The woman's apology was not for me; it was for her children. She was protecting them.
Would my mother have done the same for me if she were still here?
Thinking of my mother, I instinctively reached for the jade pendant around my neck. It was the only thing she had left me—a small reminder of her love.
However, there was nothing around my neck.
Panic surged through me. My body went numb as I realized the pendant must have fallen when I was shoved out of the Hall family villa earlier, my clothes in disarray.
If Yvette got her hands on it...
The thought sent me into a frenzy. Without hesitation, I turned back and sprinted toward the Hall family house.
When I arrived, the gates were locked.
Desperate, I crawled through the dog hole by the side of the house—a passage that held bittersweet memories. Whenever I was kicked out, Jameson used to secretly unlock the small metal gate to let me back in.
Over the years, weeds had grown over the hole, but the gate remained ajar, frozen in time from the last time I’d been thrown out.
I snuck into the house and went straight to the room. There it was—my jade pendant, dangling from Yvette’s hand as she toyed with it.
“Yvette, that’s my pendant! Give it back!”
She looked at me with disdain. “You say it’s yours, so it’s yours? I’d say it’s just some trash I picked up.”
“You can’t talk about it that way!” I angrily retorted.
“Oh, I’ll call it trash—and I’ll call you trash too. What can you do about it?” She sneered.
With that, she leaned out the window, holding the pendant precariously.
My heart leapt to my throat. My fists clenched so tightly that my knuckles cracked, but I forced myself to stay calm. I couldn’t risk her damaging it.
Lowering my voice, I pleaded, “Yvette, please. Give it back. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Her lips curled into a triumphant smirk, her eyes sparkling with malice.
“Alright,” she drawled, “kneel and kowtow to me three times. Apologize sincerely. Maybe then I’ll return your little trinket to the beggar it belongs to.”
I froze, my body stiff with humiliation.
At that moment, Jameson appeared at the door.
“Yvette, why are you still up this late?”
“Jameson,” she said sweetly, “Lauren is accusing me of stealing. She claims this pendant is hers.”
Jameson’s eyes immediately fixed on the jade in her hand.
“Lauren,” he said coldly, “it’s just a pendant. Why can’t you give it to Yvette? Consider it an apology gift.”
“Jameson, I didn’t steal it,” Yvette said with mock indignation, her voice dripping with false innocence. “I have one just like this. It’s very expensive, something ordinary people could never afford. If it really is hers, maybe it was a gift from some man.”
Her words twisted the truth effortlessly. Jameson’s gaze darkened as he looked at me.
I glanced between him and the pendant, which still dangled perilously out the window.
Clenching my teeth, I dropped to my knees with a thud, swallowing my pride as I begged Yvette.
“Please, give me back my pendant.”
Jameson’s eyes narrowed as he watched me kneel. He stepped forward, his expression a mix of anger and discomfort, and tried to pull me up.
But I was trembling, desperate, and clung to his leg in panic. “Jameson, please! Help me! Make her give it back! I’ll forgive you for breaking off our engagement. I’ll leave if that’s what you want. I’ll stay far, far away...”
The helplessness and despair of having my lifeline held hostage brought tears streaming down my face.
But my words only made him angrier.
“So, this pendant really is a gift from some man, isn’t it?”
I stared at him in disbelief. After everything we’d been through, after years of knowing each other, he trusted Yvette’s lies over me.
When I didn’t respond, his expression darkened further.
He shoved me aside with force and turned to Yvette, his voice gentle and doting. “If this pendant belongs to you, then you can do whatever she wants with it.”
