Chapter 1128

Seeing Natalie confined to a wheelchair, Wendy felt a sharp, sudden ache in her chest. She knew about the accident; she knew Natalie had been in the car with Sebastian when he supposedly died. She had desperately wanted to visit, but feared her presence would only upset Natalie.

She was a colossal failure as a mother. She didn’t even know where her own daughter lived.

The only piece of information she had was that Natalie would return to the office on the eighth, so she had come to wait in the lobby.

“Natalie, how are your legs? Are you feeling any better?” Wendy approached, her voice laced with heavy concern.

Natalie felt absolutely nothing in response to the maternal warmth. She gave a curt, polite nod. “I’m fine, Mrs. Scott.”

The formal title cut Wendy to the quick.

Natalie knew they had nothing left to say to each other. Once, she had practically lost her mind trying to earn a single scrap of Wendy’s affection. But Wendy had known exactly how desperate Natalie was for validation and had chosen to weaponize it, treating her with unimaginable cruelty.

Tears welled up in Wendy’s eyes. “Natalie, I’m so sorry. I was wrong.”

Natalie shook her head dismissively. “It doesn’t matter, Mrs. Scott. We have no real connection anyway. I know you’ve always looked down on me.”

“Honestly, I’ve never understood you. Joanna spent years orchestrating vicious attacks against me, and you watched it all happen without lifting a finger. I thought you just had an endless capacity to forgive her. Even when you found out she was Sophia’s biological daughter-the child of your husband’s mistress-I figured you’d just keep coddling her.”

“It’s only recently that I finally figured it out. Your love is completely superficial. You both just put on this grand performance of affection to make yourselves feel like good people.”

“Please, just stop showing up in my life. Looking at you makes my blood boil.”

Natalie closed her eyes, forcing down the suffocating wave of bitterness and grief.

This was her biological mother. If Wendy had shown her even an ounce of genuine love, Natalie would have moved mountains for her.

Wendy had given her life and ne

despite the profound hatred Natalie harbored, she still couldn’t stomach the thought of letting Joanna destroy Wendy completely.

Perhaps this was just human nature. Once the love burned away, only the ashes of resentment remained. Every encounter devolved into a vicious cycle of tearing each other down.

Natalie had always despised people who acted like this, yet here she was, doing the exact same thing.

She knew no one in this world was obligated to love anyone else forever. But this was her mother, and the only thing she had ever seen in Wendy’s eyes was pure disgust.

“I’m so sorry…” Wendy broke down, her sobs echoing in the grand lobby. The crushing weight of her past mistakes haunted her every single night.

But there was one truth she absolutely had to tell her daughter.

“Natalie, if you want to know the real reason… I can tell you. But it has to be just the two of us.”

Natalie looked at her tear-streaked face, genuinely confused. “The reason? The reason for what?”

“You’ve always believed I hated you,” Wendy choked out. “Once I tell you the reason, everything will make sense.”

Natalie let out a cold, cynical laugh.

“What other reason could there possibly be? You hated me because

I was a poor country girl who

embarrassed your flawless high-society image.”

Wendy shook her head frantically, her heart breaking at the raw

mockery in Natalie’s eyes. “No,

Natalie. No. That was part of it net

won’t die. At the time, I viewed.

Joanna as my masterpiece, a

er

brilliant daughter had poured hai

my life into molding. I favored her,

and that was entirely my fault.”

“I was a superficial snob, and I own that. But there is another, far more important reason.”

Natalie frowned. Wendy didn’t look like she was lying. “What reason?”