Chapter 3

The meal ended in silence. The sounds of Roland, Maeve, and Bethany constantly comforting Stella echoed in my ears.

Perry tried to explain, but I cut him off. "I'm exhausted. I need some rest." At my words, Perry looked embarrassed.

As the light shone on his face, I understood his silence and gave a bitter smile. "There's no room for me, right?" So, my room had been taken by Stella too.

After a moment of silence, Perry replied, "You came back so suddenly. Otherwise, we'd have gotten the guest room ready for you."

The word "guest room" stung me deeply. It was ridiculous. I was back in my home, yet I had to stay in a guest room?

Seeing that I remained silent, Perry hugged me and sighed. "Come on, sweetie. Just make do for one night, okay?"

I clutched the hem of his shirt and looked up at him. "What about you? Will you stay with me?" My question caught him off guard.

All these years, he had treated Stella as my stand-in. And it seemed he had long since grown used to sharing a bed with her. So when I asked him just now, he was momentarily at a loss.

Seeing his expression, I understood everything. I was on the verge of a breakdown. My voice cracked. "Get out!"

In a fit of anger, I accidentally knocked over the vase on the table. The shards of glass cut my hand, but I felt no pain as I burst into tears. "I said get out! Can't you hear me?"

Everyone was startled by the noise and came out of the room. Maeve patted my hand, trying to calm me.

Maeve said, "It's alright, sweetheart, just make do for one night. Tomorrow, I'll throw you a welcome party. Everyone is happy to know you're awake."

At this point, I looked deeply at her and stopped making a scene. After I went back to the guest room all alone, I saw Stella already waiting inside. I said coldly, "What are you doing here?"

I wasn't that generous—certainly not enough to put on a friendly face for someone who had taken everything from me.

Stella stroked her stomach and smiled. "I hope this one is a girl. Then Perry will have both a son and a daughter."

As she stroked her belly, her sleeve slid down, revealing a bracelet on her wrist. My eyes widened, and I almost lost my balance.

It was the Holt family's heirloom emerald bracelet—passed down only to the daughter-in-law.

Bethany had once stroked the bracelet on her wrist, saying she would pass it to me when the time was right. Unfortunately, I never got it. Now it belonged to someone else.

With no one else around, Stella dropped her act. She looked at me mockingly, her eyes full of malice.

She said, "Estelle, why did you have to wake up? You've already been replaced. Why couldn't you die in peace?"

Stella began to ramble about all her efforts over the years. She said she had undergone continuous plastic surgery over the years to look like me, to gain my family's favor.

And she talked about how hard she had worked to make everyone accept her.

I cut her off. "None of this was ever yours. You know, Dolly the cloned sheep only lived for eight years."

Stella fell silent. She looked at me defiantly. "Is that so? Then let's see who's more important in their eyes now."

With that, she smashed a glass on the table and used a shard to slash her arm. A sharp cry tore through the quiet night.

Everyone rushed in. I saw clearly that the first thing everyone did when they entered was to look at Stella.

When they saw she was injured, their expressions changed drastically. "Take her to the hospital!"

Roland's face was frantic. When he glared at me, his expression was fiercer than I had ever seen.

"Why do you have to come back and turn everything upside down? If anything happens to Stella, you'll pay for this," he said.

I caught my breath. Perry pushed me to the ground and dragged Stella out without even looking back.

Maeve slapped me. "Stella hasn't been able to sleep well since you woke up. She's been so upset. Why are you always picking on her?"

I sat on the floor, speechless in the face of everyone's accusations. Stella gave me a triumphant smile.

But after everyone left, I took out the phone hidden in my clothes—the one that had been recording the whole time.