Adkins and Rosetta exchanged a wary glance before Rosetta finally spoke up.
“Don’t worry, we’re not here to make things hard for you. We just hope you’ll stop targeting Emma from now on. I said it when we ran into each other at the salon earlier–meeting Mr. Carter wasn’t easy for her. Now that she’s finally engaged, she has a future to look forward to. Whatever happened in the past, right or wrong, it’s time to let it go. Especially since your life is so good now–why hold onto old grudges? Don’t you agree?”
Listening to her, Ivy felt a wave of revulsion rise in her chest, as if she’d swallowed a fly.
Even now, they still didn’t realize that she’d cut ties with them precisely because they kept shielding and enabling Emma. They were still blithely marching down the wrong path, yet somehow saw fit to scold her for being petty and unreasonable.
Ivy had nothing to say. She waited a long moment, then looked up with a cool gaze. “Are you finished? Can I go now?”
“What kind of attitude is that?” Adkins bristled. “Have you spoken to us civilly even once these past months? Every time we try to talk, all you give us is sarcasm. Is there any gratitude left in your heart besides all that hate?”
“And what exactly should she be grateful for, Mr. Windsor?” Jamison finally couldn’t stand it anymore and cut in, his voice steady as he moved to defend his wife. “Should she thank you for giving up on her after she disappeared, or for kicking her out the moment she came home?”
Adkins puffed himself up, looking completely self-righteous. “We gave her life, we raised her–was that not enough? So what if we favored Emma? We still raised Ivy, gave her a good upbringing! Otherwise, do you think you’d have wanted her for a wife?”
Jamison was about to retort, but Ivy lifted her hand in a quiet gesture to stop him.
She stood, drawing a steady breath, finally ready to say what had weighed on her heart for so long.
“Yes, you gave birth to me and raised me. But raising a child, to you, is no different than making an investment. No–actually, it’s more like a madam grooming her star attraction in a brothel. It wasn’t about love. It was always about profit.”
Adkins’s face darkened. “What kind of nonsense is that?”
“You know exactly what I mean,” Ivy replied, undeterred by his anger. Her voice was calm, unwavering.
“Not long ago, I went to Silverfen–the place where I was held for those three years. I went to help the police rescue other women who’d been kidnapped. I saw families who had traveled across the country, ragged, exhausted, poor, but refusing to give up. Year after year, no matter how hard things got, they kept searching for their missing daughters.
“That’s when I understood: you never really loved me. I was just a high-end commodity to you. You hoped I’d fetch a good price, marry into a powerful family, and bring more benefits to the Windsors. But when I was taken, you knew exactly what happened to girls like me. You figured I had lost my value–damaged goods–and that bringing me back would only make the family a laughingstock. So you gave up on finding me.
“Maybe, at first, when I went missing, you were worried. Maybe you even felt sad. But I think that sadness was just… regret that your carefully groomed prize, just about to make a lucrative match, had been stolen away. That’s the kind of heartbreak you felt, isn’t it?
“Then Emma–just a few careless words from her, rumors that I’d caught HIV, that I’d borne some old man’s child–and you dropped the search immediately.”