"You're the ones who want to eat. Don't you have hands and feet of your own?"
I wasn't going to indulge Nolan anymore. My tone was ice-cold.
If he had even a shred of conscience, he would have come home yesterday to have dinner with us.
There was no point in telling him about my mother's death now.
I went back inside and gently wiped my mother's face, making sure she looked dignified for her final journey.
But when I stepped out again, I saw something in the soup tureen on the dining table—a turtle. A medium-sized turtle.
It was the birthday gift my mother had given me when I was a little girl. I'd raised it ever since.
I lost it. I charged over and screamed at Ursula.
"What the hell did you put in that soup?"
Faced with my fury, Ursula smiled with wide, innocent eyes. "Oh! It's a soft-shell turtle!"
"Nolan said he wanted soup, and I saw one in the tank on the balcony, so I just grabbed it and stewed it..."
Rage consumed me. I lost all reason.
I slapped Ursula across the face, then kicked the dining table over.
Nolan yelped as the table crashed, and without a second thought, he hurled the bowl of hot soup in his hand straight at my back.
The scalding liquid seared through my clothes and into my skin. I clenched my jaw, brows twisting tight.
"You psycho! You're nothing but a violent maniac!" he shouted.
"Always hitting people the second something doesn't go your way!"
"Nolan, are you goddamn blind? Does that look like a soft-shell turtle to you?"
"That was my pet. My companion through fifteen years of loneliness, when I had no one else."
Nolan froze. It clearly hadn't occurred to him that what Ursula had stewed was my turtle.
"Is she really that stupid? She can't tell the difference between a turtle and a soft-shell?"
His tone softened. "Alright, alright. It's just a turtle that died."
"Go buy another one. Problem solved."
But it wasn't the same. It could never be the same. That turtle was the last living connection I had to my mother.
"Nolan, it's bad enough that you betrayed me. Now you let her kill my pet?"
"Get out. Both of you. Get the hell out of my house."
"I'm having a lawyer draft the divorce papers."
Nolan could see I was genuinely heartbroken. He hadn't wanted to leave, but the hatred blazing in my eyes made him afraid I'd do something to Ursula. So he grabbed her and headed for the door.
Before he left, he turned back. "My mother's birthday is the day after tomorrow. You will be at the Gilbert estate on time. Dress presentably. Don't embarrass me."
"And as for the divorce—it's not happening."
After they were gone, I grabbed a can of air freshener and sprayed every corner of the apartment, desperate to erase any trace of their presence.
Nolan's mother had always looked down on me. At every birthday celebration, she went out of her way to humiliate me.
She never greeted me. She seated me in a corner. Every word out of her mouth was a veiled insult wrapped in a polite smile.
It didn't matter that I'd poured my heart and soul into the Gilbert family business. I never earned so much as a nod of approval from her.
In her eyes, a nobody like me had no business marrying into the Gilbert family. I was beneath her son. I dragged down his status.
She'd even declared that if we ever had children, she would raise them herself. They wouldn't be allowed anywhere near me.
Two days later, I returned from the crematorium carrying my mother's ashes.
I had just changed into mourning clothes, preparing to observe a vigil for her, when a group of people burst through the door and seized me.
They gave me no chance to struggle. They pinned my arms and dragged me out.
It wasn't until we arrived that I understood where they were taking me—the Gilbert estate.
Dressed head to toe in mourning white, hauled into a birthday celebration.
Anyone with half a brain would assume I'd done it on purpose—shown up in funeral clothes to curse my mother-in-law.
Sure enough, every head in the room turned. I became the spectacle of the evening.
The moment Nolan and Zara Delgado spotted me, their faces darkened.
Nolan stormed over, seething with rage, and slapped me across the face.
