Chapter 150 The Past
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Alistair had never tried to pry into Caroline’s family. Even though they were married, he believed that sometimes, even between spouses, there should be space for privacy.
Everyone had secrets they’d rather keep to themselves. He was no exception. He hadn’t told Caroline about the system.
It wasn’t because he didn’t love her enough. It was just that the nature of it was too complex to explain, and sharing it would only bring unnecessary confusion. He would rather keep it to himself
and use its power to protect her quietly, without her ever having to
know.
Caroline rarely mentioned any relatives, which he’d assumed was her way of avoiding memories that brought her pain.
So when she suddenly brought up her mother, Alistair was caught
completely off guard.
She has no mother, just like me? What does that even mean?
As far as he knew, her mother had been living abroad this whole
time.
That was what Mabel told him. And Mabel wasn’t the type to lie, especially not about something like this.
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Chapter 150 The Past
Caroline’s voice remained calm, but there was a faint trace of
sorrow in it.
It was clear she’d spent a long time coming to terms with her mother’s absence before she could speak about it with such
composure.
Alistair felt something twist in his chest. He understood her pain
all too well.
There was a kind of loneliness only motherless kids understood. He never imagined she’d lived with that too.
“My mom left for another country when I was really young. She never divorced my dad, but she stopped coming home. At first, she visited often, but over the years, it became less and less. Eventually, she just stopped coming back altogether. The last time I saw her, she came back to finalize the divorce.”
Alistair held her close, wanting to stop her from going on, but he
had no idea what to say.
“Later, people told me she had found someone new overseas, started a new family, and had more kids. Others said she became a nun and cut ties with the world. But no one ever told me the truth–that my mom had gotten sick. Really sick. That last time she came back, she gave me a small box and told me not to open
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Chapter 150 The Past
it until after my eighteenth birthday.”
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Alistair had a feeling there was more to that box than met the eye. “You opened it early?” he asked.
Caroline shook her head, her voice soft. “No. I always listened to my mom. She said after I turned eighteen, so I promised her! would wait, and I kept that promise.”
Alistair sighed quietly. “But the box still got opened?”
“Yeah… I used to live with my grandmother. Around that time, she wasn’t doing well and had to move into a care facility. I stayed at Ashbourne Manor, and most of the time, it was Juju and his
parents taking care of me.”
Juju. Of course she meant Julian. That was what she used to call him back when they were kids.
Alistair kept listening. Some memories were painful, but being able to talk about them was a kind of healing in itself.
“That day, Paige came by.”
He interrupted, “Who’s Paige?”
“She’s Leo’s mother.”
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Alistair immediately went quiet again.
“Paige brought a girl with her. While I wasn’t looking, the girl sneaked into my room and started going through my things.
She…”
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Caroline paused, like the memory had taken the air from her lungs.
Alistair gently rubbed her back, giving her time.
“She tore my room apart. She found the box. By the time I realized what was happening, it was already open.”
That box had meant everything to Caroline, something she’d guarded like a treasure. The fact that the girl found it meant she had turned the entire room upside down.
Caroline had snapped. She wasn’t the kind of person to cry and wait for an adult to step in. She hit the girl on the spot.
Then Paige came storming in and slapped her across the face,
shouting that she was a savage.
At this point, Alistair pulled her into a tighter embrace, fury burning
in his chest.
She really went through all that?
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Chapter 150 The Past
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The girl had been in the wrong, and somehow Caroline was the one who got hit.
That was the day Caroline cut ties with Paige completely.
Paige ran straight to Caroline’s father, Gordon Ashbourne, and put on a show. Gordon told Caroline to apologize. She refused.
That night, Caroline finally looked inside the box her mother had
left.
Inside were photographs, from the time she was a baby all the way through childhood, and several notebooks filled with her mother’s handwriting, pages and pages of love.
The last page in one of the notebooks read: [My darling girl, you’re all grown up now. Life is long, but you’ll never be alone. I’ll always be with you, just in a different way.]
Alistair felt the damp warmth of her tears soaking through his shirt. He said nothing. He just held her.
That was when she finally understood that her mother had been
sick.
There had been problems between her and Gordon, but she couldn’t take Caroline with her. So, proud and stubborn, she left
the country.
Chapter 150 The Past
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And when the illness came, she didn’t want anyone to see her in a
weakened state.
Caroline went wild. She was desperate to find her mom, to be with her during whatever time they had left.
But Paige said she’d lost her mind… that she needed treatment.
The cruelest part? Gordon believed her.
Why didn’t Caroline show him the box? The notes? The photos?
Because by the time she begged anyone to help her find her mother, sobbing and screaming, her room had already been cleaned out. Everything, every last trace of her mother, had been
thrown away like garbage.
Later, she found out it was Paige who convinced Gordon that Mabel had spoiled her too much, making her ungrateful. And while Mabel was gone, Paige offered to take over her “education.”
Gordon agreed.
Paige found some comic books in her room, accused her of corrupting herself with nonsense, and decided to clear out the entire space.
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From then on, anything that went into Caroline’s room had to be
approved by Paige first.
That was when Caroline completely broke.
She nearly killed Paige that day.
Gordon found out, and in a rage, he banished her.
Paige personally arranged for two people to keep her under
surveillance.
Caroline tried to escape several times, but she never made it far
before getting dragged back.
Once, she even got someone else into trouble, someone who had
just been trying to help her.
Things got messy. Paige had her transferred somewhere new.
According to them, she was “unstable” and in need of “serious
treatment and supervision.” Eventually, they moved her to that house in Chicago, right near Alistair’s home.
The day she arrived, something strange happened. Out of nowhere, her chest started to ache, sharp and unbearable. And somehow, she just knew that her mother was gone.
