My Husband Married Me for Revenge, I Ruined His Plan Chapter 03

My Husband Married Me for Revenge, I Ruined His Plan Chapter 03

After that night, I began preparing for the divorce.

I also started noticing things I had never paid attention to before.

For instance, Winston’s phone wallpaper was just a solid black screen—no photos, exactly like Bianca’s.

Every Wednesday night, he worked late, and when he came home, he carried a faint hint of eucalyptus—not his usual scent.

And the third drawer in his study—always locked. No exceptions.

On Monday, Bianca came to the company.

She’d been hired as the travel influencer for Sterling Group’s global campaign, giving her free rein to waltz in and out of the CEO’s office as she pleased.

A young secretary quietly pulled me aside.

“Mrs. Sterling, Ms. Whitmore said she was allergic to the flowers. She asked housekeeping to swap them out.”

The flowers she meant were the lupines I had arranged there the night before.

I’d spent two weeks nurturing them, trimming and arranging every stem by hand.

I walked into the office.

The flowers were already in the trash. Their stems had been crushed under someone’s shoe.

On the desk sat a fresh arrangement of eucalyptus branches.

Bianca lounged on the sofa across from Winston, legs crossed as she flipped through a magazine.

When she saw me enter, she smiled warmly.

“Laurel, there you are.” She tilted her head.

“I was just telling Winston his allergies have been flaring up. He can’t stand lupines.”

“I always used eucalyptus for him.”

“Oh, you didn’t know?” She smiled, adding casually, “Well, I suppose three years isn’t really that long, is it?”

Her voice carrying that cutesy lilt she put on that made my skin crawl.

It was disgusting, and Winston just sat there, signing documents without so much as looking up.

“It’s not a big deal.” His tone was indifferent. “Don’t take it personally.”

Three years ago, he had planted an entire garden of lupines for me.

Back then, he had asked, “What flowers do you like, Laurel?”

“Whatever you love, I’ll fill the whole yard with it.”

I told him I loved lupines—small, delicate, nothing flashy, but when they bloomed, they’d take over an entire field.

In all three years of our marriage, he had never once mentioned being allergic to them.

I looked at him carefully.

“Mr. Sterling.” I kept my voice even. “How is it that I’m your wife, and I’ve never heard a word about these allergies?”

Winston looked up at that, a flicker of embarrassment crossing his face.

“Must’ve developed over the last couple of years.”

“Oh, really.” I didn’t nod.

“So the coffee allergy just popped up in the last two years. And the lupine allergy just happened to appear, too.”

I smiled faintly. “Or did they suddenly appear because Ms. Whitmore doesn’t like them?”

I set the documents on his desk and turned to leave.

As I reached the door, Bianca lowered her voice behind me. Her tone carried amusement.

“Winston, thank you.”

“You tell lies like that, and your wife doesn’t even get angry.”

Winston’s reply came without missing a beat.

“She’s not like you. She’s easygoing. Lets things slide.”

Easygoing. Good-natured. Translation—a doormat.

That afternoon, Winston’s mother Mrs. Sterling called out of the blue to announce a family dinner that evening.

The Sterling family dinners had always been humiliating for me.

The moment I arrived, Mrs. Sterling pulled me aside and thrust an apron at me.

“You grew up in Willow Ridge Valley, so you wouldn’t know proper etiquette.”

“Tonight, you’ll serve. Show the family what you can do.”

I carried a tray of spiced cider into the dining room.

I’d prepared it myself using the recipe from my hometown.

Mrs. Sterling took one sip. Her face immediately twisted in disgust.

“It’s disgusting.”

In front of an entire table of relatives, she rattled off a list of complaints and then dumped it straight into the trash.

Hot liquid splashed onto the back of my hand. The skin bloomed red instantly.

From across the table, Winston’s gaze flickered to the burn for half a second before he dropped his eyes and went back to his soup.

Suddenly, I remembered being sixteen years old.

Someone in Willow Ridge Valley had mocked me for being a bumpkin.

Cade had flipped the entire table over.

He got into a fistfight right there.

By the end, his face was covered in blood from a broken nose.

Yet when he turned around, he still grinned at me.

“Laurel, what are you scared of? I’m here.”

Back then, someone would fight for me. Now, there’s no one left to do it.

After the dinner ended, Winston applied burn ointment to my hand in the car.

“That’s just how my mom is,” he said, ever so patient.

“Just put up with it. As long as we close our door and live our own lives, it doesn’t matter.”

When he finished, he capped the ointment and rubbed the top of my head.

“Laurel, with family, don’t get so caught up in right and wrong. Just make peace.”

I laughed. So I was always wrong, and they were always gracious.

That night, after we got home, I made a call. It picked up almost instantly.

“Zachary.” My voice was quiet.

“Is that assistant position at Sundance Community Clinic still open?”