CHAPTER 143: CHAPTER 143

Then Rebecca leaned forward slightly, her voice cutting like a knife.

"She showed me the truth. She showed me the life you’ve been living while we sat in silence, hoping. She showed me how you’ve been out there, wining and dining, acting like a king while your own child wondered if she even had a father. I knew deep down, Samuel. I always knew. But I kept pretending. I kept making excuses for you, telling myself you were doing it for us... for our future. But that was a lie I told myself because I still believed in the man I thought you were."

She scoffed, her throat tight with unshed tears. "Do you know how many women you’ve been with, Samuel? Do you? Because I don’t. I lost count. And that’s the part that burns the most. You didn’t just neglect us... you erased us. You lived as though we were nothing more than a bad memory."

She paused, her hands clenched tightly around the arms of her wheelchair. "And the worst part of it all? You come here, sit in front of me, and still make excuses. Still try to manipulate me with fake apologies and twisted stories. You didn’t care when I was in that hospital. You didn’t care when our daughter cried herself to sleep, asking why Daddy stopped calling. And you sure didn’t care that the accident that put me in this chair... was because of you."

Immediately Rebecca’s chest rose and fell, her voice trembling now, not from weakness, but from the flood of pain that had long been buried beneath her silence. She looked Samuel dead in the eyes, not blinking, not flinching, as she continued.

"You want to talk about betrayal? About how someone pushed me into doing this? Fine. Let me tell you something you’ve clearly forgotten," she said, her tone sharp and cold. "Do you remember that rainy day? The day you were supposed to audition for MK Entertainment? The one where you insisted you needed your lucky suit... the same suit you left behind in your old apartment?"

Immediately Samuel’s brows twitched. He remembered that day. He had been panicking. The rain was pouring heavily, and everything seemed to be going wrong, except the part Rebecca was about to remind him of.

"I went back for that suit," Rebecca said, her voice growing firmer. "I got drenched to my bones in that rain, but I went. I climbed those slippery stairs and searched through every damn bag in that apartment just to find your stupid ’lucky’ suit. And you know what happened next?"

She pointed to her legs, her fingers shaking. "This. This happened. I got into that accident that took away my ability to walk. And even after I was bleeding, gasping for breath on the road, I didn’t stop. I gave that suit to a neighbor and begged them to deliver it to you, even while I was losing consciousness in the back of an ambulance."

Her eyes welled with tears, but they didn’t fall. She wasn’t going to give Samuel the satisfaction of seeing her cry. "You passed that audition. You got signed to MK Entertainment. Your dream came true. And what did I get in return? A wheelchair and silence. You couldn’t even face me, Samuel. You couldn’t look at me because I became a burden to your shining future. You didn’t want the world to know the price someone paid to help you stand where you are today."

She laughed bitterly. "You couldn’t even handle the idea of people knowing you had a child. You told me you had to keep it quiet, that upcoming actors needed to appear single and available. And I... I believed you. Like a fool. I watched you climb, I cheered from the shadows, and I told our daughter that her father was working hard for her... for us."

Rebecca’s face twisted with hurt. "But it’s been years, Samuel. Years of silence. Years of hiding and bullying from you. Years of pretending. And now it’s so clear. It’s not about your career anymore. The truth is—"

She paused, her voice hardening with finality.

"The truth is, you just don’t want me. You don’t want us. So tell me, what exactly is the point of me staying quiet?"

At that moment, upon hearing what Rebecca just said, Samuel sat back in quiet shock, the weight of her words pounding against his chest like a hammer. He hadn’t expected that kind of fire from her, not from the woman who used to wait patiently in the shadows, always trusting him blindly, always believing that he had a plan. But that woman... she was gone now. She wasn’t speaking from heartbreak anymore. She was speaking from clarity.

And that clarity terrified him.

Samuel clenched his jaw tightly, his hands trembling slightly at his sides. In his heart, he felt disappointment, not just in her response, but in himself. He had banked everything on the hope that his old tricks would still work. That if he layered his voice with enough regret, if he softened his tone just right, if he made her remember all the dreams they once shared, she would fold like she used to.

But not this time.

He blinked slowly, trying to hide the storm boiling in his chest. "So this is it," he thought bitterly. "Cora must’ve gotten to her real deep. She must’ve said something, twisted things, planted seeds in Rebecca’s head." That was the only explanation Samuel could live with, because facing the truth that Rebecca had finally seen him for who he really was, was too heavy to accept.

Yes, Rebecca held all the cards now. He knew it. She had the power to end his career, to stain his name permanently. But just because she had the power, did it mean she should use it? Shouldn’t love count for something? Shouldn’t history matter?

The urge to explode, to shout at her, to accuse her of betrayal, surged within him, but he swallowed it. No. Not now. Anger wouldn’t win her back. Rage wouldn’t clean the mess he made. Instead, he leaned forward again, forcing his voice to sound gentle, broken, even if it was all part of the act.

"Rebecca," he began softly, placing his palm over his chest. "I’m... I’m very, very sorry."

Still she didn’t flinch. She didn’t respond. But he pushed forward.

"I understand now. I do. I didn’t at first, but everything you said, it makes sense. I overdid it. I wanted to protect us so badly, I forgot to see you. I forgot what you went through. I tried to hide you and our daughter like secrets, and now I see how wrong that was. I admit it."