Chapter 5

Myles' screams and cries pierced the air. While glancing at her reddened palm, Isobel felt her heart soften. She was about to bend down and pick him up when a sweet but cold voice rang out behind her. "Seems like you can't keep your loving mom act when no one's around." Zara glided into the room in her high heels. Her dress swayed with every step. The crying Myles reached out for her instinctively, but she raised a leg and nudged him aside. "I say, Isobel, you should've sent him to a special needs school. He's such a handful." Isobel's gaze turned cold instantly. She shoved the increasingly wailing Myles into Jenny's hands and said sharply, "Zara, my son still lives here. You have no right to call the shots!" Zara took one look at her furious expression and burst out laughing. "Call the shots? Isobel, you've stopped being the mistress of the house a long time ago. Drop the act!" Isobel froze. She watched as Zara retrieved a box from the study, then opened it and threw the contents at her. "Take a look at this, Ms. Atkinson." Zara's voice was still annoyingly sweet, but it carried nothing but malice. "Dominic didn't want you to trouble yourself, so he completed the procedures a while ago." It was a divorce certificate. Isobel held her breath, refusing to believe it. Her hands trembled as she picked it up. Her name and her ID were all printed in stark clarity. The date was three years ago, which wasn't long after Martha had gotten into her car accident! Did Dominic actually do all that without her knowing? "Impossible…" Isobel murmured, feeling her blood turn cold. "Why not?" Zara laughed softly, savoring the way Isobel's expression crumbled. "Dominic said he didn't want to drag you down back when the company was facing debt issues. Once the crisis passed, he probably forgot about this and the fact that he was supposed to remarry you." He forgot about it? Isobel found that thought ridiculous. Did their years of love and marriage matter so little to him that he could dismiss them all with a casual "I forgot"? Zara swept her gaze over Isobel. Her voice was thick with disdain as she said, "Look at yourself. How could you ever measure up to Dominic? I'm the one who deserves to be with him." Before Isobel could recover from the shock, Zara had already gotten to her feet. The crisp click of her high heels echoed across the floor as she casually dragged a few packed suitcases from the master bedroom and thrust them into Isobel's hands. "Look, I've already helped you pack up. Dominic has taken care of you for the past few years, even though he didn't need to. It's more than anyone could ask for. Don't you think it's time for you to act accordingly?" At the same time, she casually pulled out another box. It was the prototype of an intelligent robot that Isobel had poured her efforts into and was the path of her future research. It was meant to be her ticket to restarting her career abroad and advancing her work in autism intervention. "As for this piece of junk. I saw you carefully hiding it away that day, but it's just a pile of metal scrap." Zara tilted her head, flashing a beautiful but cruel smile. "What an eyesore." "No!" Isobel lunged forward, but it was too late. Zara lifted the robot high, then slammed it violently to the ground. Small components were scattered in all directions. The core processor was crushed under her heel with a sharp, grating crack. That was Isobel's career, dream, and the future she planned for herself, yet it was obliterated right in front of her eyes. Zara loomed over Isobel, who lay on the floor with despair written across her face. "You can get out of our lives now."