron is your only child.
You can’t be this unreasonable.”
5/6
12:49
Chapter 5
+2 Bonus
I gave him a cold smile and held up my phone with a video playing. “Mr. Bennet, Sienna was in a car accident. Shouldn’t you hurry back to check on her?”
But Marcus calmly closed the phone, his tone helpless. “I know. I’m the one who had her hit.”
I was stunned.
But I quickly realized this was just his nonsense.
Marcus could never bear to hurt the first love he’d cherished for
so many years.
B
Write your comment
Gifts
6/6
