Chapter 2

Skylight Rescue was just a nonprofit organization.

Julia suffered a massive hemorrhage when giving birth to Emmy. It just so happened that she had a rare, Rh-negative blood type, and it was one of the members of Skylight Rescue who donated the blood she needed.

She ended up joining the organization afterward as well. She had little free time, but no matter how busy she was, she always made time to participate in volunteer rescue operations.

The organization had been far more reliable than her husband. Such was the story of her life.

Deep down, Julia hoped that other people in hopeless situations could receive the same help she had once received.

"Oh. There's a tube of ointment in here." Wyatt held up a tube he'd taken out of the bag. "It's for external injuries. That handsome guy must've noticed the scratches on your hand and prepared it especially for you."

Julia took the tube and applied the ointment to her hand without feeling much. It was expensive. Regardless of how stomach-churning the giver was, she wasn't going to let her hand suffer out of spite.

Of course, she wouldn't mistake Robert's gesture for a sign that he still had feelings for her, either. He was probably using this tube of ointment to tell her that Myra was his woman, and even if Myra messed up, he'd clean up her mess for her.

"What an attentive man he is," Wyatt remarked. "When I go home tonight, Julia, I'm going to pray that he's not a scumbag after all."

Julia smiled faintly, but the smile was bitter. She'd once prayed for that, too. She'd prayed that Robert's change in attitude was nothing more than a nightmare, and that once she woke up, he'd return to the man he'd been before.

After parting ways with Wyatt, Julia called her good friend, Yvonne Carver. "If I want to get sole custody of Emmy in the divorce, what are my chances?"

"Have you finally thought things through?" Yvonne exclaimed.

Julia hummed in affirmation.

Truth be told, it didn't matter whether she'd thought things through.

When her relationship with Robert had first deteriorated, she'd assumed that he would demand a divorce once she gave birth. She didn't expect things to drag out for this long.

It'd been four years, and Robert hadn't once mentioned divorce. If he wasn't going to bring it up, she'd have to be the one to do it.

"Knowing Robert, there's no way he'd let an heir of the Stone family be taken away from the family," Yvonne said after some consideration.

Julia fell silent. That was exactly what she feared.

"Julia, have you ever considered the possibility that it wasn't Robert who refused to pay for the medical expenses back then? Maybe it was his assistant who had deliberately interfered somehow," Yvonne suggested.

Julia was certainly aware that Robert wouldn't have been that stingy.

"So what if he didn't refuse it himself? Would a mere assistant like Lexi have dared to act so brazenly if it hadn't been for his indifference toward me?" she countered.

Besides, she'd called him herself and begged him for help, but he hadn't even had the patience to listen to what she had to say.

"As long as you're clear about that," Yvonne replied.

She wasn't trying to talk Julia into reconciling with him. She was only afraid Julia might regret the decision later on.

Even if no one else knew about it, Yvonne knew that Julia had been in love with Robert for a whole ten years.

A decade of love was about to be severed with a single decision. That was as painful as ripping one's flesh right off one's bones.

"Besides, he cheated on me," Julia added before filling Yvonne in on what she'd seen earlier.

Yvonne spent the next few minutes cursing Robert over the phone. Nevertheless, after she got that out of her system, she had to point out the reality. "Even though he's been cheating on you, that isn't sufficient reason for him to give up custody of Emmy."

Her tone grew especially grave. "Julia, unless you can get Robert to officially relinquish his parental rights in writing, you won't stand a chance against the Stone family, not with the kind of influence they have."

A written confirmation that he was giving up his parental rights?

That was basically impossible to get.

"But I do have some good news for you." Yvonne's tone lightened a little. "My uncle says Emmy has almost fully recovered. Starting this month, you won't need to send any more money for her medical expenses."

Isaac, the doctor who was raising Emmy on Julia's behalf, was Yvonne's maternal uncle. Yvonne's grandparents had him when they were already fairly old. As a result, he was only five years older than the two women.

Ever since Julia and Yvonne were kids, they'd always felt intimidated by him. Julia never thought she would one day entrust her child to him.

"That's wonderful!"

The news of Emmy's recovery swept away all the gloom that had been weighing on Julia's heart.

Over the past four years, she'd only been able to fly out to see Emmy occasionally. The rest of the time, she had to make do with video calls. But now, they might finally be able to live together.

When Julia returned to her marital home at Horizon Bay, the front door was ajar. Someone was clearly inside. She'd barely stepped through the doorway when a glass picture frame shattered at her feet.

"It's you, the bad witch who's trying to steal Daddy! Get out! Get out!"

Myra's daughter, who'd seemed so sweet and well-behaved earlier, was now glaring at her with vicious eyes, like a wolf defending its territory.

Beneath the shattered frame was a photograph of Julia and Robert standing close together. It had been taken at their wedding. Other similar photographs were also displayed in every corner of the house.

With a single smash, the carefully cultivated illusion of their loving marriage had been shattered beyond repair. It now lay in pieces on the floor, just like the glass frame.

Julia had once treasured those photographs above all else. Even a tiny crack in a frame would have pained her for hours.

Now, as she looked at the fragments scattered across the floor, she felt nothing. What did surprise her was that Robert had actually brought his mistress and her daughter into their marital home.

Myra only strutted over leisurely after the little girl, Katie Swain, had smashed nearly all the picture frames.

She didn't seem to feel the least bit awkward that Julia had uncovered her affair with Robert just hours ago. She scooped Katie into her arms and said, "Sorry about this. I'm afraid Robbie has spoiled her rotten."

There was little sincerity in her apology. If anything, it sounded like a brag.

Myra raised her brows ever so slightly, just enough for Julia to catch the subtle message beneath her words—the implication that she was far above Julia.

"She's only four years old, so she doesn't know any better. Whenever she does something wrong, Robbie never lets anyone punish or scold her."

Julia's head spun when she heard Katie's age. Andre died six years ago. There was no way he'd fathered a four-year-old child!

She zeroed in on Katie's face. Myra made an attempt to shield Katie's face, but the overtly performative display was answer enough for Julia.

This proved that Robert had been cheating on her even when she'd been pregnant with Emmy!

Earlier, when she heard Katie address Robert as daddy, she'd merely assumed Robert might've been her godfather.

As it turned out, he was her biological father.

The answer she'd spent close to a year desperately trying to uncover was finally being revealed four years later, in the most unexpected way possible. It came without any warning, and it felt like a knife being driven into her heart.

Julia felt as though someone carved a hole in her chest, allowing the cold air to rush through it.

Seemingly oblivious to Julia's reaction, Myra continued in a coy voice, "When I first found out I was pregnant with Katie, Robbie took such good care of me. In the dead of winter, when I was craving cherries in the middle of the night, he went out in the snow to search the entire city until he found some for me.

"He wouldn't let me work either. He had all kinds of nutritional supplements delivered to me every day because he was afraid Katie wouldn't get enough nourishment in the womb."

She went on and on about the pregnancy, but it wasn't just about that.

Both women had been pregnant. While Myra enjoyed Robert's devotion as he braved a snowy night to get her the cherries she wanted, Julia had stood in the near-freezing winds handing out flyers just to earn enough to cover her half of the prenatal checkup fees.

While Myra consumed the finest nutritional supplements without a second thought, Julia had stood outside a pharmacy, forced to spend her entire savings on a box of the cheapest calcium tablets she could find. And when she'd been five dollars short, she'd even considered selling her blood to earn some money.

Was Julia upset? Well, how could she not be? But what difference did that make?

At the end of the day, Robert didn't love her.

Myra glanced around the house, acting like she was the mistress of the house. "You don't have a maid? Robert hired three for me at once."

Her hands were smooth, her skin supple and fair.

Julia squeezed her own palms. They were covered in calluses.

After being discharged from the hospital following her hemorrhage, she'd wanted to hire someone to help her with her meals while she nursed her body back to health.

Lexi had given her Robert's response to that request. "Your own dietary needs count as personal expenses and aren't covered by the equal expense-sharing agreement."

He didn't think she deserved to spend his money on someone to cook her meals for her, while Myra enjoyed the luxurious care of three maids.

Meanwhile, Katie, who was in Myra's arms, continued to glare at Julia in hostility. "Get out, you bad witch! Out!"

Out of nowhere, Julia scoffed. She took her marriage certificate out of her bag and held it up.

"See this? The two people named in this document are husband and wife. As for those who aren't…" She smiled. "That would be the mistress and her illegitimate child."

"Mommy, what's a mistress? What's an illegitimate child?" Katie asked loudly.

Myra's face instantly flushed crimson. The fury in her eyes made it look like she wanted to devour Julia whole, but Julia simply dusted off her hands and straightened up. She gave Myra a faint smile before heading upstairs.

As it was, ever since she'd given up on Robert four years ago, she rarely spent the night in this house. She'd only come back today to retrieve a document.

After entering the study, she pulled out one of the drawers and took out a divorce agreement.

She'd drawn it up years ago, after Robert's attitude toward her had abruptly turned cold, and he'd insisted on splitting their expenses equally. Following multiple attempts to get through to him, she'd finally thrown the divorce agreement at him as her last resort.

All she'd wanted was for him to finally pay attention to her and take her seriously. Instead, he'd signed his name without the slightest hesitation. "If that's what you want, it's fine by me."

At the time, she was still pregnant with Emmy. She'd held on to the hope that their relationship could be repaired. Though she'd cried herself to sleep for several nights, she'd never found it in herself to sign the papers and make the divorce official.

Clutching the document, she was just about to head out when she heard the sound of leather loafers tapping against the floor.

Robert's face appeared from behind the door. When their eyes met, she didn't say a word or look away. She even took half a step forward to stand in his path and waited.