Chapter 2

However, in the other timeline, I had been fooled.

I thought that my aunt had wanted to ruin my romance. Hence, I did not hesitate to cut myself off from her family just to marry Charles.

Later, the Zimmer Family drove me out. I was homeless.

My aunt got very ill. I heard from someone that she wanted to bid me goodbye. But I was too ashamed to meet her and did not even attend her funeral.

“Aunt, I won’t marry him. I won’t be a stepmom… I’ll never think of marrying Charles again. I won’t marry anyone that you disapprove of!”

I cried piteously. While hugging me, my aunt felt sorry for me and kept patting my back.

“What’s the matter with you? Did Charles bully you?”

Ben Garcia and Fiona Garcia, my nephew and niece, were doing homework in the house. When they heard the noise, they ran out. Indignation gripped them when they saw how hard I was crying.

“Stop crying, Aunt Sophia! We’ll demand an explanation from him now!”

They tried to seek justice for me, which warmed and saddened me.

“I’m fine. I simply got emotional. It’s okay now.”

But Fiona was still worried. “You have to tell us if anything happens, Aunt Sophia. Don’t suffer in silence. We always suffer because of Jacob. He’s good at making everyone think that we’re bullying him.”

Jacob. Chills gripped me when I thought of how pretentious and ungrateful he was, just like his father.

I raised my head and saw Jacob hiding behind the door. He called for me timidly.

“Miss Clark, don’t you want to be my mom?” Jacob looked tearful. He wore shabby, patched-up clothes. He was so scrawny that he did not look like an eight-year-old child.

This miserable appearance had invoked my sympathy and love back then.

After marrying Charles, I regarded Jacob as my biological son. I adorned and spoiled him.

On the surface, he obeyed me and relied on me. He sweetly addressed me as his mother.

Yet the moment I finally got pregnant, he slipped medicine into my meals behind my back.

Not only did he force me into a miscarriage, but he also robbed me of the chance to ever be a mother.

I raised him well, and he grew up to be an outstanding man. But when he drove me out, he calmly mentioned that incident with venomous disdain.

“I purposely waited for more than ten minutes before I got help. You’re just a servant at my home. You can’t have my dad’s kid. You had such wishful thinking!”

Then, I learned that the seemingly exceptional man had long turned evil.

Disgust gripped me when I met his innocent eyes at that time. I turned away and said coldly, “I’ll never want to be your mom. You’ve got a mom who’s in town. You can go to her.”

At the sight of my aloof attitude, Jacob sat on the floor and raised his voice.

“Ah! You lied to me! You came to my house every day and said you liked me the most. You told me you wanted to be my mom! You stayed in the room with Dad for a long time with the door closed! But you don’t want me now!”

Claire Garcia, my aunt, got so angry that she trembled. She scolded Jacob angrily.

The number of onlookers grew. They started criticizing me and gossiping about me.

“Stop making a scene, Jacob.”

There was a commotion at the door. Hearing the news, Charles came hurriedly. He walked over and symbolically pulled Jacob up.

He scolded Jacob. “Be mindful of how you speak to Sophia. Apologize to her now!”

He changed his tone and looked at me. He even sounded a little helpless. “Sophia, I know that you’re mad. We can still discuss the wedding gift. You don’t have to get mad at the kid.”

He sighed and spoke loud enough for the surrounding neighbors to hear him.

“I’m just a divorcee. I know that it must have been hard on you. But you can’t make such a scene. Women need to protect their reputation. I’m afraid your future husband might be bothered by such gossip.”