Love’s New Bloom By Simone Hastings

Chapter 73 Self–awareness 

Erin’s words surprised Mary. “What? You divorced my son?” she shrieked. 

Her shocked face made Erin realize that Ian didn’t bring the issue up to Mary yet, which annoyed her for a moment. Mary wouldn’t have doubled down on her if he had told her about this earlier. 

Just as Erin wanted to get up and leave without providing her a proper explanation, Mary grabbed hold of her arm and continued probing, “Could it be that my son caught you cheating?” 

Her accusation made Erin frown. It was obvious that Mary didn’t hear a single word she said. 

“You’re despicable, Erin! My son works so hard in the company to earn enough to give you a better life, yet look at the kind of wife you are to him! Who would’ve thought you would decide to leave my son and me after I requested you give me grandchildren…I’m still baffled at why my son even chose you in the first place!” Mary raged as her eyes glowed in furious. 

anger. 

Erin’s heart grew cold as she listened to Mary’s unreasonable ramblings. It was a good thing that she treated Mary well back then. At least she could now say that she did her part to fulfill the role of being her daughter–in–law. But now that she and Ian had divorced, she doubted that Mary would continue to see her in the same light as before. 

Seeing it had come to this, Erin decided she would shoulder all of the blame Mary had dumped on her. “I don’t want to argue with you anymore. Since you insist that your son is a saint, you should be glad that he divorced me. I sure hope you can find another good daughter–in–law who can treat you well and give you the grandchildren you so desire, Mrs. Cooper!” she scoffed in response. Immediately after saying that, she forcefully shook Mary’s hands off her and shot her an icy glare before turning to leave. 

Since Mary wore high heels, it caused her to lose her balance and start stumbling backward for a moment. Her friend immediately rushed to her side to prop her up. 

“Erin, you uneducated rotten bitch! Eugh, what bad luck my son has to marry a wench like you.” Mary cursed angrily, and the middle–aged woman beside her followed suit. 

Erin merely kept advancing forward until she could no longer hear their angry screams. Her anger only grew as she recalled the main person behind this whole mess all this time. It prompted her to immediately fish out her phone to dial Ian’s number. 

Ian picked up the phone almost instantly. 

“Why didn’t you tell your mother about our divorce?” she snapped. 

“Did you run into her?” he asked in surprise. 

She sighed before explaining everything to him, “She scolded and humiliated me in public today, but I didn’t care too much because she used to be my mother–in–law. I won’t hold back the next time she acts that way again! My parents raised me to be an upright person, not a trauma dumpster!” 

With that, she immediately hung up the phone without giving him a chance to question her about anything. 

When lan called again, Erin refused to pick up his call. The thought of being a scapegoat when Ian cheated on her was enough. to make her blood boil. But her anger was soon assuaged when she recalled the time she had hooked up with Chandler. 

She wasn’t born to be submissive all her life, after all! 

Just then, her phone started ringing again. She lowered her head and saw that Caleb was calling her. She hesitated for a moment before picking up. 

“Are you still at the company, Erin? Can you swing by downstairs if you have time? I have something important to tell you.” Caleb said over the phone. 

“I’m outside now, but I’m still near the company. We can meet outside if that’s fine with you. I’m at…” she trailed off as she scanned her surroundings. She eventually noticed a Starbucks nearby and continued, “I can wait for you at the Starbucks on 5th Avenue.” 

“Sure, I’ll be there soon,” he answered. 

Twenty minutes later, Caleb strolled into the Starbucks she mentioned, and he quickly located Erin sitting in a corner by herself. He then went up to her and sat down opposite her in the booth. 

“Feel free to order anything you’d like to drink,” Erin said with her head slightly turned to the side. She’d also used some hair to cover one side of her face. 

“What happened to your face? Who hit you?” he asked in concern, as his expression immediately turned downcast. 

Erin lifted an eyebrow while looking at him and started poking fun at herself, “Even YOU can tell that this was the result of a beating?” 

“Anyone could see that those are the faint remnants of someone’s fingerprints. Who’d be so cruel to do this to you? Was it Chandler?” he said through gritted teeth. 

Sensing Caleb’s anger, she immediately explained, “This didn’t come from him. It was from my ex–mother–in–law…” 

She then gave him a brief rundown of everything that had happened to her up to that point, as if she had nothing to worry about by spilling them to him. After all, he’d witnessed the heinous thing that had happened to her in the office last time, so she no longer felt the need to hide anything from him. 

“Ian is such a bastard! How dare he only thinks about himself while ignoring you completely!” Caleb growled with a furious look on his face. Even though he and Ian were both men, he looked down upon scum who fooled around like Ian. 

Erin tried her best to force out a grin. “Yeah. Then again, I’m pretty sure that his feelings for me had long gone away. It was just me who was too dumb to notice.” 

When Caleb heard that, he placed his hand on the back of hers and started comforting her, “There, there, Erin. What’s in the past is in the past. There’s no need to dwell on it any longer. He doesn’t deserve your tears.” 

The heat from his hand made Erin’s hands feel heavy, so she instantly retracted her hand. 

Caleb noticed her unease and apologized to her with an awkward look in his eyes. “Sorry for that,” he muttered. 

“It’s fine… By the way, didn’t you say you had something important to tell me?” Erin changed the topic in an attempt to ease the awkward atmosphere. 

“Remember when I told you I would help you break free from my cousin? Well, I’ve come up with a game plan, but I would need to trouble you in certain parts,” he said with a straight face. 

A trace of conflict arose in her heart. She was reluctant about the plan, especially when her relationship with Chandler was already teetering on the edge. Although they still didn’t know what to call their relationship, she was sure she no longer wanted to leave Chandler’s side. 

At least not so soon, anyways. 

But she didn’t want to turn down his advice after seeing how expectant he looked, so she quietly asked, “Well, what can I do?” 

There was a hint of excitement in Caleb’s eyes. “I want to tell your story to my aunt’s husband, Chandler’s father, who is also the chairman of Frost Corporation! Although he often lives abroad, he still often returns to the country.” 

There was a hint of doubt in her eyes. What did her relationship with Chandler have anything to do with the chairman? 

“Are you telling me that if the chairman found out about my relationship with Chandler, he’d stop us from being together?” she quizzed. 

“Of course, the chairman would be against it, no questions asked! That’s because the Frosts only want their children to be tied down in a marriage with someone from an affluent family. With that said, your family is…sorry, I mean-” Caleb stopped for a moment as he struggled to find the right words to explain without hurting her feelings. 

“It’s fine. You don’t have to say anything. I totally get what you mean. I’m pretty sure a man of such status as Chandler can definitely find ‘the one‘ who’d be an even better match for him rather than a nobody like me. There are too many ordinary 

women out there who are like me in this big city,” she lamented. 

The way she talked about herself made Caleb feel like she didn’t give herself enough credit. “Don’t talk about yourself like that, Erin! You’re special to me!” he exclaimed with a trace of hurt in his eyes. 

Erin was so depressed at the moment that his words didn’t manage to lift her spirits. 

“What do you mean ‘special‘? I’m just an ordinary woman. You think too highly of me…” she scoffed at herself. 

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