CHAPTER 3: CHAPTER 3: TIMOTHY XAVIER, LET’S GET DIVORCED!

"Isn’t it you?"

After Nanny Lowell finished speaking, Timothy Xavier likely made a phone call. His voice was cold, but his authoritative tone allowed no room for debate: "Jolie, go to finance tomorrow to settle the accounts, and after that, you don’t need to work at Xavier Group anymore."

Then, he carried the medical kit into my room.

Timothy Xavier’s face was cold as he headed straight to sit by the bed.

He held my ankle and rested my leg on his lap.

"It’s going to hurt a bit, bear with it."

The man’s dark eyes gazed repeatedly at the dried blood on my knee, and then he gently disinfected my wound with an iodine swab.

If it weren’t for those scenes in the photos that completely shattered my expectations of him, his focused expression might have made me feel like he’d returned to the Timothy Xavier from long ago, the one who loved me.

But he was with that woman last night, the whole night.

No, perhaps over the past three years, during countless nights when Timothy Xavier claimed to be on a business trip, they were together.

I felt a wave of nausea, quickly pulled my leg back, sat farther away from him, and started disinfecting myself with a new swab.

The wound throbbed with a sharp, distinct pain, reminding me that there was no turning back in my relationship with Timothy Xavier.

I didn’t look into his eyes. I bowed my head while applying gauze to my knee and said, "Timothy Xavier, let’s get a divorce!"

This was a decision I deliberated over all night, a painful severance that felt like peeling away bones and tendons, yet it didn’t even elicit a stunned reaction from Timothy Xavier.

The man’s cold, handsome face showed no emotion whatsoever: "Divorce? Can you really let go?"

After all, I had known him since being taken in by The Ellison Family at the age of five, and ever since then, I became his little shadow, with my entire heart and mind focused on him.

He looked at me with disdain: "Saying things out of spite once or twice is fine. What if one day, I actually agree?"

I suppressed my internal sorrow and asked sarcastically, "You’ve even fathered a child with another woman, so why do you think I should still stay with you?"

Timothy Xavier’s eyes narrowed as he scrutinized me: "You knew?"

I curled my lips bitterly, my voice nasal as I asked him, "Her daughter looks like she’s three, right? Which means shortly after our child passed away, your child was born. Isn’t that right?"

An unusual expression flashed across Timothy Xavier’s stern face, neither confirming nor denying it.

The air felt terrifyingly silent.

After what seemed like an eternity, he frowned and asked, "Does Doris’s existence bother you that much?"

So, the little girl’s name is Doris.

I said wearily, "If her existence is merely for you to satisfy the desire of being called ’Dad,’ then I won’t mind."

He suddenly moved closer to me, leaning over and placing his hands on either side of me, effectively trapping me in his embrace.

I pushed against him with all my might, but right now, I was really weak and couldn’t budge him at all.

Timothy Xavier’s body pressed down further, his cool voice becoming oddly enticing in my ear: "Compared to others calling me Dad, I prefer it when you do."

My face turned red in an instant.

When he wasn’t embracing Buddhism, we were like any other couple, passionate in those moments.

Sometimes, in moments of abandon, forced by him to call "Dad," I couldn’t even count how many times I did it.

But now, thinking back on these things, I felt like biting my tongue to end it all.

Timothy Xavier seemed quite pleased as he watched my flushed face, curling his lips into a smile, and asked, "Remember now?"

I just felt my cheeks burning hot.

However, as I looked at this familiar yet unfamiliar face, I suddenly felt a sense of relief.

I spoke with extra calm and deliberation: "Timothy Xavier, we can’t go back. Whatever happened between us before, from now on, nothing will ever happen again."

An unusual expression flashed across Timothy Xavier’s handsome face.

He then stood up straight, no longer trapping me as he had before, but instead looked down at me and said, "Being Mrs. Xavier is enough for you. This ’playing hard to get’ trick won’t work on me."

I couldn’t stand it any longer, ready to directly use the chips I had landed last night with ten million dollars to negotiate with him.

Maybe then he would finally understand my determination to divorce him?

"Timothy Xavier, sign the divorce agreement, and we can part on good terms. Otherwise, I’ll..."

I hadn’t finished my sentence when Timothy Xavier’s phone rang.

After answering, his tone was relatively gentle, "Yes, at home. Okay."

After the call, he said to me, "Your parents are about to come over."

The words I intended to say got stuck in my throat.

The parents Timothy Xavier referred to were my adoptive parents, who treated me as their biological daughter.

After they left, there’d still be time for me to talk about the divorce with Timothy Xavier.

Otherwise, it would be awkward when they arrived at our home.

Seeing that I was silent, Timothy Xavier went to the prayer room and ignored me.

I went into the kitchen to prepare the evening meal with Nanny Lowell.

...

By noon, Mrs. Ellison and Mr. Ellison had arrived.

"Dad, Mom, you’re here! Just in time, dinner’s ready, have a seat first."

I forced a smile, pretending nothing had happened.

Seeing me limping, Mrs. Ellison asked with concern, "What happened to your leg?"

Fearing they would find out, I pretended to be casual: "I accidentally fell."

Mr. Ellison spoke to me fondly: "You’re still so clumsy, even as an adult. Did you go to the hospital?"

"Yes, the doctor said it’s nothing serious."

I quickly brushed it off.

Mrs. Ellison looked around and asked, "Where’s Timothy?"

Mentioning him made my expression a bit unnatural, "He’s in the prayer room, I’ll go get him."

Mr. Ellison quickly stopped me, speaking cautiously, "No need to call him, we’ll just wait for him."

I detected the humbleness in my father’s tone and couldn’t help but feel a pang of heartache.

Although The Ellison Family and The Xavier Family had been on good terms for a long time, my brother wasn’t cut out for business, and The Ellison Family’s business was declining, almost pushed out of Veridia’s high society in recent years.

Meanwhile, after Timothy Xavier took over, The Xavier Family expanded aggressively, acquiring several enterprises and expanding their business territory.

Over the years, if it weren’t for Xavier Group constantly supporting The Ellison Family, The Ellison Group would have soon been swallowed by competitors.

So Mr. Ellison and Mrs. Ellison’s attitude towards Timothy Xavier had become increasingly humble.

What once was the authority of elders turned into the humility of those needing favors.

Today, perhaps because I upset him, even though my parents had been here for almost two hours and Nanny Lowell had gone to inform him, he still hadn’t come out of the prayer room.

It seemed as if he was intentionally leaving my parents hanging.

Mrs. Ellison, appearing to sense something, asked worriedly, "Zoe, I saw a news piece yesterday saying Serena Sawyer has a sponsor. Although it didn’t show his face, the back looked somewhat like Timothy. He... it’s not really Timothy, is it?"

My heart skipped a beat, my eyes burning as if I were about to cry.

Just then, Nanny Lowell hurried over and said, "Sir has arrived!"