All Chapters of Tears Brewed in Empty Love: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

The moment our daughter said that, the guilt on Ethan Caldwell’s face vanished.He shot to his feet and pointed at her, then turned to me with open outrage.“Claire Bennett, is this what you’ve been teaching her?”I calmly pulled my daughter behind me.“What’s wrong with it? If she can’t have love, the least she can have is money.“At least she learned that lesson early. I had to go through a divorce before I figured it out.”That shut him up.Then his phone rang again.A little boy’s voice burst through the speaker.“Uncle Ethan, hurry up! You promised you’d ride the Titan Coaster with me a hundred times!”My daughter tightened her grip on my shirt.Ethan noticed. For once, he didn’t say yes right away.He reached out, wanting to pat her on the head.“Mia, be good. Go to the hospital with Mommy today, okay?“When you’re all better, Daddy will take you to the amusement park. Deal?”Mia ducked away from his hand. Her wide eyes blinked innocently as she repeated,“It’s okay, Daddy. Just

I drove to my mother’s gravesite so fast I was practically stumbling by the time I got there.Ethan was already there, directing a crew to dig up the grave.“Stop!”I lunged forward and shoved the two workers away, then grabbed a shovel and stood in front of my mother’s headstone like a shield.Ethan pulled Vanessa and Hugo behind him and let out a mocking laugh.“Claire Bennett, I thought as long as the money was good enough, anything could be rented.“I already transferred the fee for your mother’s plot. So what exactly are you making a scene about now?”I was so furious my teeth were shaking.“Ethan Caldwell, are you even human?”He just shrugged, unconcerned.“I’m following your rules, aren’t I? How does that make me the villain?“Or is it that, in your mind, every kind of love is sacred—except ours? Ours is the only one cheap enough to put a price tag on?”My nails dug so hard into my palms I should have felt pain. I felt nothing.I couldn’t understand it.How had the man who once

Inside the operating room, the equipment had been knocked every which way. A trail of blood stretched out across the floor and into the hallway.The doctors Ethan had dragged back with him all sucked in sharp breaths.He grabbed one of them by the collar and roared,“I told you to leave the lead surgeon behind!“Why the hell does it look like this? Where is my daughter?!”The doctor shook so badly he could barely get the words out.“I-it was Ms. Parker. She said the patient was having a severe allergic reaction and every doctor in the hospital had to go.“She also said she’d take full responsibility, and if anything delayed her son’s treatment, we’d all pay for it.”The veins at Ethan’s temple bulged.“So you left my daughter on the operating table to die?!”His eyes were bloodshot as he shouted,“Find them!”The memory of me in that video—on my knees, bowing to Vanessa, begging her—hit him all at once, and Ethan nearly lost his footing.He had really thought I was putting on a scene o

“Considering she just came out of surgery, it’s best not to correct her for now,” the doctor had said.“Don’t do anything that might upset her.”I had laughed at that—quietly, bitterly.I never imagined that what I’d said to Ethan, that he no longer deserved to have Mia as a daughter, would come true in a way like this.I bent down and stroked Mia’s hair.“Sweetheart, how would you feel about moving somewhere new with Mommy after you leave the hospital?”I took out the visas I had prepared long ago and moved with my daughter to a small town in Northern Europe.Between what Ethan had paid me for all those hours he rented himself out to Vanessa and what I received in the divorce settlement, Mia and I had more than enough to live comfortably for the rest of our lives.I bought a small villa with a yard and a compact car.It wasn’t the same as the life we had back home, with a housekeeper, a nanny, and a cook.But there was a kind of ordinary happiness in making our own meals and tending t

What goes around really does come around.I didn’t return the shares.They belonged to my daughter.After her follow-up exam, I flew back to Northern Europe with Mia.Before long, an extraordinary gift began to reveal itself in her: painting.I hired a private instructor and made sure her talent was carefully nurtured.I kept every one of her paintings, cataloged and protected.I also created a social media account just for her and started posting high-quality scans of her work.She built a following quickly.By the time she was thirteen, she already had a name for herself.I brought her back home to hold her first exhibition.What I hadn’t expected was the turnout.Far more people came than I ever imagined.After that show, her confidence soared.So did her inspiration.More and more ideas poured out of her, and soon her work began selling online for astonishing prices.She kept trying to persuade me to sell some of her earlier paintings too.I refused.But I didn’t stop her from sell