The Wife He Dumped, The Queen She Returned As novel Chapter 269

Belle was absolutely fuming. "Chloe, are you seriously going to give that psycho money? Yeah, she gave birth to you, but I bet my life she only did it because it felt good in the moment and she was too cheap to buy protection!"

The second the words left her mouth, instant regret washed over her. She looked at Chloe guiltily.

"Chloe, I'm so sorry... I didn't mean it like that..."

Chloe kept walking. "It's fine."

Belle hooked her arm tightly through Chloe's, her heart aching for her friend.

"Chloe, you do not need toxic, cold-blooded family like that! I'm here for you now. I'm your family!"

Chloe let out a soft smile. "Okay."

Belle still wasn't convinced. "Are you really paying her off?"

The two of them pushed through the glass doors into the brightly lit lobby. The warm lighting completely shut out the suffocating darkness and the biting chill of the night.

"Of course not."

Chloe threw one last glance over her shoulder before stepping into the elevator.

"I just didn't want to waste any more breath arguing with her."

She said it with zero inflection, as if she were talking about what to have for dinner.

But Belle could pick up on the deeply buried grief in her voice.

No matter how vile and selfish Linda was, at the end of the day, she was still Chloe's biological mother.

And no matter how fiercely independent or emotionally hardened a person became, their heart was still made of flesh. It was still capable of breaking.

Just how much relentless abuse and devastating betrayal did Chloe have to survive to reach this terrifying level of detachment?

Belle squeezed Chloe's arm even tighter.

That night, the wind howled aggressively outside the windows, the ocean waves crashing violently against the shore.

Deep into the night, Chloe sat up alone in the dark and opened X/Twitter.

The clock on her screen read past midnight.

It was officially a new day.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard before she slowly typed out a post:

[Two days before I leave Sterling Bay.

I find it completely hilarious.

Why is it that these people always wait until I am completely dead inside before they pop up to make promises about treating me better and living happily ever after?

[No clue. I asked her when I jogged past, and she just mumbled something about waiting for her daughter.]

Chloe swiped out of the app and locked her phone.

She had absolutely no idea how to process what she was feeling.

Waiting for her?

Linda Rivers was only waiting for her money, so she could turn around and hand it straight to Leon.

She was like a broken, programmed robot—void of logic, void of basic humanity. Her entire existence orbited around Leon. It was both absurd and profoundly pathetic.

Belle was still dead to the world, so Chloe made breakfast and left a plate in the microwave for her.

Once she finished eating, she prepped herself to go confront Preston again and get Yuri back.

Just as she grabbed her keys, her phone started ringing.

It was Eleonora Hayes.

Chloe debated for a second, then answered. "Grandma."

The older woman sounded delighted. "Chloe, Preston suddenly brought a little dog back to Cloudrest Manor last night. It looks exactly like that little guy you used to have?"