But Stella didn't fully trust him.
For all she knew, he could be doing this for Aurora's sake—deliberately framing McCoy to drive a wedge between her and Lauretta, and to create suspicion between the siblings.
His sudden declaration of love for her could very well be part of the act. After all, Sherman Burton had once pretended to be interested in her for Aurora's benefit.
Stella turned to Lauretta. "Lauretta, let's go inside and talk."
As their eyes met, Lauretta began to calm down. That was right. This was all just Leonard's side of the story. He could easily be lying to turn them against each other.
Lauretta took a shallow breath. "Okay."
As the two were about to leave, Leonard blocked Stella's path.
His eyes were dark. "Stella, you don't believe me?"
His expression tightened. "Have you ever given anyone a reason to?"
Leonard had never been a man of many words, and for a moment, he was at a loss.
Stella turned to Lauretta. "Let's go."
"Okay," Lauretta nodded.
Leonard, not ready to give up, started to follow them to explain, but Aurora, who had been silent until now, finally spoke.
"Leonard, just let Star go. She has her own judgment and won't believe someone's story at face value... especially not yours."
Aurora straightened her messy hair and smiled. "Don't push her so hard. You have to give her some space to figure things out for herself."
Stella merely gave Aurora a cool glance before leaving with Lauretta.

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The readers' comments on the novel: The Ex-Wife's Burning Elegance
anxiously waiting for updates...
Hello! This series has been requested a lot on Reddit, but we’re unable to post the link there ourselves. If you have a Reddit account, we would truly appreciate it if you could help us share the link to this novel to increase its readership. As a thank-you, we will increase the number of free chapters available each day. Thank you so much for your support!...
The same rotation blaming Stella trying to get her destroyed. Isn't the writer tired of writing the same foolishness overand over again? This is exhausting....
Can’t wait to see what joshua will do...
Why would the author of this book do that to Stella? Such cruelty!...
So many chapters are incomplete. Missing pages. Hard to get continuity...
Please move on from Stella's troubles, we need more exiting news. Like Joshua discovering that Stella is the one he has been looking for,the owner of the earring....
Seriously, how long will this get stretched ?? Looks like the whole world is set to trouble Stella... It's not moving anywhere.....
Hey...please update regularly...
Is Jasper gay? He certainly behaves that way....