The Cold Surgeon's Contract Bride novel Chapter 871

Sabrina's words hit me like physical blows, knocking the breath straight from my lungs.

I stared at her bloodshot eyes, the tears trembling on her lashes, and a suffocating wave of emotion crashed over me, impossible to calm.

So this was the hidden truth. From my perspective, I had only ever seen Lucille turn cold and hyper-critical toward me the moment Sabrina, her biological daughter, was born.

I had never realized that beneath her strictness lay deep admiration. I had entirely missed the meticulous, sweeping love hidden in her smallest actions.

Growing up, I only felt that Sabrina wanted nothing to do with me, constantly bossing me around and looking at me with absolute disdain. I never realized that her resentment and contempt were just masks for her crushing jealousy.

She had been jealous of Lucille's love for me.

But who would have believed it? She was Lucille and Maxwell's actual flesh and blood, yet she envied me.

I hadn't even known the origin of Sabrina's name. She was only given it to echo mine.

And I certainly never knew that my marriage to Ferris was entirely orchestrated by Lucille's desperate desire to see me happy.

Before today, I truly believed Lucille was simply trading me for the Hayes family's financial gain. After all, she was the one who sat me down and told me to marry him.

During the darkest days of my marriage with Ferris, whenever I demanded a divorce, she was always the one violently opposing it.

She hadn't been worried about losing Maxwell's medical funding or Sabrina's tuition. She just didn't want me to lose Ferris. She didn't want a temporary misunderstanding to shatter my heart.