Chapter 4

Bella's POV 

“I always told you that you never belonged to this family, Bella. You thought I was joking,” Rebecca muttered audibly, loud enough for me to hear as I walked toward the dining table to have my dinner.

“For an orphan to even dream of becoming the matriarch of the Hayes family. Oh my, poor people truly think the world is filled with wishing horses,” she continued, her laughter light but poisonous.

I kept silent the second time she said it.

“Come on, Bella. What even gave you the audacity to think you deserved that?” she added, turning toward me this time, not even attempting to hide the mockery in her eyes.

“You have no career, nor are you famous in the business world. You’re literally nothing, just a parasite surviving off my brother because my father willed it. So what made you think you would one day belong to this family?”

Her words were sharp.

Rebecca never spoke to me like this whenever her father was home. But since he had traveled abroad for a business meeting two weeks ago, both she and Ethan had used the opportunity to drop their masks completely.

The divorce between Ethan and me would be finalized tomorrow.

I had already anticipated her mockery before it even happened.

“Why, Becca?” I replied calmly, for the first time.

The sound of my own voice responding to her surprised even me.

I wasn’t going to be her sister-in-law anymore.

So perhaps it was time I stopped behaving like a servant in her presence.

“Are you speaking to me?” she asked in exaggerated surprise, glancing around as though checking if someone else had dared to answer her.

“Of course, Rebecca Hayes,” I said evenly. “There’s no other badly raised woman in this room who got divorced for cheating on her husband with us.”

Her expression changed instantly.

“How dare you, Bella!” she snapped, rising from her seat so abruptly that she sent her plate crashing to the floor.

The porcelain shattered loudly.

Ironically, the meal she had demanded the chef remake earlier was already halfway eaten before she threw it away.

“For someone who always complains about how food is prepared, you seem to finish it rather well,” I added quietly.

“Why are you annoyed, Rebecca?” I continued, meeting her glare. “Didn’t your husband send you out of his house after catching you cheating? Multiple times at that”

“Keep quiet, Bella!” she shrieked, her composure completely gone. “I can’t wait for the day you crawl back here begging my brother to take you in! You think you have options outside? Without us, you are nothing! Once you’re out of this house, the only place you’ll end up is the streets where you belong, you—”

“You’ve been divorced since I married Ethan,” I interrupted smoothly. “Yet you’re still unmarried, and no man has found you worthy of a remarriage. Does that mean there are no more options left for you? That perhaps you’re the one destined for the streets?”

My words struck their mark.

Her face turned red with fury.

She shoved her chair aside and stepped toward me, ready to lunge at me but just then, the door opened.

Ethan walked in and the tension in the room thickened instantly.

Rebecca turned toward him with wide eyes, as though she had just been victimized.

“How dare you speak to my sister that way, Bella?” Ethan snapped immediately, not even asking what had happened. “How dare you be so disrespectful?”

His phone kept beeping in his hand, but he ignored it.

Without being told, I knew they were debit alerts.

He had just returned from meeting Samantha, and he was still paying the compensation for seeing her publicly. Yet the notifications kept coming in, one after another, even though it was something he should have settled hours ago.

“And what is the meaning of this?” he snapped again as another notification chimed in, his patience finally cracking.

He turned his phone toward me, the screen glowing with transaction deductions.

“What is it you really want, Bella? And why didn’t you answer my calls earlier?”

Only then did I realize that he had been calling me a few minutes ago, probably when the debit alerts began hitting his phone. He must have wanted to lash out immediately, but I hadn’t answered.

Now he had driven home himself to confront me in person because his patience had completely worn thin.

Little wonder he was home at all.

After all, he had planned to spend the night at the house he bought for Samantha, especially since tomorrow was the day our divorce would be finalized.

“What exactly do you want, Bella?” he demanded again, his voice sharper this time.

I did not answer.

It was not his place to know that I was planning to reclaim the life I had lost while being his housewife. A dutiful and sacrificial one.

Nor was it his place to know that I was planning to raise our child alone the moment the divorce was finalized.

Nor that I intended to leave the country tomorrow with everything I was owed.

His phone was still turned toward me when another message popped up on the notification bar.

Though he tried to tilt it away quickly, I had already seen enough.

It was from Samantha.

She was asking to come stay with him.

Before he could even process it, the front door opened.

And she walked in with her luggage.

“Ethan!” she called sweetly as she walked straight toward him and kissed his lips.

In front of me as though I did not exist.

As though the divorce proceedings were not still pending.

“You told me to give you a few minutes, but you didn’t return to my apartment after,” she said, clinging to his arm. “So I came to you instead. Your marriage ends tomorrow, doesn’t it? I’m sure Bella would understand and not mind me staying here .”

She finally spared me a glance.

It was filled with irritation.

As though I were an inconvenience overstaying my welcome.

“Of course I do not mind you being in the house before the divorce is finalized, Samantha,” I said calmly.

Both of them looked at me.

“Ethan just has to pay the compensation for that.” 

He glared at me, frustration boiling over. “What do you mean?”

“What’s the deal now?” he demanded.

“Twenty percent shares in Hayes Conglomerates, Ethan Hayes.”

The words detonated in the room, followed by a heavy silence. Samantha tightened her grip on his arm.

Ethan stared at me as if he was seeing a stranger.