The System Admitted Its Mistake—So I Offered Him a Divorce Chapter 02

I left the bedroom and went straight to the study.

Leaning back in the chair, I closed my eyes. My heart throbbed painfully.

The System first appeared when I’d been pining for Julian for fifteen years.

He was the Hayes family’s only child.

He grew up with parents who loved each other. All that love gave him an open, unshakable confidence.

He was honest, kind, cheerful, and sincere with everyone.

At six foot two, with broad shoulders and long legs, he looked good in anything. He was ridiculously handsome, too.

Wherever he went, people noticed him.

Then there was me.

My father was new money, and he spent his early years sleeping around.

He married three women and kept countless other women on the side.

I was his fifth child.

I inherited none of my mother’s beauty, and she was an award-winning actress. At best, I was pretty in an ordinary way.

I was sickly, too. No one brought me back from the country until I was eight, and he never gave me the time of day.

Of course, I never expected much affection from that deadbeat.

But I intended to get every cent of my share of the family money.

It was a fight for the family’s resources.

Starting at ten, I battled my older brothers and sisters, openly and behind the scenes. We practically wanted to tear each other’s throats out.

The contrast was obvious.

Julian and I were complete opposites.

That didn’t stop me from having a crush on him.

When you lived in the gutter like I did, someone who shone as brightly as he did was impossible to resist.

Of course, I knew I wasn’t his type.

In high school, I passed his desk and happened to see a half-written love letter.

The first line read: [Sophie, I hope reading this feels like having me there with you, and that it brings a smile to your face…]

Sophie Carter. The school voted her its prettiest girl in an online poll the year before.

She was poised, well-mannered, and pretty. Plenty of boys saw her as their dream girl.

Julian liked girls who wore white dresses and spoke softly, girls whose lives were as bright as his.

That wasn’t me.

I was selfish and bitter.

Deep down, I was as underhanded as they came.

That was the kind of warped family I grew up in.

More than anything, it taught me to fight dirty for what I wanted.

I had to fight for the good food, the nice bedrooms, and the shares in the company.

If you wanted something, you took it. That rule was ingrained in me.

Then that thing calling itself the System appeared.

I couldn’t rein in the worst parts of myself anymore.

Clearly, the System had no idea what kind of person I was.

It kept egging me on.

“Yes, exactly. You’re the one he has to win over.”

“He has to win you over to stay alive. Whatever you do, however you treat him, he has to accept it, stay by your side forever, and be good to you unconditionally.”

I couldn’t help laughing.

At last, I had an excuse to take Julian for myself without fear of the consequences.

That very night, I took advantage of him while he was drunk and slept with him.

An honest man like Julian had never dealt with someone as shameless as me.

These were his first words when he woke up.

“I’m sorry. This is all my fault. I’ll take full responsibility.”

Poor thing.

I smiled without a trace of shame.

I wasn’t going to let him go just because he was decent and honest.

I was going to use the opportunity to threaten him into marrying me.

I let out an evil cackle.