All Chapters of The Price of a Stolen Marriage: Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

8 Chapters

Chapter 1 The Girlfriend My Son Brought Home

"Mom, this is Natalie, my girlfriend. I wanted to bring her home so you could meet her."I turned my gaze to Natalie Ashcroft.She was undeniably beautiful, with the delicate air of someone who had been pampered her entire life.Holding a gift with both hands, she offered it to me with a sweet smile. "Hello, Mrs. Wellington. I brought this for you."I did not take it.The living room fell silent.My son, Christopher, looked at me, then at her. "Mom?"I did not look at him. "Chris, go upstairs. I'd like to have a private conversation with Ms. Ashcroft."He hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Okay."Once he left, only Natalie and I remained in the living room.The second Christopher was gone, the sugary smile disappeared from Natalie's face.She tossed the gift onto the coffee table and looked me up and down without the slightest courtesy. "Mrs. Wellington."Her voice had not changed, but every word dripped with superiority. "You sent your son away so you could lecture me

Chapter 2 The Wrong Woman to Threaten

My expression did not change. I set my cup down on the table with a sharp clink. "Are you done?"Natalie's smile faltered.I looked at her. "You keep saying you're the Ashcroft family's precious granddaughter. Then, do you know how your grandmother married into the Ashcroft family in the first place?"Natalie frowned. "What are you trying to say?"I smiled. "You want to marry into the Wellington family? Keep dreaming."Natalie shot to her feet. "Mrs. Wellington, you'd better think this through. If you treat me like this today, then once I marry into this family, there's no way we'll ever have a good relationship."Instead of getting angry, I laughed. "Don't worry. As long as I'm here, you'll never marry into the Wellington family."She snatched up her purse and stormed toward the door. "You're going to regret this!"Regret?The greatest regret of my life was that I had not exposed every one of those people while my mother was still alive. At least then, she could have seen the

Chapter 3 The Truth He Never Knew

Hailey fixed me with a hard stare. "Mrs. Wellington, do you really think marrying into the Wellington family makes you somebody important?"She rose to her feet and looked down at me. "You're a woman with no name, no family, no background. Do you really not know what got you where you are today?"Her gaze slowly moved from my face downward, sharp and insulting."Benjamin and I have spent forty years building connections and influence in Kingsport. That's not something you can earn just by warming a rich man's bed for a few years. "Don't reject a generous offer and expect there to be no consequences."I looked at her calmly.People who stole someone else's life could never truly change what they were at their core.She could wear the finest designer clothes and the most expensive jewelry, but the moment she opened her mouth, the bitterness underneath came pouring out."Are you done?" I stood, picked up the document from the table, and pressed it back into her hands. "Mrs. Ashcrof

Chapter 4 The Truth Revealed

"Mrs. Wellington." He nodded, his voice calm and unhurried, the kind of composure that only came from decades of being treated with the utmost respect. "I apologize for dropping by unannounced. I'm Benjamin Ashcroft.""Please, Mr. Ashcroft. Have a seat."He sat down and looked at me. "Mrs. Wellington, I came today because of the children."He paused, then smiled. "Natalie is my granddaughter. She's been spoiled since she was little, but she's a good girl at heart. The two of them get along well. As their elders, we should support them if we can."He set his thermos on the table, laced his fingers together, and rested his hands on his knee."I know you built everything you have on your own, Mrs. Wellington. It couldn't have been easy. No family connections. No one backing you. Making it this far by yourself is certainly impressive."But because it wasn't easy, you should understand better than anyone that some opportunities only come around once in a lifetime."He pulled a docume

Chapter 5 Forty Years Stolen

Silence fell over the room.Benjamin stood on the stage, the smile frozen on his face. "W-What did you just say?""I said Natalie's grandfather and Christopher's grandfather are the same person."My voice was not loud, but every word hit the audience like a nail driven into their ears."Forty years ago, someone drugged you, and you spent the night with my mother, Grace Bennett. The next morning, your current wife was lying beside you wearing my mother's clothes. You have face blindness. You couldn't tell one person from another, so you married her."And my mother was thrown out of the Ashcroft family. She was carrying your child. She went back to the countryside, where people called her a whore for the rest of her life. Until the day she died, she never got to set foot in Kingsport again."The audience erupted.Some people shot to their feet. Others leaned together, whispering. More pulled out their phones and started recording.Benjamin's face turned as pale as paper. "Y-You'r

Chapter 6 Too Late for an Apology

Benjamin collapsed into his chair onstage.He stared at me, his lips trembling. "Y-You're…""I'm your daughter. The woman you drove away forty years ago gave birth to your daughter. You never knew I existed because you never truly looked at her."I took a black box out of my bag. It was an urn.The room fell silent."This is my mother. She waited for you for forty years in that little country town. She never remarried. The people there called her a whore, said she was damaged goods that no man wanted. She pretended she didn't hear them. She kept her head down and went on with her life. Until the day she died, she waited for that one person to say he was sorry."I looked at Benjamin. "That apology never came."I set the urn on the table in front of him. "Benjamin, look at her. Look at her face. Look at what you let happen to her."Benjamin reached out, trying to touch the urn. His hand shook. His fingertips hovered barely an inch above it, but he couldn't bring himself to make c

Chapter 7 Nothing Was Ever Yours

Benjamin's voice was so hoarse it barely sounded human."Mr. Ashcroft, what do you want?""I want to see you. I want to meet you. I want to see what the daughter your mother raised looks like.""You already did yesterday. I was the one on stage."Silence filled the other end of the line."I… I couldn't see you clearly. I have face blindness… you know that. I can't recognize people's faces.""Maybe you can't recognize faces, but you can recognize what's in someone's heart. Forty years ago, if you'd asked just one more question, if you'd asked whether my mother was telling the truth, you never would've driven her away."But you didn't. You believed everyone else. "You chose the woman who could benefit you. My mother had nothing, so she was the one who got cast aside.""Sera… It wasn't like that…""Don't call me Sera. You haven't earned that."I hung up.…Natalie came to see me three days later.She kneeled outside the Wellington estate, wearing a wrinkled sweater. Her hai

Chapter 8 Justice, At Last

A week later, I had my mother's grave relocated.She was laid to rest in the finest cemetery on the outskirts of the city, on a south-facing hillside where the sun shone brightest.The headstone was not large, but two words were engraved on it, clear as day—Grace Bennett.She had been trapped in that village for forty years. Even after she died, she had not been allowed into the family cemetery.Today, she had finally left that place behind. At last, she could rest peacefully under her own name.Benjamin came. Dressed in black, he stood at the very back of the crowd.His hair had turned completely white, and he had lost so much weight that his jacket hung loosely from his frame.When it was time to bury her, he dropped to his knees. He kneeled alone in the dirt, far away from everyone else.Frederick stood on my left, and Christopher stood on my right."Mom," Frederick said as he bent down and placed a bouquet of flowers before the headstone. "I'm your son-in-law. I'm sorry I

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