The Wife He Forgot to Marry (Winona and Yule) novel Chapter 588

Yulen was drowning in the ghost of the old Winona.

The woman she was now—cold, guarded, bristling with thorns—felt like a complete stranger to him.

Listening to his drunken rambling, Giselle thought back to her own first love. She had been naive and purely devoted once, too. But the moment she caught her boyfriend cheating on her, her entire perspective on love shattered.

What she didn't tell Yulen was a simple, brutal truth: once a woman experiences that kind of ultimate betrayal, she turns entirely ruthless. The love dies instantly, leaving nothing behind but cold contempt. There is no going back.

After finishing a few beers, a flush crept across Giselle's cheeks, her eyes turning glassy and heavy-lidded.

Yulen, thoroughly intoxicated, turned his head to look at her. In the dim lighting and the haze of alcohol, her features blurred into Winona's. Driven by a desperate ache, he leaned across the console and kissed her.

Giselle didn't push him away. Yulen might be a married man, but he was incredibly handsome, wealthy, and powerful. Sleeping with someone like him wasn't exactly a hardship.

The heavy tension snapped, and they tumbled together in the cramped space of the sports car.

By the time they finished their third round, the alcohol haze had finally begun to lift. They pulled apart, staring at each other in the sudden, deafening silence. A heavy awkwardness settled over the car.

Giselle calmly straightened her dress and broke the ice with an easy laugh. "Relax, Yulen. We're adults, and we're friends. Things got a little heated, and we helped each other out with some tension. Don't overthink it."

Yulen let out a quiet breath of relief. Knowing she had lived abroad for years, he assumed she just had a more liberated view on casual sex. Between the alcohol and the sheer amount of time it had been since he'd felt any kind of physical release, he had lost control.

As long as she wasn't making it complicated, he was fine.

He pulled out his phone and transferred a six-figure sum to her account.

Giselle raised an eyebrow, glancing at the notification. "What's this for?"

"My apologies," Yulen said seriously. "I didn't have protection on me. You'll need to pick up a morning-after pill tomorrow. Consider this my way of compensating you for the oversight."

Giselle smiled, accepting the money without hesitation. "Fair enough. I won't hold it against you."

Yulen drove her back to her apartment, then finally made his way back to the Locke Villa.

His physical tension was gone, yet the hollow void in his chest felt wider than ever. He walked into the house and went straight to the shower.

Tallulah had been pretending to be asleep. The moment she heard the water running, her eyes snapped open.

She sat up, turned on the bedside lamp, and moved to pick up the clothes Yulen had carelessly discarded on the floor.

As she lifted his jacket, a wave of nausea hit her. Beneath the sharp scent of alcohol was the unmistakable, heavy musk of sex, aggressively layered with a woman's designer perfume.

It felt like a knife was violently twisting in her chest. All the blood drained from her face.

With trembling hands, she inspected his shirt and found several long, brown hairs clinging to the fabric.

*

The next day, Winona went to the hospital to pick up some health supplements she had ordered.

While waiting at the pharmacy, she spotted Tallulah.

Tallulah was wearing a thick hat, and her frame was painfully frail. Her face was gaunt, her chin sharp, and her eyes carried a bitter, hollow look.

The doctors had informed her that the trauma from the miscarriage had severely damaged her reproductive health, making another pregnancy highly unlikely. Terrified that Yulen would find out and deem her entirely useless, she had been secretly undergoing intensive fertility treatments.

Lately, she had been forcing herself to eat massive meals, only to violently throw them up moments later. Her hair was falling out in clumps, forcing her to rely on wigs and hats just to leave the house. Her once radiant complexion had turned dull and sallow, requiring a cocktail of expensive cosmetic injections just to look somewhat alive.

Seeing Winona waiting at the pharmacy counter, a sudden, twisted sense of superiority flared in Tallulah's chest.

*At least I have a son!*

*At least I am legally his wife!*

Winona couldn't even have kids, and she was playing house with Stefan Goddard without a ring or a legal title to her name. Winona was far more pathetic than her!

Tallulah shot Winona a venomous, triumphant glare.