She Quit Her Family and Found Herself novel Chapter 9

The sprawling, open-concept kitchen suddenly felt incredibly suffocating.

Callie stood frozen between them, utterly humiliated. After several agonizing seconds, she frantically broke the silence. "It's... it's ready. I'll pack it up right now."

Herbert gave a curt nod before shifting his gaze to Hulda. The look he gave her was as icy and detached as ever. "Good, you're here. You're coming with me to the hospital to apologize to Sylvie. Your reckless stunt yesterday did serious damage to her reputation."

Hulda let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. "Are you out of your mind? You threw a wedding with another woman, and now you want me to apologize to your mistress?"

"What mistress? You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about!" A dark storm brewed in Herbert’s eyes, and a suffocating, oppressive aura radiated off him.

"The wedding was fake. I was doing her a favor. She comes from an extremely traditional, patriarchal family. Getting a master's degree took everything she had. Her parents were forcing her to go back home and marry an intellectually disabled man. They threatened to completely disown her if she refused. She was trapped between the parents who raised her and ruining the rest of her life. Faking the wedding was her last resort."

He narrowed his eyes, staring her down. "She is my brightest student and my right hand in the lab. As her mentor and boss, it was my obligation to protect her. You are my wife. I knew you were dull and oblivious, but I at least thought you possessed basic human decency. Look at what you did. You stormed in blind and burned the entire thing to the ground. Her reputation in her hometown is completely destroyed. How is a young girl supposed to survive that?"

Hulda stood perfectly still, letting him deliver his impassioned defense.

This was the most he had spoken to her in a single breath over the entire seven years of their marriage.

Suddenly, the sheer absurdity of it all struck her.

"Regardless," his tone softened slightly, pivoting into the condescending patience of a professor lecturing a slow student. "Your outburst caused her extreme emotional distress. The doctor said she's showing severe signs of acute trauma and depression. You are coming with me to apologize to her, and then we are going to her family's house to clear everything up."

Hulda couldn't hold it in anymore. She burst out laughing. "I am never apologizing to a homewrecker."

"Stop calling her that!" The dark scowl returned to his face. "I just told you she was forced into an impossible corner! She's completely innocent..."

"Innocent?" Hulda fired back, cutting him off. "If she's so innocent, how did the wedding agency miraculously get my phone number? Are you stupid, or are you just playing dumb? She knew exactly what she was doing. She knew she was the other woman, and she reveled in it!"

"Hulda!" He finally snapped. The mask of stoic indifference shattered into pure, unfiltered rage, and the words that left his mouth were engineered to kill. "Before you accuse anyone else of having no morals, take a long look in the mirror. Have you forgotten how you completely degraded yourself and deliberately plotted your way into my bed?"

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