Not This Time 8

On the other end of the line, Alex went completely silent. For a long moment, he couldn’t say a word. It wasn’t until he heard my mom calling me to the dinner table that he finally spoke. 

“You went back to your parents‘ place?” 

I didn’t want to argue with him, so I tried to hang up quickly. However, before I could, Maisie’s voice cut in. 

“Clara, why’d you go back home?” 

“What does it have to do with you?” My voice was ice cold. 

Maisie, unfazed, carried on shamelessly. “So, when are you coming back? Alex, Mom, and I miss you so much!” 

Biting back my disgust, I deliberately said, “Probably in a week.” 

Sure enough, after I hung up, Maisie posted a new video online. She announced that in one week she’d be restarting her fitness 

challenge. 

In the video, her makeup was flawless as she explained that her “previous mistake” was only due to lack of sleep. She claimed she 

had recovered after some rest and even bragged that she would livestream herself doing four straight hours of workout routines. 

The viewers went wild. Hundreds of thousands signed up to watch the stream. However, I noticed one detail: Maisie wasn’t 

wearing her usual waist–revealing tops. She was probably terrified of people catching a glimpse of her stretch marks. 

In my past life, I hadn’t been pregnant at all, yet my stomach was covered in those ugly stretch marks. Every time Alex touched 

me in bed, he would lose interest as soon as he saw them. He didn’t hesitate to humiliate me right to my face. 

“Stop eating so much, will you? You’ve got fat marks spreading across your stomach. It’s disgusting!” 

I tried to explain that they were stretch marks and that I hadn’t gained weight. However, all I got in return was harsher ridicule. 

“Ha! Clara, you haven’t had a baby, and yet you have stretch marks. Who are you kidding? Are you that desperate to give me a 

kid? Well, get rid of those hideous marks!” 

Thinking back on all of that, I let out a cold laugh and closed the video. Then, I contacted one of the top divorce lawyers in the industry. I started working through the asset division and drafting a divorce agreement. 

During this time, I gathered every piece of evidence I could find, organizing it neatly for the lawyer so we could force Alex to walk away with nothing. 

Of course, I didn’t stop keeping an eye on Maisie either. I heard she’d been going from hospital to hospital, complaining of nonstop nausea and even incontinence. However, once an ultrasound revealed she wasn’t pregnant at all, the doctors were completely baffled. They could only gently suggest she visit a psychiatrist. 

Maisie had secrets to hide and didn’t dare let things get exposed. So, no matter what, she refused to go, and it only made Alex 

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more suspicious. He started to think Maisie was faking illness just to slack off. 

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“Don’t think that just because you know my secret, I won’t deal with you! If you don’t fix this and help me recover the losses, get the hell out of the family!” 

Alex had never cared much for Maisie anyway. He resented that a widow was still living off the Freddrick family, eating their food for free. 

Unfortunately, Maisie had tasted the sweet money from livestreaming, earning tens of thousands in a single session. There was no way she’d accept being kicked out and treated like trash. Besides, her late husband hadn’t left her much, so she had no intention of walking away. 

With that in mind, she gritted her teeth and agreed. To avoid another embarrassing “accident” during her livestream, she even went so far as to purchase adult diapers. 

A week passed quickly. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I saw Alex and Maisie standing together in the distance. 

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