Chapter 8
“Mr. Declan, this is the attorney representing Ms. Serena.”
“She has instructed me to file for divorce on her behalf.”
“If you have time, we can meet and discuss the details.”
He had just bought a new phone.
And the first call he received was from a lawyer.
It was his own fault.
Yet, he blamed all his pain on me.
He wasn’t ready to accept it.
Especially not after what our son had said before we left.
They were going to New Zealand to find his dad.
The two words sounded so ridiculous.
In the eight years we were together, he had never let our son call him that.
And now, he was supposed to go to New Zealand to find his “dad.”
Who was his dad?
He had always been right here.
“Get PR to prepare a press release. Buy traffic. I want to expose Serena.”
Maybe that was the only solution he could think of.
He wanted to fight me for custody of our son.
If he got what he wanted, he was sure I’d never want to let our son go.
Then maybe, just maybe, I’d come back to him.
The first day my reputation hit the news, I was blasted as a cheap woman.
Meanwhile, I was lying in a beach chair with our son,
enjoying the sunshine and the breeze.
The second day, Declan’s team incited the online mob,
70.09%
claiming he would give up everything just to have our son back.
And here I was, taking our son to a wildlife park to see koalas and kangaroos.
The third day, Declan got a lawyer’s letter.
The lawyer released all the evidence I had provided against him.
The public had been on his side one moment,
and the next, they turned on him like a flood.
He became the most despised man online.
And Elodie–well, she was now painted as the classic homewrecker.
“How could this happen…”
Declan muttered to himself, repeating the same words.
All he ever wanted was for his wife and son to come back.
But the world was set against him.
His couch was piled high with the dirty clothes he had tossed aside.
No one was there to pick them up anymore.
And there was no one to make him a warm meal.
He grabbed the last can of beer from the fridge.
Then lit the last cigarette from his pack.
He had nothing left but the hours of the night ahead.
As he sat down, something sharp poked him.
He dug between the cushions and found a small toy car.
It was his son’s favorite toy.
The very first one he had given him.
Declan couldn’t help but laugh softly.
He remembered the look of joy on his son’s face when he got the toy.
“Daddy, will you play with me?”
And what did he say?
73.3%
He said, “I’m busy, no time.”
“I told you, don’t call me dad.”
Suddenly, despite the laugh, something cold dripped onto his hand.
He wiped his face.
It was tears.
His son had thrown away his favorite toy.
And the man who gave him that toy?
He was discarded too.
“I was wrong.”
“I know I was wrong…”
If he could sacrifice everything just to have a chance to regret it,
he would.
He wouldn’t care about anything else.
He just wanted that family he had once discarded to be whole again.
And the two most important people in his life to be by his side.
