Chapter 78: You want a divorce?
"Wait. You won’t be comfortable wearing this. I’ll have another dress brought over."
"No, don’t... I don’t need it..."
But Elias had already made the call. "I need a designer gown delivered immediately." His tone was firm. "For my wife."
Elena snapped her head up at him. Her heart trembled.
Even now, he still called her his wife.
"It needs to arrive at the Rowan estate within thirty minutes."
Ending the call, he slipped the phone into his pocket and turned to her. His expression softened. He held her shoulders gently.
"Are you okay?"
"Elias." Her fingers tightened around her bag. "I need to talk to you."
The urgency in her tone and her serious look left no room for argument.
Elias’s own expression changed. He knew Elena was still upset after meeting Tessa at the gift shop. He realized what had happened there, and what Tessa had said to her had affected her deeply.
"Alright. Let’s go to the study."
He led her upstairs to the first floor.
The moment the study door closed behind them, he turned to face her.
"What is troubling you?" he asked.
Elena stared at him. All she could see was concern in his eyes.
It was nothing new to her.
She had watched Noah lie without hesitation while pretending to care for her. And Elias was doing the same – deceiving her while acting as though her pain mattered to him.
It sickened her to the stomach.
She didn’t want to waste another moment with him. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the documents and shoved them into his hand.
"Sign them."
Elias frowned as he unfolded the documents. The moment he saw the words ’divorce agreement,’ shock exploded through his brain.
"What is it?" he glanced at her with disbelief, his heart sinking with uneasiness. His mind refused to accept what he was seeing.
"You want a divorce?" A cold shiver raced down his spine. "Why?"
"Don’t you know why?" Elena questioned back. "I hate lies. I told you from the beginning not to cheat on me. I told you that if you ever liked someone else, you should tell me. But you said nothing. You kept pretending that you cared about me."
Elias couldn’t speak for several seconds. He looked utterly stricken as if his worst nightmare had just come true.
"I-I never lied to you..." His throat tightened. "I never pretended anything..."
Elena’s distress deepened. Even now, he refused to admit it.
She was exhausted. She didn’t want to argue.
"Sign the documents," she muttered. "I don’t want to be with you anymore."
Disbelief lingered in his eyes before anger took its place. "I won’t sign if you don’t explain me clearly."
Elena clenched her fists. Since he wanted an explanation, she would give him one.
"You want an explanation. Fine."
She pulled out her phone and opened the photograph she had secretly sent to herself from Tessa’s phone.
She shoved the screen in front of him.
"What do you have to say about this?" Her voice grew sharper. "You already have someone you love. You even have a child with her. Why did you marry me?"
Elias snatched the phone from her and looked at the photograph. He frowned deeply. It didn’t take him long to realize what had happened.
Someone had secretly followed him and photographed him. He also understood Tessa might be behind this.
Her meeting with Elena at the gift shop wasn’t coincidental. It was planned.
’She went so far just to poison Elena against me,’ he muttered to his mind, his insides burning in rage.
His silence only deepened her suspicion. The emotions she had been suppressing finally burst free.
"You knew I was already hurting," she said bitterly. "You knew I had just gone through a betrayal."
Her eyes shimmered with tears. "Yet you did the same thing to me."
Her words drew him back to reality.
"Elena, you are misunderstanding." He tried to explain, but Elena refused to listen to him.
"I understand everything clearly," she said sternly. "Your grandpa might have forced you into this marriage. And you married me only to fulfil his wish. But your heart belongs to that woman."
"No... This is not true," he interjected.
"It’s fine. Love can’t be forced. I’m not blaming you. I am just upset because you kept it from me. You should have told me..."
"Yes, I admit that I didn’t tell you everything about my family," he cut her off. "I kept certain things from you because I thought it was not the right time. You were already carrying so much pain. I didn’t want to burden you with my issues."
Silence fell between them.
They kept staring at each other for a long moment.
Elias’s chest expanded and deflated rapidly.
"I made a mistake. I should have told you about Evelyn and Leo sooner." The words came out of his mouth hurriedly. "I was planning to introduce them to you tonight. I thought you would be happy to see them. But you..."
He held up the divorce papers. "You prepared a divorce agreement. You were planning to leave me?"
His chest felt unbearably tight.
"You believed an outsider more than your husband."
Those words twisted something deeper inside her. Elena pressed a hand into her stomach, uncertainty flickering in her eyes.
She remembered saying those exact words to Noah. She had once begged him to trust her instead of blindly believing Tessa.
Could it be she had misunderstood the whole situation?
"If you have doubts, you should have come to me," Elias muttered. "But you assumed I deceived you."
Elena suddenly realized she had been reckless.
She did what Noah had done to her. Without verifying anything, she had condemned him. Without hearing his side, she had already sentenced him. And now, she started regretting her actions.
"Simply because you saw me with a woman, you assumed I’d been unfaithful." His face clouded with sorrow. "I know you don’t love me, Elena. But I expected you to trust me. You disappointed me."
Elena clasped the sides of her dress. The weight of his pain unsettled her.
She could see he wasn’t lying, that she had hurt him by questioning his loyalty. But the wounded part of her was still wary. That part was afraid to put her faith back in him.
His expression hardened the next moment. "You want to know who that woman is and what my relationship with her is? Come with me. I’ll introduce her to you."
He held her hand and practically dragged her out of the study.
Elena almost ran to match his steps. Her chest tightened with restless energy.
They stopped outside the adjacent room. Elias pushed the door open.
The moment Elena stepped inside, her legs refused to move when she saw the woman sitting beside the window.
Her heart nearly stopped.
Dressed in a white gown, the woman looked like a white swan—beautiful, elegant, and refined. Her amber hair flowed over her shoulders like silk. Her delicate features seemed almost flawless.
Everything about her was perfect.
In front of her, Elena felt small, unworthy.
"That’s Evelyn," Elias whispered, leaning sideways toward her. "My twin sister."
Elena’s jaw nearly hit the floor. For several seconds, her mind went completely blank.
Twin sister?
The woman she had mistaken for Elias’s other wife was actually his sister?