He Dumped Me, Now He Begs for Me

Chapter 3

Liam's abrupt, out-of-context warning made Emily frown deeply.

Before she could get a word out, Sophie stepped forward and planted herself firmly in front of Emily.

Emily did not miss the eye roll Sophie had given her just moments before.

"Liam! What are you chatting about with your little sister over here?" Sophie cooed sweetly. "I've been socializing all by myself out there. I'm terrible with faces at these things. Can you please come give me a hand?"

Knowing better than to linger, Emily closed the door and left.

In the back garden, all the guests had already taken their seats.

"Emmy, come sit here beside me."

Nora called Emily over, but before Emily could even sit down, a voice loud enough for everyone to hear cut in.

"Well, well! It's been what—how many years since you got divorced? And you still have the nerve to stay at the Carter house? I wish I could be as shameless as you."

Emily had never seen this speaker before.

"Who do you think you are?" Nora shot back. "Even if Emmy is no longer my daughter-in-law, she is still my daughter.

"She can stay in this house as long as she wants! Your niece and my son aren't even married yet, so an outsider like you has no business coming into my house and ordering everyone around. Throw her out this instant!" Nora ordered the waiting bodyguards.

The bodyguards had just grabbed the older woman's arms to escort her out when Liam stopped them.

"Mom, just let her sit at the back table."

Watching her aunt head for the back table, Sophie shot Emily a vicious glare. Under the table, her fingertips gripping her wine glass had already turned bone-white from how hard she was clenching it.

Liam unconsciously kept his attention on Emily, afraid she would do something drastic any second.

But to his surprise, aside from that small incident at the start, she stayed quietly by Nora's side the entire night without any unusual reaction at all.

A sudden, unexplainable irritation welled up in Liam.

After all the guests had left, Liam stepped in front of Emily as she passed him. He leaned in close to her ear and murmured, "You sure know how to hold back, don't you?"

Emily smiled knowingly. "I'm not holding anything. I simply don't care."

Sophie, who had just finished seeing guests out by the entrance, saw what was happening and walked over, grinding her teeth in fury.

Emily paid no attention to the stunned look on Liam's face and turned to leave.

Before she could even take a step, Sophie slapped her hard across the face.

"You shameless slut! I knew it. You only came back to seduce my husband. Well, I finally caught you red-handed, didn't I?"

Sophie stared at Emily viciously, as if Emily were a heinous criminal.

Liam frowned slightly from the side, a faint flicker of anger in his eyes, but in the end, he said nothing.

Seeing this, Sophie only grew bolder and pushed things further.

"You know what? You're just begging for a beating!"

As she spoke, she raised her hand again, aiming for Emily's already swollen cheek—but her wrist was grabbed before it could connect.

Emily twisted her arm back and slapped Sophie hard across the face.

"First, what I do is none of your business. And second, look carefully: I was not the one who started a conversation with your husband."

After saying this, Emily pushed her away and turned to walk back to her room.

Sophie squeezed her fists so hard her nails bit into her skin. In her eyes, there was a glint of pure defiance.

"Emily, do you still remember those dirty things you did? You don't want your old scandals to go viral on social media right alongside the announcement of your award, do you?"

Emily ignored the threat in her words and walked straight into her room.

Once the door clicked shut behind her, she slowly slid down to a crouch on the floor.

The old fear washed over her again like a tide.

She had to pinch her own arm hard, until deep blue-purple bruises formed on her soft flesh, before she could pull herself back to a shred of sanity.

By the third year after Sophie first appeared, Liam had changed completely—or at least, that was how it looked to Emily.

He could stay with Sophie from morning to night, going for afternoon tea, shopping, or even just sitting by the sea, zoning out together.

He even dropped a multi-hundred-million-dollar business deal just because Sophie said, "I'm a little bored," and flew all the way to Africa with her to watch the Great Migration.

Liam never publicly acknowledged Emily as his wife. He said this was a private matter and there was no need for everyone to know about it.

As a result, for a time, it was widely rumored on socials that Sophie was the girlfriend of the Carter Group's heir.

But when they got home, he was still as cold as ever, without a single word of explanation.

Driven past the brink of endurance, Emily began inserting herself into every one of their meetings and would even stay by Liam's side the entire day.

Sophie used her livestreams to "accidentally" include Emily in the frame every time, deliberately showing her fans snippets of her and Liam being intimate.

Emily became labeled a homewrecker and was hated by everyone online.

All of her social accounts were flooded with abuse, and she received countless harassing, insulting direct messages every day.

After she turned off direct messages, people started posting malicious smear posts about her online.

They claimed she was a jinx who cursed her own parents to death and used AI to generate deepfake nude photos of her to sell online.

One day, when she was walking down the street, a sleazy middle-aged man suddenly groped her breast.

She slapped his hand away immediately and angrily said she would call the police.

But the man just sneered disdainfully at her. "Come on. Drop the act. Aren't you just a slut who makes p**n? What's the big deal if I cop a feel?"

Back then, she was almost completely broken.