She Quit Her Family and Found Herself novel Chapter 20

*Hulda, you pathetic fraud! So what if Caspian used to treat you like a princess? When you were thrown out onto the street, he stood right next to Uncle Bertram and didn't even blink. He didn't even look at you!*

*Without the Sterling family's money and power backing you, you are absolute garbage! You will never, ever crawl your way back up in this lifetime!*

...

When Hulda got back to the house, she locked herself inside her private study.

In this so-called marriage, the boundaries between her and Herbert were brutally clear. They had separate walk-in closets, separate bathrooms, and separate home offices. Their golden rule had always been to never interfere with each other's lives.

For years, she had genuinely believed this was just a sign of Herbert's refined upbringing and his need for professional boundaries.

But now, the reality was painfully obvious. It had nothing to do with boundaries or upbringing. Herbert simply wanted absolutely nothing to do with her.

But none of that mattered to her anymore.

She was returning to the institute next week. A seven-year gap in her resume was no joke. However, she hadn't exactly wasted those seven years. Whenever she had a spare moment, she would lock herself in her study, running theoretical derivations and optimizing algorithms. By now, her hand-written manuscripts completely stuffed three full desk drawers. She had also been quietly publishing papers in smaller, domestic journals under an anonymous alias.

Naturally, Herbert had no idea about any of this. He had never once set foot inside her study.

Even so, until she was officially back at the institute, all of this was just theoretical prep work. She needed to ground herself and mentally prepare for the transition.

She wasn't worried about her technical skills or her theoretical knowledge. What made her anxious and thoroughly exhausted was the inevitable office politics.

The institute was a ruthless, cutthroat microcosm of society. That wasn't an exaggeration. Funding and resources were limited, and everyone was willing to draw blood to get them.

...

Meanwhile, back at the sprawling Jewell Estate, the lights were still blazing.

In the living room, Miles was visibly exhausted, practically nodding off, but he stubbornly refused to leave his grandmother Valery's lap to go to sleep.

Herbert sat on the opposite sofa, checking his watch for the eighth time that night.

Valery noticed him doing it and scowled, immediately launching into a bitter complaint about Hulda. "What on earth is wrong with that woman? It's the middle of the night, and neither her husband nor her son have come home, and she hasn't even bothered to call! She's getting more arrogant and disrespectful by the day!"

Miles had been half-asleep, but the second he heard his mother mentioned, his eyes snapped open in anger. "Good! I don't want her to call! Even if she does, I'm not going back! I hate her, and I don't ever want her to be my mom again!"