Chapter 3

“I won’t apologize, and I refuse to slap myself in the face.”

I straightened my back and clenched my fists. My eyes were cold and unyielding.

My stubbornness completely enraged the Sedgewick family.

“Very well!”

Damian gritted his teeth in fury. He grabbed my phone off the ground, then seized my suitcase and strode toward the pool.

“Since you insist on associating with those street thugs and refuse to change, I’ll take down everything that ties you to them!”

“No!”

I rushed forward desperately, but I was still too late. Both the suitcase and my phone hit the pool with a heavy splash and sank out of sight.

Without hesitation, I jumped in.

The freezing water swallowed me whole. I searched desperately underwater, swimming back and forth three times before I finally retrieved the battered teddy bear. By the time I pathetically climbed out of the pool, I was soaked through. My clothes clung to my skin, my lips had turned purple, and I was shaking uncontrollably.

Jenna crossed her arms and looked down at me with haughty arrogance. Suddenly, her gaze landed on a faint red mark on my neck. As if she had found a perfect piece of leverage, she immediately raised her voice.

“Willa, don’t tell me that’s a hickey on your neck?”

She covered her mouth in feigned shock, her tone filled with malicious speculation.

“Or… are you carrying some kind of filthy disease? With the kind of crowd you used to hang around, who knows what you’ve caught…”

At those words, Arnold’s and Eleanor’s expressions instantly shifted.

Eleanor stepped back with a frown of disgust.

“Your adoptive mother dresses eccentrically and hangs out with street thugs all day. Someone like that clearly lives without restraint. What kind of child could she possibly raise? Be honest with us, Willa. Have you been messing around outside?”

Arnold also furrowed his brows as he spoke coldly.

“This is unacceptable. We must take her to the hospital for a checkup to see if she’s clean.”

Damian and Theodore moved in immediately and seized my arms on either side. Their grip was so tight that it felt like my bones could snap at any instant.

No matter how hard I struggled, they still forced me into the car.

“Don’t push it. You’re getting a checkup whether you like it or not.”

The car sped toward the hospital.

As soon as we entered the examination room, Eleanor grabbed the doctor’s hand and raised her voice so loudly it could be heard in the next department.

“Doctor, is that mark on her neck a hickey or some kind of filthy disease? My daughter’s been hanging around street thugs for over ten years. You must examine her properly!”

Her words turned every head in the area. Stares of disgust, suspicion, and contempt hit me from all sides like needles.

I bit down hard on my lip until a metallic taste spread in my mouth.

It did not take long for the test results to come back.

The doctor glanced at the report before looking at Arnold and Eleanor with a grave expression.

“Everything came back normal. She doesn’t have any contagious diseases. She’s conducted herself responsibly. In fact, she has no history of sexual activity. The red mark on her neck is simply a mild allergic reaction.”

After a pause, the doctor continued, “As her parents, how could you make such damaging accusations against your own daughter? If word of this got out, it could ruin her reputation for life.”

The examination room fell deathly silent.

Even so, the members of the Sedgewick family showed no remorse.

Instead, Eleanor frowned and turned the blame on me.

“If you were clean all along, why didn’t you say so sooner? You made us go through all of this for nothing, and we even embarrassed ourselves in front of the doctor!”

I gave a humorless smile, looked her straight in the eye, and voiced the question that had been weighing on my mind.

“If you never loved me, why did you go to so much trouble to find me and bring me back?”