Alaric sneered. “If it weren’t for that little debt the Sinclair Family owed me, why would I have married her at all? She wants a child? Then I’ll make sure she never gets one.”
Suddenly, I felt chilled to the bone.
All these years he’d been acting. All the tenderness, all the gentleness, it was all fake.
I was a fool, dancing in the palm of his hand.
I staggered out of the mall, barely holding myself together, when my phone rang.
It was Alaric.
“Where are you? Let the driver take you back to the estate.”
As soon as I arrived at the gate, I saw his black Maybach rocking strangely in the driveway.
My heart felt like it had been torn apart. His words from the baby store still echoed in my mind.
All these years, I’d been nothing but a colossal joke.
The car door suddenly opened. Alaric looked up and froze when he saw me standing there.
Ruby slowly stepped out of the car. The red marks on her neck stung my eyes like blades and her cheeks were still flushed from passion.
Alaric gently said to her, “Go freshen up.”
Then he walked toward me, frowning.
“Eleanor, why do you look so pale?”
He paused, then continued as if it were the most natural thing in the world, “You know Ruby has a special constitution, she can help fix my issue. I’m doing this for us, can’t you understand?”
I forced a smile more painful than tears.
At dinner, his mother tapped the edge of her bowl with her chopsticks.
“You’ve been married for nearly three years now and still no sign of a baby.”
My fingers trembled around the chopsticks.
I used to think she was bitter because of Alaric’s “condition.” That she was just heartbroken. But now I finally understood, he had been lying to me from the start.
And he let me carry all the humiliation alone.
Instinctively, I looked over at Alaric.
His expression didn’t change as he calmly said to his mother, “She’s been taking medication to regulate her body. We’ll try for a child soon.”
His mother, Leah Middleton, let out a cold laugh, slamming her chopsticks onto the table.
“If it weren’t for the old matriarch forcing your marriage, do you really think you'd be here? Now that she’s gone, it’s your duty as the Middleton Family’s daughter-in-law to bear children. So, wipe that long face, who exactly are you trying to guilt?”
Suddenly, Ruby covered her mouth and let out a dry heave.
Without thinking twice, Alaric reached out to catch her.