"While Ethan isn't completely sick of you yet, you need to put some real effort in and give the man a child. Once you have a baby tying him down, you won't have to worry about a thing!"

Clara's mother continued her endless, rapid-fire lecturing, entirely failing to notice Clara’s face turning a ghostly, hollow white, or the absolute despair pooling in her eyes.

Clara listened to her mother’s tirade in utter silence, feeling entirely as though she had been plunged into a freezing, bottomless abyss where not a single person understood her agony, and no one was willing to take a stand for her.

Finding no words to offer her mother, she simply stood there like a statue, letting a wave of profound sorrow and utter isolation swallow her whole.

Drowned in deep misery, Clara slowly turned her gaze toward her younger sister standing nearby, a faint, desperate shred of hope lingering in her raspy voice. "Do you honestly feel the same way?"

Chapter 9

Her sister bit her lip, a flicker of brief awkwardness crossing her face, but she hardened her expression anyway. "Clara, everything is already set with Dylan. Ethan already promised he would provide a massive dowry for me... Just turn a blind eye and get over it. It’s not like he’s asking you for a divorce anyway."

There wasn't a single drop of empathy for her sister's suffering in her voice; there was only a cold, calculated selfishness, desperate to ensure her own wedding plans wouldn't be disrupted.

Clara simply stared at the girl she had fiercely protected and raised since childhood, her lips trembling slightly, but a thousand words choked in her throat, leaving her completely speechless.

She could never have imagined that the little girl who used to trail behind her, constantly crying out for her older sister, could turn into someone so profoundly cold-blooded, entirely willing to trample over her sister's agony for a piece of gold.

Standing to the side, Clara’s mother stomped her foot in a fit of rage, glaring at Clara with an expression of pure, exasperated disgust. "I am an incredibly sharp woman; how on earth did I give birth to a daughter as completely brainless as you?" She gestured wildly with her arms, looking for all the world as though Clara had committed an unforgivable crime.

"When Ethan didn't have a single penny to his name, you insisted on moving to New York City with him. Now that the man has climbed to the absolute top of the world, you want to throw a tantrum and get a divorce?"

The words cut through Clara's mangled heart like jagged blades. Her mother chose only to remember Ethan's current staggering wealth, completely erasing the grueling years Clara spent enduring poverty and sacrifice alongside him.

"Do you honestly think you're some young girl entering her first marriage? You've already had a dead child in your womb! For a woman like you, do you really think a second marriage is going to land you a man even half as wealthy as Ethan?"

As her mother's screaming grew more frantic, the venomous words flew from her lips in an unbroken torrent, completely blind to how white Clara’s face had become.

Finally, as if needing a physical outlet for her mounting fury, Clara’s mother marched forward, grabbed the bags Clara had brought with her, and violently hurled them right out the front door.

The contents shattered and scattered across the porch, creating a chaotic, humiliated mess.

"A married daughter is like water poured out—completely gone. Running back to your mother's house the moment things get difficult, what kind of ridiculous display is this!"

She continued to scream at her without a single shred of restraint.

"Get your clothes together and go right back to New York to fix things with Ethan! If you have any real capability, go give him a son. Let’s see who dares to steal your position then!" Clara's mother stood there with her hands clamped tightly on her hips, tossing out commands like a tyrant, entirely indifferent to Clara's own choices or suffering.

Clara simply watched it all unfold in silence.

In that exact second, she realized with absolute finality that she was nothing more than an outsider in this family, a ghost surrounded by people who cared nothing for her survival.

Clara walked aimlessly through the streets, dragging her heavy suitcase with one hand while clutching a plastic bag of fruit in the other, looking completely lost.

The summer sun hung high in the sky, beating down mercilessly and baking the asphalt until it radiated a scorching heat.

Yet Clara could feel absolutely no warmth; her entire body felt encased in a layer of thick frost, an icy chill creeping out from her core until she was visibly shivering despite the oppressive heat.

Right then, her phone buzzed sharply. It was a text from Ethan, demanding to know why she wasn't at the penthouse. Clara offered the screen a dull glance and slid the device back into her pocket, having absolutely no desire to type a reply.

But before long, the phone erupted into a frantic ring. Ethan was calling.

Chapter 10

"Clara, why aren't you answering my messages?" Ethan's voice flooded the line, thick with an underlying current of anxiety.

"I went back to my mother's place. I didn't see the text," Clara replied, her voice entirely flat and laced with a profound exhaustion, sounding like a woman who had just crawled through a brutal, miles-long desert.

"Did something happen with your family?" Ethan pressed immediately, his tone laced with standard concern.

"No. I just missed home and wanted to stay here for a couple of days," Clara stated, her voice remaining perfectly smooth and unreadable.

Ethan clearly caught the slight aberration in her tone, his care sharpening. "Did your mother scream at you again?"

"...Yes. A few words," Clara murmured softly, her mind automatically replaying her mother's disgusted expression and the toxic words that had sliced through her. Her chest throbbed with a dull ache.

"Get on a flight back to New York right now. I’ll meet you at the airport myself," Ethan ordered without a single beat of hesitation. "Tonight, I’ll take you to that revolving restaurant you love so much for a candlelit dinner."

That specific restaurant was a place Clara had mentioned wanting to visit for a very long time, but their chaotic schedules and endless obligations had always prevented them from going.

"Don't let a single thing your mother says get to you. You still have me. As long as the two of us are good, nothing else in this world matters." Ethan's words were incredibly soft, dripping with a deep romance that made him sound, in this exact moment, like the absolute anchor she could lean on.

It sounded incredibly familiar, Clara thought quietly to herself.

During their darkest, most desperate years of poverty, Ethan had looked her in the eyes and delivered that exact same promise.

Back then, the two of them had truly believed that as long as they held onto each other, they could carve out a beautiful life from the dirt.

But now, everything had fundamentally rotted away.

Listening to his voice flowing smoothly through the speaker, tears finally broke past Clara's defenses, tracks of water rolling silently down her cheeks.

"Honey, are you crying? I'm booking your ticket right this second. Come home to me." Detecting her silence, Ethan’s voice grew increasingly frantic.

"Okay," Clara whispered, the single syllable catching slightly in her throat.

She didn't entirely understand why she was agreeing to return. Perhaps a tiny, fragile ember of affection for what they used to be still lingered deep in her bones, or perhaps she simply needed to give herself one final, undeniable opportunity to see if Ethan was capable of true remorse or if he was merely playing another part.

Regardless of the reason, as she stood alone on the hot street, she felt entirely like a ship lost in a dense, blinding fog, forced to follow the distant, shifting beacon of Ethan's voice into the unknown.

Clara moved with the slow, exhausted current of travelers pouring out of the airport arrivals terminal. The moment she stepped through the gates, her eyes locked instantly onto a familiar figure standing amidst the dense crowd—Ethan.

He stood perfectly straight, one hand casually shoved deep into his trouser pocket while the other gripped his phone.

His intense expression made it obvious he was terrified of missing the exact second she emerged, his eyes scanning the crowd with frantic urgency.

"Clara!" The absolute instant his eyes locked onto her, a wave of pure relief flooded his voice, and he covered the distance between them in rapid strides.

He gently reached out and took her hand, his touch incredibly light and careful, treating her entirely as though she were a piece of priceless, highly fragile porcelain.

Before she could pull away, he pulled her forward, wrapping his arms around her and burying her tightly against his chest.