CHAPTER 2.

She was trying her best not to look at the woman who sat on the couch, her hands on her belly, like she was announcing to her that she was indeed carrying a baby in her womb.

But all of this was still confusing.

She needed a proper explanation as to why her husband had brought another woman home and why her in-laws were not seeing any problem with it.

Jonathan returned with a brown envelope in his hand and she swallowed hard when he stretched it at her.

“What is…” she sniffed.

“It is divorce documents, Leilani,” he said, confirming her doubts.

He had settled beside the woman again and now the paper in the envelope was already in her hand and she was scanning through it with tears in her eyes.

“W… why?” her voice broke.

“Why?” Nancy, her mother-in-law answered instead and burst into laughter.

Nancy might actually have been the root of everything that was going on in the house.

She and Jonathan had started off pretty well.

Although Nancy had never been in support of their union right from the start, she didn't mind and pushed through with their wedding regardless.

Oh, the wedding that had just Jonathan, herself, and the priest who tied their knot?

Still, she didn't mind.

She loved him and was willing to pull anything through just to remain with him.

He was the first person who had shown her kindness after she left the orphanage.

Six months after their marriage, her mother-in-law and sister-in-law moved in, and together, they have been staying together for over three years.

What if they had never lived with them?

Would things have been better between her and Jonathan?

“B… but…” she sniffed and closed her eyes shortly, her hands shaking terribly.

“Why?” She asked him again.

“Y… you love me…” she stated, rather miserably.

Jonathan turned to look away from the woman beside him, dropped his eyes on her, and then raised his lips in amusement.

“What?”

“You… you love me,” she repeated.

When he burst into laughter at her words, she knew she was indeed being miserable.

But was she not right?

If they had issues, they should solve them amicably between themselves, not by pulling pranks like this!

“Hey… are you blind?” He stood up.

“What?”

“You can see everything that has been going on but you still have the gut to tell me that I love you!”

“Do you not?”

“Love you?” He snickered at her face like loving her was some kind of sickness he would not want to be committed to.

“Love you, Leilani?!”

“It is not my fault you took my act of kindness for love, you know? You were too miserable, naive to a fault and what I did for you was just out of pity!”

“Y… you married me because you pitied me?” She chuckled rather painfully.

“You don’t think I was so in love with you that I would go against my family and my will for you, do you?”

“J… Jonathan…”

“Listen,” he snatched the paper from her hand and then flickered it against her face.

“I needed to marry four years ago and you happened to be around.”

“What?”

He swallowed, rested his weight on his left leg, and then dropped his hand on his waist.

“I was pursuing a position at the company where one needed to be married before one could be qualified for it. And as God will have it, you were available, and yearning for attention like you were love starved all your life. Oh, I forgot you indeed were.”

Already, Leilani was drowning in tears while the man talked without a care in the world.

“You think it was because my mother didn’t approve of you that she didn’t attend the wedding? Wake up, everyone knew from the start that you were just an item that I needed to level up!”

No wonder they hated her too much.

They had no respect for her, and neither would they filter their words around her.

Everyone knew… except her.

“H… how could you?” Her voice cracked as she swallowed the lump in her throat.

“How could you do this to me?!”

“Do what to you? At least, all through the four years, you managed to achieve your aim too. To be a wife. An obedient wife and wife-in-law. You have tried so well as you have played your part, and it is over now. This is Lorraine, and I am going to marry her. She is carrying my baby as a matter of fact.”

Dumbfounded, all Leilani could do was watch.

She had never received such shocking news in her whole life.

She thought the man she had been married to for four years loved her so much and to have even gone against his family for her, she thought she had won.

Even when he started to change, she hoped that it was just a phase and that he would get out of it soon.

He had gotten promoted at his work about four months ago and even though he hadn’t told her as she had heard it while his mother and sister-in-law were discussing it, she still went ahead to congratulate him.

This was it.

The whole reason behind their maltreatment towards her.

Even if she had tried harder than this, she might actually have never gotten their attention.

It was meant to end like this right from the start.

He had planned this all even before he married her.

He needed a wife, and she was just available.

“Sign the contract, and you will get the alimony in less than twenty-four hours!” He threw the paper at her again and then settled beside the woman, Lorraine.