Chapter 5

Sophie's words hit me like a knife to the chest.

His most important thing?

I bought that necklace with six months of part-time wages and searched all over the city to find it.

It was my birthday gift to James for his twenty-second birthday.

We had just gotten married back then, and we were completely broke.

His eyes lit up when he opened it. He held me and told me over and over that it was the best gift he'd ever gotten, that he'd wear it forever.

Now the necklace that held all our memories was around another woman's neck. And it had become his "most important thing" that he gave to her.

The irony twisted in my gut.

Blood rushed to my head, and my rationality burned away. I couldn't control myself anymore.

I took Ethan's hand and walked toward them.

"Ms. Lane," I said, my voice cold and flat.

Sophie and Helen both turned around.

Sophie's face changed the moment she saw me, but Helen froze when she recognized Ethan standing beside me. Her eyes went wide, and she stared at Ethan's face like she was seeing a ghost.

"Who are you?" Helen asked, her voice shaking.

I ignored her. My gaze landed on Sophie's neck instead.

"That necklace you're wearing is beautiful," I said.

Sophie's hand flew to her neck, and guilt flashed in her eyes.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said. I smiled coldly. "I wanted to tell you that necklace is fake."

Sophie's face went pale. "You're talking nonsense," she said. "James put this on me himself. There's no way it's fake."

"Is that so?" I asked. I sneered, "Do you know the pendant on that necklace is a micro storage device? It has all of my wedding photos with James stored inside."

Sophie's face turned deathly pale. The color drained from her face completely.

Helen looked at Sophie in shock, then turned to look at me. She stammered, "Emily? You—you're not—"

I finished her sentence for her. "Dead, right?" I added, "Sorry to disappoint you both. I'm alive and well."

My gaze shifted back to Sophie, and I stepped closer to her.

I pressed, "What's wrong? Cat got your tongue? Or did you know what was inside all along? Is that why you kept wearing it?"

I leaned in. "Are you showing off? Showing off that you stole my husband and now you're parading around with the only thing we had left?"

Sophie screamed, and her emotions spiraled out of control. "I didn't! I didn't know! James just said it was something important to him. I had no idea there were photos inside."

I pushed harder. "Then take it off now. Let's check right here and see whose face is hiding in that love token your fiancé gave you."

Sophie backed away from me, and her face turned ghostly pale. She looked at Helen as if she were begging for help.

Helen's face looked terrible, too. She stared at me, then at Ethan, who looked exactly like James as a child, and her lips trembled, but no words came out.

People started gathering around us, pointing at us and whispering to each other.

Helen finally snapped out of it and shouted at me. "Enough! Emily, how long are you going to keep this up? This is a public place. Don't make a scene here."

"Making a scene?" I looked at Helen, and I felt nothing but contempt for the woman who had spent years tormenting me.

I narrowed my eyes and said, "Have you lost your memory, Mrs. Cooper? You were the one who threw me out of the house four years ago. You were the one who told me that James didn't want me and that I should stop harassing him."

I gestured toward Ethan and asked, "Now that you are looking at your own grandson, how exactly do you feel?"

Ethan was terrified by the hostile energy in the room, and he clutched my shirt while his eyes filled with fear.

Helen stared at Ethan, her expression a complicated mix of shock, guilt, and desperate longing.

She looked at me and stammered, "You were pregnant when you left?"

I nodded my head and answered, "I was, but I remember that nobody in the Cooper family wanted this child to exist."

My words hit Helen and Sophie like a thunderclap, and the room went dead silent.

Sophie turned to Helen with a look of pure disbelief and asked, "Helen, what is she talking about?"

Helen's face flushed with a mixture of anger and embarrassment because she never expected me to expose her secrets in front of everyone.

She reached out and grabbed my arm and tried to drag me toward the door.

She gritted her teeth and said, "Come with me right now. We are going to find a private place to settle this."

I jerked my arm away from her and said, "That won't be necessary. I am only here to reclaim what belongs to me."

I shifted my gaze to the necklace on Sophie's neck and said, "Give it back to me."

I kept my voice low, but my words sounded like a command that no one could ignore.