The Man She Loved For Ten Years Let Her Father Die To Protect His Mistress Chapter 09

The Man She Loved For Ten Years Let Her Father Die To Protect His Mistress Chapter 09

Adrian disappeared again after that.

He left Landon behind.

That night, I saw the boy staking a claim on my porch, and irritation flickered through me. I tried to shut him

out, but his hand caught the frame.

“Mom, I’m hungry. I’m cold.”

His eyes were red. In his arms, he clutched a bundle to his chest like it mattered more than anything.

I stood there in silence, looking at him for a long moment. He was freezing, his skin raw from the mountain

air.

Once upon a time, I never would have let him stand outside like that.

Landon had been frail since he was little, and I had guarded his health so carefully that he’d been spared a lot

of sickness growing up.

But that was before.

Now I only stepped aside and said, “Come in.”

It wasn’t softness. I simply didn’t want a corpse on my doorstep.

I hated him.

I just didn’t hate him enough to let him freeze.

Once inside, Landon glanced around the room with cautious curiosity, and the complaint slipped out before

he could stop it. “This place is so shabby. It’s not even warm.”

“Then you can leave.”

I poured a cup of water and set it on the table, then went back to my book.

He picked up on my coldness immediately and shut his mouth. After that, he sat quietly at the table and

didn’t say another word.

By the time I finished reading and looked up again, he had fallen asleep on the table. There were still tear

tracks at the corners of his eyes.

I stood beside him for a while and watched.

When I saw he wasn’t waking up anytime soon, I washed up and went to bed.

Sometime in the middle of the night, while I was still deep asleep, I felt something cold slip under the blanket

beside me.

Then a small body clung to me in the dark.

I was just about to shove him away when I felt something warm against my skin.

“Mom…”

I went still.

Then I slowly pulled my hand back and closed my eyes again.

Earlier, I had glanced at the bundle he’d been holding so tightly. It was the 99% exam, stained with dirt and

regret.

I didn’t understand what he thought he was doing.

Hadn’t he said he didn’t want me as his mother anymore?

A week later, Adrian finally came back.

There was unmistakable excitement on his face. “Evelyn, I cleared your father’s name. Sienna’s been

charged.”

He looked at me almost hopefully. “Can you try to forgive me now? Even just a little?”

I had just finished seeing my last patient of the day and had walked the final villager out. At his words, I

turned cold.

“What about you?”

I looked him straight in the eye. “Didn’t you hurt my father too? Didn’t you destroy his funeral?”

Landon ran over at that moment and blurted out, “Mom, please forgive Dad. He didn’t mean it.”

I looked at both of them, my face expressionless. “Landon, do you seriously think I forgave you because I let

you sleep in my house?”

There wasn’t the slightest warmth in my eyes.

“To me, you and your father are no different from Sienna. There’s no difference at all.”

That sentence shattered the hope in Adrian’s face.

His lips moved helplessly before sound finally came out. “Why, Evelyn? Why can’t we start over?”

“We have a child together.”

I laughed once, bitter and tired. “Because I think you’re filthy. Especially you, Adrian. You slept with Sienna for

years, and I’m physically ill in your presence.”

The exhaustion finally won.

A wave of dizziness slammed into me, and everything went black.

When I woke up again, Adrian was sitting by the bed.

His eyes were bloodshot.

He was clutching my hand so tightly it almost hurt, and he was crying hard enough that he could barely get

the words out.

“Evelyn, come with me. Please. I’ll take you away from here, okay?”

I pulled my hand free. “I’m not going.”

His voice cracked. “What’s even so good about this place?”

Then, with a desperation that only made me more tired, he said, “Stop hurting yourself just to punish us.”

For a moment, all I felt was absurdity. Then a deep, bone-heavy exhaustion.

“Adrian, is that really what you think of me?”

I looked at him and said quietly, “Do you really think I’m that useless?”

“That I can’t possibly have dreams of my own?”

I turned my head toward the window. “This place is good. These children are good. I’m not leaving.”

Then I looked back at him.

“We ended a long time ago.”

Adrian closed his eyes.

A single tear fell onto the back of my hand. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse and broken. “Fine. I’ll

go.”

Then after a pause, he added, “But Evelyn… I’ll come back.”

“Get out.”

He never came back.

Because he confessed to the malpractice and the fraud.

And Landon was sent to live with his grandmother.

When I heard the news, I only paused for a second.

The world was too good, too wide, too full of real things to waste another breath on the wreckage of my

past.