Rude

Chapter 2

Isabella's POV

The air around me turned suffocating. I found it suddenly difficult to breathe, my stomach churning violently.

No. I must have misheard him. That was the only explanation, because how could I not be the biological mother of Chloe?

A child I had carried for nine months. A child whose birth had nearly cost me my life, due to complications during labour. Marcus had to be mistaken, or worse, he had to be lying to the doctor deliberately.

Perhaps he had known I was nearby. Perhaps he had even hoped I would overhear, so that I would be wounded by it, because these days, he seemed to relish any opportunity to see me suffer.

Doctor Frank's eyes flickered with confusion, and for a moment it appeared he wanted to press further, but instead he simply nodded.

"Very well, sir. I must attend to other patients now." He excused himself, and Marcus waved him off dismissively.

The moment I saw Marcus begin to turn, I slipped into a corner and pressed myself against the wall, letting him walk past me, even as every fibre of my being screamed to step forward and demand an explanation for what he had just told a stranger, a stranger who could easily have misunderstood, or worse, believed him entirely.

My palms grew damp. A lump rose in my throat, thick and choking, as my heart hammered against my ribs.

Was it panic? Or was it something far worse, the terrifying possibility that my husband had not lied at all?

What if Chloe truly did not belong to me? The doctor had, after all, confirmed the mismatched blood type with his own mouth.

That was not supposed to be possible. It could not be possible.

I remembered, before giving birth, imagining that my daughter would resemble me closely. Instead, she had taken every feature from her father, not a single trait of mine had survived in her face. I had been disappointed then, though grateful, still, to have a daughter at all.

I made my way to her ward and found her sleeping peacefully, entirely unaware that her small world was about to be shaken apart.

I forced the dark thoughts from my mind and walked to her bedside. Lowering myself into the chair beside her, I took her hand gently in mine.

Her fingers felt cold against my palm.

"Do not worry, Chloe. I am here." I whispered, and exhaustion pressed down on me so heavily that, without meaning to, I drifted into sleep.

I had, after all, been running errands from early morning before the call came informing me of the accident. I had abandoned everything at work without a second thought and rushed straight here.

………

"Mum. Mum, wake up." A rough tap against my arm pulled me from sleep, and I opened my eyes to find Chloe, my seven-year-old daughter, frowning down at me.

"You are awake." My heart lifted with relief, and I reached forward instinctively to cup her cheeks, but she recoiled from my touch, wrinkling her nose.

"When last did you bathe? You smell terrible." Chloe said sharply, pushing my hands away from her face.

A sharp pain lodged itself in my chest, and my hands began to tremble.

Had my own daughter just pushed me away?

I should not have been surprised. It had become a common occurrence in recent months.

"Mum is sorry, darling. It was a very busy day, but even so, I have been here the entire time, worried sick and watching over you…"

"So now it is my fault that you neglect yourself?" Chloe cut me off, her voice rising. "Now I understand why Dad shouts at you all the time. You are careless, Mum."

I fell silent, my hands dropping limply to my sides. I had no response, because it was becoming increasingly clear that my presence meant very little to my own child.

"Where are Dad and Aunt Selena?" Chloe asked suddenly, and I stiffened.

"Did they not hear about my accident? I want them here. Especially Aunt Selena. At least she does not smell like you, Mum." Chloe continued, and each word cut through me like a blade drawn slowly across skin.

My daughter preferred my husband's ex-lover and supposed best friend over her own mother?

"Y-your father was here earlier." I forced the words out, struggling to keep the hurt from spilling into my voice.

"I can tell. Aunt Selena is the best." Chloe giggled suddenly, lifting a large teddy bear from the desk beside her bed.

"This is lovely. I love you, Aunt Selena." She cried out, clutching the bear to her chest as though it were the most precious thing she owned.

I flinched.

When had she last told me that she loved me?

"But I brought you a teddy bear too. The one you pointed to at the mall last week." I said quickly, reaching into my tote bag and pulling out the Barbie bear I had purchased from a nearby store only hours earlier.

"Ugh. No. It looks cheap, Mum." Chloe knocked the bear from my hand with a sharp slap, glaring at me as though I had personally offended her.

My jaw fell open. I had worked myself to exhaustion, day and night, taking extra shifts at the restaurant just to afford that bear.

It had cost well over three hundred dollars, money I did not easily have, especially having just settled her school fees.

"Dad told me never to use cheap things again. He explained that you can never give me the luxuries I deserve, because you are poor, Mum." Chloe informed me, and I laughed, bitterly, the sound scraping against my throat.

How amusing, that he now called me poor. Was I poor when he took money from me at the very beginning of our relationship?

Was I poor when he convinced me to invest my personal savings into his business, shortly after our marriage?

That business had flourished. And the moment it did, he forgot he had a wife, a pregnant wife, and began parading around with his former lover, calling her his best friend, his backbone, simply because she had persuaded a few people to invest.

What of the nights I stayed awake, heavily pregnant, working tirelessly on his portfolio and his documents, so that those very investors would take him seriously?

He had forgotten all of it. And now he saw fit to call me poor. Disgusting.

I shook my head slowly as hot tears threatened to gather in my eyes.

No. I refused to shed another tear over that man today. I had more pressing matters, proving both him and the doctor wrong about Chloe.

I told myself I should feel relieved, given how disrespectful and cutting she had become toward me, despite everything I had sacrificed to give her the best of everything.

I reminded myself it was simply a phase, brought on by the time she had been spending with her father and Selena. He was, undoubtedly, turning her against me, little by little.

What did he stand to gain from any of this? I had believed, once, that we had created this child out of love, that we had vowed never to drift apart.

How had everything changed so suddenly?

What had I done to deserve any of this?

"That is enough talking, Chloe. You need to eat and rest." I said sternly, cutting off her praise of Selena before I lost my composure entirely.

I wanted, absurdly, to laugh, because Selena was the very opposite of kind. She simply knew how to perform kindness for an audience, an innocent, gentle girl, thanks to her soft features, when in truth I knew her to be one of the most calculating people alive.

Long before she had ever met or dated Marcus, she and I had attended secondary school together. I had been, unfortunately, one of her earliest victims, someone who believed she was an angel until she revealed her true nature and betrayed me completely. But that was a story for another time.

A child like Chloe would never understand it, in any case.

"Mum. There is a PTA meeting at my school this Friday, and I want Daddy there." Chloe announced, pouting at me expectantly.

I sighed inwardly. Marcus had been far too occupied for such things lately. If I called to inform him now, I would likely be met with nothing but insults, and I did not have the strength for that today.

But Chloe's pleading face softened something in me, and I nodded with a small smile.

"Of course. Both Daddy and I will be there."

"No. I want Daddy and Aunt Selena." Chloe said flatly. "You look too old, Mum, especially with those pimples on your face. My friends at school would laugh at me if you came. I already told them my mother is a professional model, and I even showed them Aunt Selena's photograph as proof. They all agreed we look remarkably alike."

My heart stopped. My blood ran cold.

Looked alike?

Now that she mentioned it, they did resemble one another. The same mannerisms. The same expressions.

Could it possibly be that…

No. No, no, no. I was almost certainly overthinking this. But staring at Chloe in that moment made something inside me crack open, and before I could stop myself, I turned and fled the ward, running blindly, with no destination in mind.

That was when I collided with someone.

"Oh, I am so sorry. I was not looking where I…"

"Isabella? Is that truly you?" A familiar voice stopped me cold. "Goodness. Where have you been all this time?"

I lifted my head to find Nurse Olivia standing before me, the very woman who had assisted with my delivery, the night Chloe was born.

Was this mere coincidence? Or was it fate, finally coming to collect what it was owed?

Oh holy shit…