When We Ignored Him Chapter 2

Riley looked pleasantly surprised, her eyes blinking like a doe's as she gazed at Ethan with a lingering voice: "Either way is fine with me."

"Enough! Stop pretending to be so virtuous!"

Veins bulged on Ethan's forehead. He grabbed Riley and stormed out, slamming the door.

Almost simultaneously, Xavier and I breathed a sigh of relief.

When Ethan was home, we were always on edge. His departure actually felt liberating.

I assumed after leaving like that, Ethan wouldn't return tonight.

But I'd barely fallen asleep when a pair of hands slipped into my pajamas.

Instantly, goosebumps covered my entire body.

I rolled over and swatted his hand away.

Ethan's patience finally ran out completely. He stared at me, breathing heavily:

"Charlotte Sterling, I apologized, I brought her to explain to you—what more do you want!"

His eyes were red-rimmed, the grievance and restraint in them seeming ready to overflow.

I'd woken up abruptly and was still drowsy, just wanting to quickly smooth things over.

So my face slowly arranged itself into a polite smile.

"You're really overthinking this. It's late, let's just get some sleep."

But Ethan had no intention of letting me off. He gripped my wrist, his voice breaking with emotion:

"You weren't like this before! You used to call and text me if I wasn't home by eight! You never slept until I came back, always had hangover soup ready because you worried about me drinking."

"But now?" Ethan's grip on my hand tightened: "You even forgot my birthday."

"I don't understand—it was only three years! And I came back, didn't I?"

Looking at his aggrieved, resentful expression, I felt nauseated, my body trembling slightly.

So he knew all along—my humiliating past when I debased myself.

Throwing away my dignity, following him around like a bitter housewife.

Even his company employees would say when they saw me: "That desperate woman is here again..."

But what he didn't know was that back then, to find Ethan after he ran away, my mother searched outside every single day.

Her own husband had long been unfaithful, their marriage a shell. She didn't want her daughter's marriage to follow the same path.

But tragically, during a summer heatwave of 104 degrees, Mom had a sudden heart attack and died on the spot.

She was still clutching printed missing person flyers when she died.

My world collapsed. For a whole month, my pillow was never dry.

Every second was spent in pain and hatred.

Xavier lost his beloved grandmother.

And Ethan was out living it up with his little girlfriend, scandal after scandal making the news.

Now that he'd had his fun, he wanted to come back to the family.

I was utterly disgusted.