Chapter 9
She opened Charles’s WhatsApp. Ophelia was at the top of his list. And Camilla, his legitimate wife, wasn’t even on his chat list anymore.
In these five years, although Charles had regularly visited her at the hospital and played the role of the perfect husband in public, in reality, he had long treated her as if she were dead.
Camilla felt a coldness spreading in her heart. She found her name in the contacts. Unsurprisingly, Charles had labeled her as Camilla.
She opened the chat between him and Ophelia, and Ophelia had just sent a few more photos. They were group shots taken during their dinner tonight.
In every photo, Ophelia was beaming with joy. She wore a birthday crown, holding Cecilia and Lucius, smiling at the camera with Charles standing behind her.
Anyone would say it was a happy family of four, a perfectly matched couple of jerks.
Camilla scrolled back further but found no other messages. Charles was always cautious, never leaving any traces in public. He had cleared all previous chat records with Ophelia.
Camilla casually forwarded the photos Ophelia had sent to herself. These were
the pieces of evidence Ophelia had handed to her on a silver platter.
Then she erased all traces, marked Ophelia’s messages as unread, and put Charles’s phone back where it belonged.
Camilla lay back down, her peripheral vision catching the wedding photo
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Chapter 9
discarded in the corner. She paused for a moment. Her face in the photo was covered, but Camilla remembered how sweetly she had smiled back
then.
The Charles in the photo had a smile on his lips, but his eyes were unmistakably cold. He didn’t love her. Or rather, he had never loved her at all. From the beginning to the end, he had only used her.
Camilla wiped away the tear that had escaped from the corner of her eye.
“Charles,” she whispered with a faint smile, feeling a weight lift off her shoulders. “I finally don’t love you anymore.”
The next morning, Camilla woke up early. She wanted to go wake up her two kids herself, give them kisses, have breakfast with them, and see them off to school, just like any other mother.
During the five years she had been bedridden and unable to move, it was these fantasies that had sustained her. Unfortunately, her legs were still not fully functional, and she needed Charles’s help.
Camilla patiently waited for Charles to come out of the bathroom; he had a habit of taking a morning shower.
“Charles, could you pick out an outfit from the wardrobe that Lucius and Cecilia would like?” Camilla asked, her face glowing with a sweet, anticipatory smile. “After I get changed, will you take me to wake them up?”
She had been absent from her children’s lives for five whole years and needed to reintegrate slowly. She wanted Lucius and Cecilia to know how much she loved them and that she would never leave them again.
Charles paused, then walked over to her.
Camilla caught a whiff of his body wash, sweet and fruity, clearly a scent
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that girls would like. A chill spread through her eyes.
She remembered that Charles used to stick to one brand of sandalwood- scented body wash.
Once, when that particular scent was sold out, she had taken the liberty of replacing it with another fragrance.
Charles hadn’t said anything at the time, but the next day, she found the unopened bottle of body wash in the trash can in the bathroom.
Is he willing to change even his habits for Ophelia now?‘ Camilla thought
herself.
to
“Camilla,” Charles’s voice was as gentle as ever, pulling her out of her memories. He touched her face, apologizing softly, “Actually, the kids, especially Cecilia, who has always been timid, told me last night that she’s really scared of how you look right now.”
Camilla’s smile froze on her face. “But I’m their biological mother.”
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