In the pitch-black night, the freezing wind lashed hard across Talia Thornwood’s face, whipping her hair into a mess until it covered most of her features. The rain came down like it had lost its mind, pounding against her body until she looked completely soaked through, like a drenched stray with zero dignity left.
But she had no time to care about how wrecked she looked, or about her long hair plastered to her skin by the rain. With tears blurring her vision, she ran like crazy toward Jiu’an Hospital, clutching a document so tightly in her hand it felt as heavy as a mountain.
A divorce agreement.
Yes. This was the divorce agreement Nathan Lockhart—the man she had loved for a full seven years—had sent to her through someone else.
And still, Talia refused to give up. She just couldn’t believe Nathan would really be this cruel. She had chased him for four years. They had been married for three. Even if their marriage had started because of a misunderstanding, she had given him so much over those seven years. She refused to believe he felt absolutely nothing for her.
If he truly felt nothing, then why had he touched her just a month ago?
She needed to ask Nathan herself. She needed to ask him why he had given her this divorce agreement. She believed he had his reasons, something he couldn’t say out loud, and she had to hear that explanation from his own mouth.
Using every last bit of strength in her body, Talia finally ran to the inpatient building of Jiu’an Hospital and stopped outside Pearl Lockhart’s hospital room.
Pearl Lockhart, Nathan Lockhart’s mother.
Her mother-in-law.
Even after being around her for so long, Talia still felt nervous every time she faced her.
She stood outside the ward, tense and uneasy, using the reflection on the window to fix her dripping hair as carefully as she could. She even put on lipstick, trying to give her pale lips at least a bit of color, so she wouldn’t look too miserable, too pathetic.
Once she had done everything she could, Talia curved her lips slightly and forced out a faint smile, so light it was almost invisible. Only then was she barely satisfied.
She knew Nathan was inside right now, keeping his sick mother company. Pearl cared a lot about appearances, and what she hated most was seeing Talia look disheveled and embarrass the Lockhart family.
Talia’s hand closed around the doorknob. Just as she was about to push the door open, Pearl’s weak yet aggressive voice suddenly came from inside the room.
"Nathan, when are you going to make that woman get out of the Lockhart family?"
The second she heard that sentence, Talia’s heart dropped with a hard thud.
She knew exactly who Pearl meant by "that woman."
It was her.
In the Lockhart family, Pearl had called her "that woman" in front of Nathan more than once.
How ridiculous was that? She was clearly Pearl’s daughter-in-law, yet Pearl had never once truly looked at her properly. Every time she faced her, it was with that picky, superior expression, chin lifted, voice full of disdain, calling her nothing more than "that woman."
Did Pearl really want Nathan to divorce her that badly?
The thought made Talia’s heart pound with fear.
Because Talia knew very well that three years ago, Nathan’s reason for marrying her had never been anything honorable.
Because of one misunderstanding, she and him were photographed by reporters at a hotel, and the pictures blew up online.
By the next day, the news that the Thornwood family’s eldest daughter had slept with the young master of the Lockhart family had already shaken all of Hillfort City. Even though the only proof was a few photos of the two entering and leaving the same hotel room one after the other, it was still enough to hammer the rumor into “fact” in everyone’s eyes.
Even the Lockhart family couldn’t hold up under how savage public opinion was. Their reputation took a brutal hit, and Lockhart Group’s stock limit-dropped for three straight days. Overnight, panic spread through the whole company like wildfire, and everyone was on edge.
To save the Lockhart family’s name, and to steady Lockhart Group, Nathan Lockhart had no choice but to marry her.
Pearl Lockhart and Nathan had always believed she was the one who schemed against him. But she hadn’t. She really hadn’t. She still didn’t know what had happened that night. She had only run into Nathan when he was drunk, that was all. Then somehow, in a daze, everything spun out of control. But no matter what she said, neither of them believed her.
“Mom, don’t get upset. Seriously, calm down. Watch your health.”
Nathan’s low, magnetic voice suddenly rang out.
Talia Thornwood had heard that kind of gentle tone from him more than once whenever he was talking to his mother. But toward her? He had never, not once, spoken that softly.
“Not get upset? How am I supposed to not get upset? Have you forgotten how she got into our Lockhart family in the first place? Have you forgotten how she caused your father’s death? A calculating woman who tried every trick in the book to crawl into a man’s bed, a hen that can’t even lay an egg—what right does she have to be the daughter-in-law of our Lockhart family? She’s dragged our family’s face through the dirt.”
The second Pearl Lockhart mentioned Talia, it was like all the fire in her chest got lit at once. Anger, disgust, resentment—none of it faded. It was as if Talia’s existence itself was a stain the Lockhart family could never wash clean, and the source of every disaster in Pearl’s life.
Talia kept shaking her head, her face pale.
No. That wasn’t true.