He Left Me Broke, I Fought Back Hard

Chapter 4

For 30 minutes, Owen ignored both my message and my calls.

Several times, typing... appeared at the top of our chat, but Owen never sent anything.

Instead, Natalie sent me a voice message.

Natalie: Claire, are you ever going to stop? Why do you keep calling Owen? Don't you understand that when our family is together, the last thing we want is an outsider interrupting us?

Her words left me struggling to breathe.

I swallowed the hurt and typed a careful reply.

Claire: I've already asked him for a divorce. You want to be recognized as his wife, and you want your child to grow up with both parents under one roof. Then tell him to come back and finish the paperwork with me.

Natalie ignored me after that.

I refused to spend another minute waiting for Owen. Once I had calmed down, I called a moving company and began removing everything that belonged to me.

I threw away the portraits I had taken of him, the lucky charm I'd gone out of my way to get for him, and every tie, shirt, and suit I had bought for him. He had never worn any of the clothes or kept the charm with him.

When the movers arrived, I calmly told them to take everything downstairs and dispose of it.

With the movers' help, I packed the rest of my belongings. By the end of the afternoon, every trace of my life there over the past 4 years had been loaded onto the truck.

As I stood at the door for the last time, I finally broke down and cried.

I had barely begun unpacking in my new apartment when another message from Natalie arrived.

Natalie: Come to Villa 12 at Silverstream Estates. Owen is here with me.

My fingers tightened around my phone.

In the end, I replied with a single word.

Claire: Okay.

I changed into a clean dress, grabbed my camera, got behind the wheel of my Lansmere, and drove straight to Silverstream.

Natalie had spent 1 month humiliating me. Now she was going to find out how it felt to have her own secrets exposed.