He Left Me For My Sister Now He Begs For Me Back Chapter 17
I asked, “What else?”
My mother’s lips pressed into a thin line.
“Adeline, it’s been so many years. At the time, your sister…”
I cut her off.
“What else?”
She wouldn’t speak.
So my aunt answered for her.
“The shares in the lakeside farm your grandmother left you. The gift money you’d saved before you turned fifteen. The antique desk and collection from your grandfather.”
Listening to the list, I wasn’t as angry as I’d expected.
I just felt a profound sense of absurdity.
There were things I hadn’t even known I’d lost.
My mother stepped forward.
“Adeline, those were family assets to begin with.”
I looked at her.
“If they were family assets, why did they all end up with Victoria?”
She opened her mouth.
Those familiar words were already on her lips.
*Her health is poor.*
*She saved you.*
*She has suffered.*
But this time, looking at me, she couldn’t seem to say them.
Because she had finally realized that those words no longer worked on me.
That day, my mother left empty-handed.
Not because she had a change of heart.
But because my aunt had security escort her out.
That night, my father came to see me.
For the first time in years, he came to my room alone.
He sat by the table for a long time before finally speaking. “I’ll have the lawyer restore those properties and shares to your name.”
I asked, “You knew all along?”
He fell silent.
That was answer enough.
I let out a single, humorless laugh.
“So you always knew.”
He frowned.
“Adeline, I admit I’ve overlooked many things over the years. But Victoria’s health…”
I looked up at him.
He stopped.
I asked, “Are you going to bring up that life, too?”
His face was a mask of grim displeasure.
But I was perfectly calm.
“From age six to fifteen. Nine years. Let’s calculate exactly how much I owed. Was one horse enough? What about one room? Are two properties enough? Is one fiancé enough?”
My father’s face grew paler and paler.
“Adeline, you can’t calculate family love like that.”
I nodded.
“Exactly. It can’t be calculated, which is why it’s so easy to exploit. As long as you never keep score, you can take as much as you want and call it family. As long as you never keep score, no matter how wronged I am, you can call it being sensible.”
My father closed his eyes.
“It won’t happen again.”
I looked at him and was suddenly reminded of my childhood.
Every time my mother asked me to give something up, I had prayed my father would intervene.
But he was always reading Royal Council papers, always claiming work was busy, always saying:
“Your mother will handle it.”
And now, finally, he was promising it would never happen again.
But I didn’t need it anymore.