My Husband Said His Student Was More Important Than His Pregnant Wife Until I Asked for Divorce novel Chapter 54

Chapter 7

Harley suddenly stepped in front of me, blocking their path:

“Are you deaf? Hazel doesn’t want to see you!”

“Think you can wipe the slate clean with a simple sorry? Who do you think you are?”

Although she didn’t know the full story, her instincts to protect me were flawless.

The color drained from their faces.

I pulled Harley behind me. “It’s fine.”

I’d learned how merciless they could be a decade ago.

Preston watched my protective gesture, his voice turning bitter. “Hazel, you… you care more about an

outsider now?”

My expression hardened. “Outsider?”

“You’re mistaken, Senator.”

“My only family now is Harley.”

“She’s the only one I care about in this world.”

If not for her, I would’ve been a corpse in the snow.

She’d been a street kid herself, but she’d dragged my unconscious body back to the underpass where she

lived.

I woke up broken, fumbling for glass to slice my wrists, She’d thrown herself on me, wailing.

“You’re so pretty, and you bake like magic… why die?”

“If people hurt you, you live better. Live to spite them!”

“If… if nobody loves you, then I will!”

The stale bagel she offered was still warm from her body heat.

I stared into her dark eyes and something in my chest suddenly cracked open.

Later, we shared one cup of noodles in a cramped studio. We ran from Code Enforcement when we tried selling at night markets. The day we scraped together enough for this shop, we held each other and cried

until dawn.

Chapter 7

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It was Harley who had taken the shattered pieces of Hazel Vance and glued them into someone calm,

someone whole.

So everyone else could be an outsider.

Except her.

The three of them looked as if they’d been slapped.

Victoria’s voice quavered. “What about us…”

I smiled.

“I don’t hate you anymore.”

||

Their eyes lit up, only to freeze solid at my next words.

“But that isn’t forgiveness. It’s just… over.”

Dead silence filled the shop.

I straightened the register, thinking finally, finally they’d leave.

Gabriel spoke, his voice shredded. “But we regret it, Hazel.”

He searched my face for any crack. But he found none.

My calm unnerved him-no love, no hate, only faint confusion.

Regret?

Regret destroying me for Violet’s sake?

After I vanished, he’d married her just as he wanted. The press ran photos of them at galas, the perfect power couple. The Vance family had thrived on that military-political alliance.

Everyone got exactly what they wanted.

And now they say they regret it?

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“We’re closing. Please leave.”

Chapter 7

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