My Husband’s Gold Digger Test Cost Him His Wife and Son Chapter 02

My Husband’s Gold Digger Test Cost Him His Wife and Son Chapter 02

Ethan’s pupils widened slightly.

He thought I was still throwing a tantrum.

He scoffed, his anger boiling over into a bitter laugh.

“Fine. Fine. Fine. Emma, don’t regret this.”

I said nothing.

Neither of us spoke for the rest of the drive.

At the courthouse, I filled out the forms in silence and signed every line of the divorce petition.

Only after we walked back out did I finally say.

“The process takes time. Once the thirty-day waiting period is up, we’ll come back and finalize everything. I’m going home to pack. I’ll take Noah and leave later today.”

Before Ethan could answer, I flagged down a cab and left.

Vanessa, who had been standing nearby, immediately seized the opening. “Ethan, don’t go after her.”

“Let Emma cool off. Once that two-million-dollar monthly allowance hits tomorrow, a woman who’s been living hand-to-mouth like her won’t actually go through with the divorce.”

“Still, the way she kept throwing the word divorce around and dragged you all the way here is completely out of line.”

Ethan glanced coldly at the hand she had slipped around his arm.

He pulled away and looked down at her with a warning in his eyes. “Stay out of my marriage.”

“Grandpa has old ties with the Lane family, and he asked me to look after you and Ryan. So behave. I told you before, you could push her, you could test her, but you were not allowed to touch my son.”

“I don’t ever want to hear Ryan say anything like that again.”

“Otherwise, I’ll cut off every dollar of Whitmore funding going into Lane Group.”

Vanessa was furious, but her face still instantly melted into that fragile, victimized mask she had perfected.

“Ethan, please don’t think of me that way. Kids say stupid things. They don’t mean it. I was only worried Emma might be a gold digger, so I wanted to help you test her. It won’t happen again.”

She paused, then softened her voice.

“Since we’re talking about Grandpa Whitmore anyway, why don’t you take me to the family estate? We can have dinner with him.”

Ethan ignored her and got straight into the car.

“It’s not on my way. I’m going back to the office.”

“You asked me for a ride because the rideshare apps were surging near the campus. This is downtown. Figure it out yourself.”

He stepped on the gas.

Vanessa was left standing there, watching his taillights disappear, her face twisted with anger.

After thinking for a long time, she finally dialed a number.

“Mr. Whitmore, it’s Vanessa. Did you know Emma suddenly filed for divorce? She even said she was taking Noah with her.”

“She’s trying to make sure you never see your great-grandson again. She’s using that child to hold the Whitmore family hostage…”

Ethan stopped at the last red light before his office.

He stared at the countdown on the signal and, for some reason, thought of the thirty days left in our marriage.

We would not actually divorce.

Noah and I loved him too much.

We had suffered for three whole years without ever uttering a single complaint.

But in the next second, he remembered the disappointment in Noah’s eyes.

He remembered the way I had stood outside the courthouse, so calm and cold it felt like she had already completely erased him from her life.

The more Ethan thought about it, the more restless he became.

A strange panic slowly rose in his chest.

He slammed his fist against the steering wheel, turned the car around, and sped back toward the apartment.

When Ethan came back, I was taking our wedding photo off the wall and dropping it into a box.

Calling it a wedding photo was generous. It was really just a selfie of me wearing a veil.

Back then, I could not afford proper wedding portraits.

I had bought a cheap, five-dollar veil off the internet, dragged Ethan into the frame, and taken one picture. That was our entire wedding.

In the photo, Ethan’s face was stiff.

He looked reluctant, but he still let me lean against his shoulder until the picture was taken.

Later, when I hung that awkward, cheap little photo on the wall, he did not say anything.

Back then, I thought Ethan loved me.

I thought his love was only tangled with suspicion and tests.

I thought if I tried hard enough to prove myself, he would eventually believe me.

So later, no matter how bitter life became, I could endure it as long as I looked at that photo.

I raised my hand and lightly touched the silhouette of his jawline through the glass.

The next second, his voice came from behind me.

“I knew you couldn’t let me go.”

My fingers paused.

Ethan stood in the doorway, a trace of certainty in his eyes, as if he had finally been able to breathe again.

“Emma, let’s withdraw the divorce petition.”