Chapter 8
After a sleepless night the next morning, Benson made a call to the friend who had helped him transplant the lemon tree ten years ago.
“Do you still remember the lemon tree you moved for me back then? Can you go back to that same park… and find me another one that’s about ten years old?”
His friend picked up on the unusual tone in his voice and asked what had happened.
Benson’s voice
was hoarse, his eyes vacant. “Yvonne… I think she doesn’t want me anymore.”
After the new lemon tree was replanted in the garden, Benson looked genuinely happy. He even carved a wooden plaque by hand. On it, he wrote, commemoration of Benson and Yvonne’s 20th year together.”
His friend let out a long sigh and left.
Later, Yara called. Benson rejected the call. Annoyed, he simply turned off his phone.
“In
Once he hung up the plaque, he swept and tidied up the whole garden. Then, he called a lawyer to inquire about custody matters. He remembered Yvonne once said she could accept the children.
After a full day of work, the house finally quieted down again.
Benson sat alone at the dining table, blank–faced. He thought of Yvonne again. She had been gone for two days, but he kept thinking about her.
He rewatched yesterday’s surveillance footage. When she left, she didn’t take anything with her just a small handbag.
She would come back. She had to. He had to get everything in order before that happened so that she wouldn’t stay angry at him.
However…
“Damn it!”
Benson kicked over the dining table, smashed everything within reach, and then smacked a side of the table several times.
When Yara entered the house with Stellan using the passcode, what she saw was Benson slumped on the floor, a complete wreck. Her heart skipped a beat. She hurried over to help him up.
Her pregnancy was well into the later months, and her belly was already showing. “Benson, what happened? I heard… Ms. Winters left?”
° ཌ བ ཅན ཐ ཥཾ རྟྲྀ ཥཾ ཏྲཾ བྷ ཝ ➢ཟ རཾ ཤྲཱ བཻ གཽ ཞོང ཤ ཐང རོ ཟ ཎ རྒྱུུ རཾ བ ཡིན
As she asked that, she couldn’t stop her lips from curling ever so slightly.
Benson noticed it and asked coldly, “She’s gone. Are you happy?”
Yara studied his expression, making sure his tone toward her hadn’t changed. Once she was certain, she dropped the pretense. “Of course, I’m happy!”
She tried to imitate Yvonne’s gentle smile. “Benson, this means Stellan and I can finally be with you openly. As for Ms. Winters… If she wants to leave, let her. What
if she forces Stellan to eat something else again? She’s never been a mother. How would she know the pain of seeing her own child suffer?”
As she spoke, tears welled up in her eyes. But before they could fall, a large hand clamped tightly around her neck.
Benson’s expression remained mostly unchanged. His eyes, however, were dark and vicious. “Yara, I remember telling you to never even think of replacing Yvonne, ” he said.
His grip tightened, to the point that Yara almost passed out.
Then, he flung her aside. Ignoring her coughing and gasping on the ground, he dragged her up and shoved her into the garden outside.
Stellan stood there, at a loss.
Benson looked at him, his head pounding. For the first time, he found the child… truly unpleasant to look at. If only this child had been his and Yvonne’s…
He pressed his lips together, his thoughts a mess.
Later, he hired a nanny to take care of Stellan’s meals, schooling, and daily needs. Then, he arranged for his lawyer to handle a custody battle with Yara.
As for himself, he handed all business matters over to the other shareholders, packed lightly just like Yvonne, and set out to find her. He couldn’t wait any longer. She had been gone for half a month. If he didn’t go to her soon… She might never come back.
