The Price of a Stolen Marriage Chapter 06
Chapter 6 Too Late for an Apology
Benjamin collapsed into his chair onstage.
He stared at me, his lips trembling. “Y-You’re…”
“I’m your daughter. The woman you drove away forty years ago gave birth to your daughter. You never knew I existed because you never truly looked at her.”
I took a black box out of my bag. It was an urn.
The room fell silent.
“This is my mother. She waited for you for forty years in that little country town. She never remarried. The people, there called her a whore, said she was damaged goods that no man wanted. She pretended she didn’t hear them. She kept her head down and went on with her life. Until the day she died, she waited for that one person to say he was sorry.”
I looked at Benjamin. “That apology never came.”
I set the urn on the table in front of him. “Benjamin, look at her. Look at her face/Look at what you let happen to her.”
Benjamin reached out, trying to touch the urn. His hand shook. His fingertips hovered barely an inch above it, but he couldn’t bring himself to make contact.
Tears streamed down his face. “Grace… I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…’
He collapsed to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.
Forty years of prestige.
Forty years of being the perfect couple.
They all shattered before that small urn.
Hailey rushed forward, trying to grab it. “What gives you the right? Who do you think you are? This is slander.”
Frederick stood up and stepped in front of her.
He did not say a word. He simply stood there. And Hailey didn’t dare move another inch.
The reporters in the audience went wild, camera shutters clicking nonstop.
Natalie sat frozen in her seat, looking as though her soul had left her body. Her lips trembled, and her eyes were wide with disbelief.
She had grown up in the Ashcroft family.
She had lived in the finest house, attended the best schools, and been treated like a princess by everyone around
her.
She had always believed she was born to stand above everyone else.
Now, she knew the truth. Everything she had been so proud of had been stolen.
The next day, every newspaper’s front page was about the Ashcroft family.
“Kingsport’s Golden Couple Exposed as a Lie.”
“Benjamin Ashcroft’s Wife Under Investigation for Identity Fraud.”
“Old Mrs. Ashcroft Questioned by Police.”
Hailey was arrested at the airport.
She had bought a ticket on the earliest international flight that morning. She was alone and had not even had time to pack her luggage.
The police stopped her at the security checkpoint.
She was still wearing that navy silk dress. The emerald earrings still dangled from her ears, but she no longer looked like the elegant woman she had once pretended to be.
Half her hair had come loose, her makeup was smeared, and every wrinkle on her face was on full display.
“Do you know who I am? I’m Mrs. Ashcroft. You think you can arrest me?”
The officers ignored her.
The moment they put the handcuffs on her, she let out a piercing scream that echoed through the entire terminal.
Benjamin was not arrested, but his reputation was destroyed.
That same day, he resigned from every position he held. The university revoked his honorary professorship.
The Artists Association expelled Hailey from its membership.
Ashcroft Group’s stock price plunged forty percent in a single day.
The board held an emergency meeting overnight and removed Benjamin from the company’s leadership.
The business empire he had built with his own hands crumbled overnight.
I sat at home, reading the news one story after another.
Then, my phone rang. It was Benjamin.
“Sera… may I call you that?”
