I Found His Marriage Certificate In His Suit Pocket Chapter 03

I Found His Marriage Certificate In His Suit Pocket Chapter 03

The tears on my cheeks hadn’t even dried yet.

The wind scraped against my face like sandpaper, raw and stinging, sending pain all the way to my bones.

I couldn’t stay in this house for another second.

I pulled up a rental app on my phone, but the prices made my heart sink.

An apartment in New York City cost at least $3,000 a month.

And I? I was a broke woman with only $300 to her name.

I suddenly thought of the dowry my mother had left me.

Those jewelry pieces—selling just one would get me through this rough patch.

I hated the thought of parting with them, but I had no other choice. I was desperate.

I opened my dressing table drawer.

My mother’s precious jewelry was gone. All of it.

I ran to the guest room, tears streaming down my face, and grabbed Ethan by the arm:

“We’ve been robbed! My mother’s jewelry—it’s all gone! Call 911, hurry!”

Ethan’s shoulders jumped, and he pushed his glasses up his nose, his eyes guilty and evasive:

“I took it.”

“When we got married, Mia’s parents didn’t give her a single thing for her dowry. Her friends laughed at her for it. I couldn’t bear to see her humiliated like that, so I gave her your mother’s jewelry for her dowry. A girl needs something of her own to hold her head up high, Sophie.”

I stared at Ethan, stunned, my mouth hanging open.

He wanted to give Mia Reed confidence and pride—so he’d taken my mother’s dowry to do it?

At first, I’d thought his obsession with helping this girl he barely knew was just his overblown sense of morality, his savior complex.

Now I knew the truth.

No matter how sorry Ethan felt for Mia, he’d never have gone this far for a stranger.

He’d fallen for her.

It was love that had turned this cold, rigid man into a reckless fool.

My eyes red with rage, I cornered Mia, grabbed her by the shoulders, and screamed:

“That jewelry was my mother’s! If you want a dowry, go ask your parents for it!”

Mia glared back at me, indignant, her big deer eyes filling with tears:

“Sophie Carter, you’re horrible! You know how my parents are—you’re just digging at my wounds on purpose! Because I was born into a family that favors boys, does that mean I don’t deserve a dowry? That I don’t deserve to be happy?”

I laughed—a bitter, hollow sound. I’d reached the point where anger no longer hurt; it just made me absurdly amused.

“I never said you didn’t deserve a dowry. If you want one, save up for it yourself! But stealing mine? That’s not okay.”

“You—!”

Mia’s face burned with shame, and she hid behind Ethan, sniffling and crying like a lost child.

“That’s enough, Sophie.”

Ethan grabbed my wrist, his touch rough, and looked at me, his face tired and worn:

“You’ve been spoiled your whole life, Sophie. You don’t need those trinkets. Let Mia have them, just this once. You’re not getting married anytime soon anyway—you won’t miss them.”

“I’ll buy you something better later. Something more expensive, more beautiful.”

I looked at Ethan, my heart breaking into a million pieces, and bit down hard on my tongue until I tasted blood.

Something better?

No piece of jewelry, no matter how expensive, could ever replace the ones my mother had left me. Those were irreplaceable—they were a piece of her, a piece of my childhood, a piece of the family I’d lost.

I tore the house apart.

I checked every corner, every crevice, digging through closets and drawers like a madwoman.

But I never found the jewelry.

I collapsed onto the couch, exhausted, my throat dry and parched, like I’d swallowed a handful of sand.

Mia shot me a smug glance and whispered, her voice dripping with pride:

“Professor Cole gave me this confidence, of course I’ll hide it well.”

“You’ll never find my dowry.”

That word—my—stung like a knife, cutting straight to the most sensitive part of my heart.

I snatched the ceramic mug from the coffee table and hurled it at Mia’s face.

Ethan’s body moved on instinct. He pulled Mia into his arms and took the mug to his own chest, a low grunt of pain escaping his lips.

The blood on his face was bright red.

Just as red as the blood that had gushed from his forehead years ago, when the lab at college had exploded, and Ethan had thrown himself in front of me to shield me from the blast.

I closed my eyes, all the fight draining out of me.

I had no strength left to scream, to cry, to fight.