He Forced Me To Abort Now He Begs Me Back Chapter 20
Diane never set foot in the visitation center.
She insisted she was just sitting in a public parking lot and that no one had the right to stop her from seeing her granddaughter.
When security told her she had to leave, she rolled down the car window and shouted at Evan, who was standing in the doorway.
“She’s the one who ruined this family! And you’re just going to stand there and let her?”
Evan didn’t come after me, but he didn’t stop Diane, either.
The supervisor included the entire incident in her report.
Three days later, Diane was ordered to sit for a deposition regarding her sworn statement.
She sat across the long table and continued to deny threatening me.
“That text wasn’t signed,” she said. “Leah hates us, so she’s decided everything must have come from me.”
My lawyer slid the screenshot across the table.
“Did you, or did you not, send Ms. Bennett a message that said, ‘If you dare to divorce Evan and take his child, I’ll make you regret it for the rest of your life’?”
“That was just something I said in anger. I never meant—”
Diane stopped herself abruptly.
My lawyer looked at her.
“So you did send the text?”
Her face froze. She didn’t answer.
Without waiting, my lawyer played the recording from my middle-of-the-night call with Evan.
His voice rang out clearly:
“Mom had a lawyer draft it. Natalie agreed to it, too.”
“This statement, which demanded that Ms. Bennett issue a false public clarification—did you arrange for that to be prepared?”
Diane whipped her head around to glare at Evan.
He was sitting beside his own lawyer, his face grim, and he said nothing in her defense.
“Evan asked me to do it!” she finally shouted. “He said if Leah signed it and the accounts were unfrozen, she’d come back home. I was just trying to help my son save his family!”
“So you were aware that the joint accounts had been frozen?”
The second Diane realized what she’d admitted, she clamped her mouth shut.
My lawyer turned to the court reporter.
“Please ensure that is fully on the record.”
For the next half hour, Diane tried to shift all the blame to Natalie.
She said the fundraiser video had been Natalie’s idea, that doxxing me had not been the Cole family’s intention, and that Evan had only lost his judgment because Mason was dying.
But Natalie’s signed public clarification clearly stated that Evan had known everything from the beginning.
The unified story they had once fought so hard to protect was now shattering at the same table.
When the deposition ended, Diane stormed into the hallway and grabbed Evan by the arm.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“What was there left to say?”
“You’re the one who told me to get a lawyer! You’re the one who told me to force her to come back! And now this is all my fault?”
Evan jerked his arm out of her grip.
“You’re the one who sent the threatening text. You’re the one who showed up at the visitation center.”
“Who do you think I did all of that for?”
Their voices grew louder and louder.
I didn’t break my stride.
When the elevator doors opened, they were still fighting behind me.
My lawyer pressed the button for our floor.
“They’ve started trying to prove the other one is worse.”
I watched the doors slide shut.
“Then let them.”