Filed to story: My Husband Regrets Divorcing Me (Audrey & Cornell)
“Jarrod… She called out to him tiredly. “Tell me, what do you want? Or rather, what are you planning?”
Jarrod looked at her with a sneer. “Nicole, first tell me, whose child is he?”
Jarrod had conducted a long investigation to get some answers. He hadn’t been able to accept it until he saw Austin. Seeing Austin in the courtyard, his suspicions were cleared. That was definitely his child. They bore such a striking resemblance that he deemed a paternity test unnecessary.
Still, to silence any protest from Nicole, Jarrod proceeded with the test, and as expected, the results confirmed it. Austin was his son.
His son, indeed. Nicole had secretly borne his child!
Even with the evidence in hand, Jarrod still demanded confirmation from Nicole. He stepped closer, towering over her. “Tell me, whose child is this?”
Nicole tensed, then clenched her teeth and answered, “He’s my child, mine alone.”
At this, Jarrod let out a cold laugh. “Your child, very well!”
Jarrod’s tone grew chilling as he echoed her words.
“Alec!” He called out.
Alec promptly appeared at the doorway, “Mr. Schultz, what do you need?”
“Throw that child out of the window!” Jarrod commanded, his voice brutal and merciless.
Alec stood frozen, his body rigid with shock.
Nicole’s nails clawed into the carpet fiercely, one fingernail snapping and bleeding, creating a terrible sight.
“Are you deaf?” Jarrod’s voice was cold. “Do it now!”
Alec nodded and said, “Alright.” He was prepared to follow orders, no matter how extreme, even if Jarrod demanded he cut out his own heart.
“No! Don’t!” Nicole’s scream shattered the silence. She couldn’t hold back any Longer. Jarrod was pushing her to her limits, forcing her to confess.
“Jarrod, have you lost your mind?” Nicole yelled in a panic. “That’s your child! You can’t do this!”
She lunged forward and grabbed at his trouser leg, her grip desperate, her cries muffled by despair. “Let Austin go. Let him go. Take my life instead. Just spare Austin… He shouldn’t be raised by someone Like you…”
Nicole didn’t want Austin to accept Jarrod’s harsh and twisted upbringing. If her child, born amid such struggle, were to become cruel and heartless under Jarrod’s influence, committing terrible deeds, then she would have preferred her child never existed.
“Let him go. Let him be free…” Nicole continued, her sobs violent and unrestrained.
Jarrod grabbed her out of the blue, his face intense. “Nicole, why did you decide to have this child? Was it to harm me, to deal a fatal blow?”
Nicole was baffled by his accusations.
“Then why have him, only to run off with another man?” Jarrod’s eyes burned with rage. “You want my child to call another man father? Do you want to die?”
His hands tightened around her neck, choking her.
“I wish I could die. I truly do. Everyone I love is gone. I have no reason to live!” Nicole’s emotions swung wildly between sobbing and hysterical laughter as if she had lost her mind.
“But he survived. He’s just too resilient. In my frail, disease-ridden body, his vigor truly frightens me.” Nicole was referring to Austin. Austin’s birth process was fraught with danger. Yet, destined to be born, he miraculously made it through.
“Jarrod, I despise you. I wish you were dead. Why can’t you just die? It would be better if you were no longer alive!” Nicole was getting more and more emotional.
“Done pretending?” Jarrod said with a cold scoff. “Too bad. I’m very much alive, thriving in fact. And should I die, I’ll make sure you come with me, because I love you so much…”
After uttering these words, even Jarrod seemed surprised by them.
Then, he burst into mad laughter, looking up. “So, Nicole, turns out I damn love you, ha-ha…”
A towering figure at six feet two, laughing bitterly, tears flowing down his cheeks. He loves her, but her love for him has vanished…
Nicole felt only fear. “Is this what you call love? Driving me to the edge? This isn’t love. It’s a possessive obsession. You are utterly selfish, a scumbag, trash, a bastard…”
Nicole threw caution to the wind. With him revealing her secret, she felt like wrecking it all. No need to pretend now.
Jarrod, far from angered by her outburst, actually began to chuckle.
“It’s fine. I don’t need your affection, I have my ways.” He said firmly, “Nicole, I’m taking the child back.”
This was an outright threat from Jarrod. He intended to take the child away from her.
On the verge of madness, Nicole exclaimed, “By what right? He’s my child! How can you just take him away?”
Jarrod threw the paternity test at Nicole’s face, his tone icy and merciless. “I’m the child’s father,” he said. “Nicole, you think you can challenge me? What makes you believe you can take the child from me?”
Jarrod was not taunting her. He wouldn’t need to exert much effort to legally secure custody of the child. Nicole’s medical history alone would testify that she wasn’t a fit guardian.
“You’ve always wanted to leave, to be with that man, right?” Jarrod smirked a little, nodding at the door. “There’s the door. You can leave right now.”
How could Nicole leave? Walking through that door meant fully abandoning Austin and giving up her last chance.
Sitting on the floor, Nicole stared at the paternity report, which revealed a 99.99% match, a cruel irony. Was this child really what Jarrod wanted? No, she suspected the child was just another way for him to control her.
Nicole’s eyes glazed over as she managed a bitter smile. “Jarrod, are you trying to destroy me?”
Those words pierced Jarrod like a knife to the heart. He felt as if something was hollowing him out, corroding him from the inside. His love for her was real, but so was his hatred. Why did she always have to be like a venomous creature, always striking out to wound him?
He looked at her coldly. “Do you want to see your mother?”
Nicole’s empty heart fluttered weakly. Slowly, she turned her head to him like a puppet and let out her words, one by one. “What did you say?”
“Your mother’s alive,” Jarrod stated.
Just hearing these words, Nicole deflated like a punctured balloon, all her resistance and defiance vanishing instantly. Jarrod held all the cards now. Her son and her mother.
Nicole was lifted into Jarrod’s arms like a limp doll, her head resting under his chin as he inhaled her scent, the very one he had longed to inhale.
“Nicole, you know what I want. Stop being so stubborn, okay?”
Even the doll-like her, held in his arms, could turn his heart, hard as stone, into a complete mess.
Jarrod ki*sed her hair fervently, his voice raspy. “Do you want me to surrender? I will. Just don’t run away anymore. Never again.”
For the first time, Jarrod had yielded. Even with two trump cards, he felt utterly powerless against Nicole. The idea that she might not be his, that she could leave at any moment, left him on edge.
Locating Austin brought relief to Jarrod. With Austin, he assumed Nicole wouldn’t run away. She would be with him forever.
A sleek black car sped down the asphalt road.
Nicole stared blankly out the window, her eyes reflecting the cold winter night and her own sense of desolation.
From the moment she stepped into the car, she knew things had reached a point of no return. She felt paralyzed, unable to process anything until she saw her mother. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess, her mind a chaotic whirl that felt simultaneously full and empty.
Nicole felt like she was losing herself, as if she was suffering from schizophrenia. She had so many thoughts, yet none seemed to be her own.
It wasn’t until Nicole reached the sanatorium that she realized just how close her mother had always been.
Nicole approached step by step, stopping short of the room. What awaited her on the other side was unimaginable, and she couldn’t bring herself to face it. The mother she thought had died long ago was still alive.
Nicole stood frozen, dreading that this might be a cruel dream, and that behind that door, she would find nothing. She was afraid the hope she’d clung to shattered once more.
Nicole felt numb as Jarrod held her hand and guided her forward.
That changed when the door swung open.
Dora sat on the hospital bed, calmly watching TV, unfazed by their arrival.
“Mom…” Tears poured down Nicole’s face as she rushed forward to embrace Dora.
“Mom… Mommy…” Nicole cried, holding Dora tightly, but Dora seemed as lifeless as a mannequin, not even flinching.
Nicole slowly realized something was terribly wrong. She shook her mother’s shoulders, her voice rising with urgency. “Mom, what’s wrong?”
Do you recognize me? I’m Nicole, your Nicole…
Finally, Dora moved but only slightly, murmuring incoherently and drooling from the corner of her mouth.
Trembling, Nicole looked to Jarrod through her tears, asking, “What happened to my mom?”
Nicole had always appeared strong, especially around Jarrod, like an unwavering warrior.
This kind of vulnerability was rare.
Jarrod felt a painful tightness in his chest and was tempted to reach out and hold her. Instead, he said softly, “The fact that she woke up is already a miracle…”
That simple statement conveyed everything. Dora had regained consciousness after being declared brain-dead, so it was unreasonable to expect her to function like she once had.
In the years before, Dora was confined to bed, only blinking occasionally, unable to move any other part of her body.