Chapter 4

As I stared at Julian's smug message, the hand holding my phone began to tremble.

…

I never expected Wendy to bring Nathan back the very next day. The boy hid behind her like a frightened fawn.

Wendy pulled him out from behind her and gently nudged him toward me. "Daphne, I never meant to destroy your family. Julian is yours, and Nathan... is yours too!"

She'd always been like this. When we were little and our parents bought us apples, she always gave me the biggest one. In middle school, whenever we went shopping for dresses, she always let me choose first.

The day Julian and I officially got together, she smiled and teased me, "You know that if he's your man, Daphne, I won't touch him no matter how much I like him."

And now, she was doing the same thing. She had had him, then tossed him back to me as if she were doing me a favor.

I looked at her with nothing but hatred. "If you're giving him back to me, then get out of my house!"

Wendy's eyes immediately filled with tears. She sniffed, turned around, and walked away.

Julian's face darkened, and he shot me a disgusted look. "In the end, Wendy's just too kind and softhearted. She was willing to endure the pain of being separated from her son just to bring Nathan back to you. You drove her away. Happy now?"

I ignored him and took Nathan into the bedroom.

…

Nathan hadn't been playing by himself for long when his face suddenly turned pale. A moment later, he collapsed onto the floor.

We rushed him to the hospital, where the doctor diagnosed him with food poisoning.

Wendy hurried to the hospital and confronted me furiously. "I already gave him back to you. Why would you hurt him?"

Julian wrapped his arms protectively around the devastated Wendy. "Daphne, do you even have a heart? You poisoned Nathan? You're no longer fit to be his mother. We're getting divorced!"

I hadn't...

This was the child I'd personally cared for over the past five years. How could I possibly do something like that?

I was about to explain when a family member of the patient in the next bed pulled out their phone and started livestreaming.

"Everyone, look. This is the woman who beat her own child at his awards ceremony yesterday. And now she's poisoned the kid too. She was caught red-handed."

It turned out that the footage of me shoving Nathan at the awards ceremony had been edited and uploaded online.

Now everyone had misunderstood me again and believed I'd poisoned him.

Overnight, I became the most vicious mother in the world.

…

Even after Nathan woke up, his eyes filled with fear whenever he saw me.

Julian refused to let me have any further contact with the boy. He believed I'd developed a mental disorder.

As my husband, he had me committed to a psychiatric hospital.

He told me that if I agreed to divorce him and let him and Wendy give Nathan a safe, complete family, he'd sign the papers and have me released.

I sat blankly in the cold hospital room.

Then Wendy walked in and slapped herself hard across the face. "Daphne, I'm sorry. That day, when I was celebrating with Nathan, he called me Mommy because Julian told him to. I was so happy.

"Thus, I got greedy. I gave him foods that made him sick… Please, I'm begging you. Let us be together."

My heart felt as though it had been ripped apart.

So Nathan had already called someone else Mommy? So Julian had really chosen to give up on me?

So even Wendy, the person who had always protected me, had betrayed me...

Give them my blessing?

I turned toward her, numb. "Fine. I'll give you what you want."

Under her terrified gaze, I made a reckless decision.