Trick Him Into Divorce, Then Flee With His Unknow Kid novel Chapter 496

Chapter 496: Chapter 496 The Woman He Could No Longer Keep

“Diana?”

Liam called her name again.

Looking at his face on the screen, Diana was swept back to their younger days.

Liam had been a brooding teenager then, quiet and withdrawn, with little interest in socializing. His eyes had seemed empty, as though nothing in the world could reach him.

Diana knew better than anyone what he’d endured growing up. She understood his pain, his bitterness, and the darker side of his personality.

Liam had been brought back into the Mercer family when he was fourteen. By then, he’d already spent years being treated as an outsider. Returning to his father’s household had only brought him a different kind of rejection.

His father had deceived his mother.

He’d been on a business trip in the mountain when an accident left him stranded. Liam’s mother had found him, rescued him, and brought him home.

She came from a simple, kindhearted family. She was beautiful, too, and Liam’s father had been charmed by her. During the time he spent recovering, their feelings for each other had grown into love.

There was just one thing he’d never told her.

He was already married.

His business trip was supposed to last a month. To Liam’s mother, who had little experience with the world beyond her own small community, he seemed like a man who could be trusted.

Then he left.

And she never heard from him again.

By the time she realized he wasn’t coming back, she was already pregnant with Liam.

In those days, an unmarried woman having a child brought shame not only on herself but on her entire family. At first, Liam’s mother couldn’t accept that the man she loved had abandoned her. She waited for him, clinging to the hope that he’d return, even as her pregnancy progressed.

He never did.

Eventually, she had to face the truth: she’d been deceived and abandoned.

The humiliation and relentless gossip took a terrible toll on her family. Under the strain, her father suffered a cerebral hemorrhage that left him paralyzed.

With no other way forward, she gave birth to Liam and tried to carry on.

But the delivery was complicated by severe postpartum hemorrhage, and her health deteriorated rapidly. She was also struggling with depression, and the home Liam grew up in was filled with grief, tension, and despair.

He watched people treat his mother with contempt. As he grew older, he became a target himself, bullied and deliberately excluded by other children.

It wasn’t until Liam was fourteen that the Mercer family finally came looking for him. They’d discovered that his father had a son from a relationship they’d never known about, and they wanted to bring the boy back into the family.

Around the same time, they learned the truth about his father: the man had been married all along.

For Liam’s mother, it was the final blow.

She’d spent years holding on to the hope that the man she loved would return. Now, all those years of waiting, all her pent-up anger and lingering expectations, came crashing down at once.

She died just a few days later.

The man she’d waited for never came back to make things right. Instead, the news that reached her was that her son would be taken away to join his father’s family.

Liam was still young when he was brought into the Mercer household.

But sharing their blood didn’t mean he belonged.

He was still an outsider, still isolated and pushed aside. The childhood he’d already endured had been painful enough; now he had to contend with the coldness and hostility of a family that had never made room for him.

Even his father’s attempts to make amends felt hollow.

By the time Diana first met him, Liam seemed almost lifeless. He was withdrawn, suspicious of everyone, and determined to keep the world at a distance.

Then Diana came along.

She’d always been the sort of person who could find something to laugh about even when life was difficult. Her warmth came naturally, and she had a way of making the people around her feel that things weren’t quite as hopeless as they seemed.

Little by little, she got through to Liam.

After years of drifting through life alone, he finally found someone he could hold on to. To him, Diana was like a lifeline after being lost at sea for far too long.

He fell deeply in love with her, cherishing her as though she were the most precious thing in his life.

For her sake, he changed.

He wanted to succeed. He wanted to climb to the top and become powerful enough that no one would ever be able to look down on him or bully him again.

He wanted to build a life in which no one could take away the person he loved.

But now...

Some things remained the same, even as the people involved changed beyond recognition.

Diana stared at Liam’s face on her phone.

The brooding, handsome boy she’d once known had grown into a mature man. His gaze still held the same fierce devotion whenever he looked at her.

And yet, no matter how familiar his face was, she knew things could never return to the way they’d been.

“I was reviewing some footage and got emotional. I’m at Rose’s place. Nothing’s wrong,” she said, her voice hoarse but surprisingly steady. “She needs me to stay with her for a while, so I’m not coming home tonight.”

The light in Diana’s eyes seemed to fade a little more with every word.

Liam studied her.

For some reason, a sharp ache rose in his chest.

He pressed his lips together. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Look at me. I look perfectly fine, don’t I?”

Diana smiled again.

She made it seem as though nothing was wrong. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

And yet, despite her reassurance, Liam found himself reluctant to end the call. He couldn’t explain the sudden restlessness or the strange feeling that he needed to keep looking at her a little longer.

“When are you coming back?” he asked. “I should be done with work in about three days. We agreed I’d take you out somewhere. Have you decided where you want to go?”

Diana’s smile didn’t change.

“I’ll let you know when I decide.”

“Get some sleep. I’ll let you go.”

“Okay.”

She ended the call without hesitation.

Rose turned toward her—and froze.

Diana had been pressing her finger so hard that she’d broken the skin. A thin line of blood had appeared where her nail had dug into it.

“Diana!”

Rose hurried to get the first-aid kit and began cleaning the wound.

“Please don’t do this to yourself. Why didn’t you confront him? Are you going to pretend you don’t know what he’s done?”

Rose was afraid Diana would let the years they’d spent together cloud her judgment.

What she and Liam had shared had been more than an ordinary romance. They’d helped each other survive some of the darkest periods of their lives. Their bond had been deep, intense, and almost impossible to untangle.

Rose understood that.

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