Chapter 2
By the time I returned to the mansion, it was already dark.
The butler told me Ethan was waiting for me in the study.
I pushed the door open and walked straight in.
He stood by the window smoking, already changed into clean clothes. Only the guilt in his eyes remained.
I shut the door behind me and leaned against it.
“Diana, I know you’re angry,” he said the moment he saw me. “But things with Serena aren’t what you think.”
I let out a cold laugh.
“And what exactly do I think?”
He fell silent for a moment.
“After Jack died, Serena completely fell apart. And no matter what, she was still my father’s wife. I couldn’t just leave her homeless on the streets.”
“So you do remember she was your father’s wife?”
“My father is dead!” he snapped suddenly. “And I never saw her as my mother!”
“So you felt perfectly justified hiding her in a villa under my name?”
“I didn’t think that far at the time.”
“One year.” I stared at him. “You hid her for an entire year. Every so-called business trip this past year, were you spending those nights with her?”
“Diana!” His voice rose sharply. “Stop making it sound so filthy!”
“A married man hides his stepmother in his wife’s property and gets her pregnant.” I crossed my arms. “Tell me, Ethan, what word would you use for that?”
His expression shifted again and again.
Finally, his voice weakened.
“Serena getting pregnant was an accident. I was drunk that night. I thought she was you.”
I almost laughed from disbelief.
“Again with the alcohol? So every time you slept with her, you were drunk?”
“After that night, she told me she was pregnant. What was I supposed to do? Force her to get rid of it? That’s Leone blood!”
“And then what?” I stepped closer. “What’s your plan? Have me peacefully coexist with her? Let the entire family know Ethan Leone got his stepmother pregnant?”
He stayed silent for a long time.
Finally, he said quietly, “Serena said she’s willing to let you raise the baby. We can say it’s yours. You can’t have children anyway.”
The moment those words left his mouth, nausea rolled through my stomach.
I stared at him.
“You are the most pathetic coward I’ve ever met. And the dumbest puppet alive.”
Anger flickered in his eyes: “Diana, I’m trying to talk to you seriously.”
“Talk about what?” I laughed bitterly. “How to legally pass your stepmother’s child off as mine?”
“Stop calling her my stepmother.” His voice turned cold. “She married my father when I was already twenty. She was never a mother to me.”
“Then what was she?”
He said nothing.
So I answered for him.
“She was your lover too. Yours and Jack’s. Wasn’t she?”
His body stiffened.
Still, he couldn’t deny it.
“Why did Jack kill himself?” I stared directly at him, my voice growing sharper. “Do you really believe it was depression?”
“Jack’s death has nothing to do with you,” he finally spat out.
“Nothing to do with me?” I shot back. “Then does it have something to do with Serena?”
He stayed silent again.
But his trembling hands gave him away.
I took a slow breath.
“One more question. Your father, the former Don. How did he die?”
“Heart attack.” The answer came too fast.
“The family doctor’s report said heart failure. But your father never had a history of heart disease.”
Ethan finally looked at me.
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m asking,” I said slowly, “whether you’re absolutely sure Serena had nothing to do with either of their deaths.”
Ethan suddenly turned and slammed his fist onto the desk.
“Enough! Diana, enough!”
I looked at him quietly.
His eyes were red. His breathing uneven. Like a beast trapped inside a cage.
It wasn’t anger.
It was fear.
He knew something.
Or maybe he suspected something.
But he didn’t dare face it.
“As for the baby…” His tone softened again, almost coaxing. “Think about it carefully.”
“Serena already said she’ll leave after the child is born. Everything can go back to normal. You’ll still be the Donna of this family.”
“No one has to know the truth.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
And suddenly, I wanted to laugh.
This man standing in front of me made my entire marriage feel like a joke.
I turned and pulled open the door.
“Diana!”
“The divorce papers will be sent over by my lawyer,” I said without looking back. “Just sign them.”
Then I walked out of the study and headed downstairs.
And this time, he didn’t follow me.
