Chapter 94
I was still absorbed in my sympathy for Jessa, experiencing the world's coldness from her perspective.
When my mom and I left the Greer family back then, despite our sadness, we still had some dignity. But now Jessa's situation seemed completely undignified.
Maybe having a mother like Arabella was karma for her, but the wrong things she'd done herself would also come back to bite her.
I guess I was the type to forget the pain once the wound healed. I had been so tortured by her and Levi's affair - I should hate her. But seeing how cold human nature could be made me see through a lot of things. Love was meaningless, and so was hate.
When Rhea called, we were almost home. She said Michael was causing a scene at the Morgan mansion, threatening that if Cleo didn't come out to see him, he'd stay there and not leave.
Aiden had just gotten out of the hospital, and Rhea was afraid to disturb him again, so she was dealing with it alone.
"He's being unreasonable at Grandpa's place. We can't let him keep acting up like this."
I lightly touched Levi's arm. "Call home and have the driver bring Cleo back to the Morgan mansion to deal with this. We need to resolve this eventually."
"Okay."
He agreed with me. The urgent thing was to calm Michael down and not let him keep making trouble at the Morgan mansion - the two elderly people couldn't handle this kind of stress.
After getting the call, Cleo was very reluctant. She even blamed Levi for causing all this trouble, saying that if she had just put up with it, everything would have blown over.
She still didn't see clearly that Michael had been planning to divorce her all along - he just hadn't had a trigger.
I told her she had to come back to the Morgan mansion to solve this problem. We'd go wait for her, and if she didn't come, we'd have to make decisions for her.
Actually, we had no right to make decisions for her. At most, we'd just have to endure more of Michael's harassment. There's really nothing you can do about shameless people.
Late at night, the wind was cold.
When we got out of the car, I was shivering all over.
Levi put his coat on me and held me as we went inside.
"I'm fine, you should wear it. If you catch a cold, I'll have to take care of you."
"That sounds pretty good."
Levi was still in the mood to joke with me. Maybe he didn't consider Michael a problem at all. If it weren't for Cleo protecting him, they probably would have gotten physical already.
Michael cheated and still wanted a divorce - this was just blatant bullying. But Cleo had no backbone and couldn't let him go.
If he really cared about her, he wouldn't come make trouble at the elders' place.
Cleo was confused, too. If she really wanted to reconcile, hiding all the time wasn't going to help.
"Blair, you're here."
Rhea walked toward us, trembling, leaning on her cane. She'd probably been frightened - I could see she wasn't doing well.
"Grandma, you should go rest. I'll walk you back to your room."
I held Rhea's arm and took her hand. Her hand was especially cold, with no warmth at all.
"Can you handle this? Maybe I should stay a bit longer." Rhea was worried, afraid we'd cause trouble.
I squeezed her hand reassuringly. "Grandma, don't worry. We're all civilized people in this family. We'll be reasonable and won't stoop to his level."
"That's good. Everything can be discussed, just don't let Cleo be wronged. As for that scumbag, kick him out and don't let him have anything to do with our family anymore."
"Okay, you rest first. Don't worry."
After I got Rhea settled, I came back out.
Just then, Cleo arrived too. The three of them just stood there, like a big fight was about to break out.
"Let's discuss whatever it is between the two of us. Don't drag my brother and them into this."
Cleo's tone was calm. She didn't want to fight.
But Michael had a cold, heartless look on his face. "There's nothing to discuss. Just divorce."
"How can you be so cruel? Our son is old enough to remember things now. Divorcing now would be really bad for him." Tears streamed down Cleo's face as she spoke.
She might seem loud and brash normally, but when something really happened, she was very fragile inside.
"I don't want the kid. You can have him."
A father who didn't love his child couldn't be much good anyway. All these years, he'd put all his time into work, skipping many family dinners with excuses about overtime.
I didn't know if he was really that busy or just didn't want to come home for dinner. After all, when you have a woman on the side, you get sick of the one at home.
"You're not fighting for custody of Hayden?"
Michael laughed mockingly. "What's there to fight for?"
Cleo clutched her chest, furious with him.
"I'm definitely getting divorced. Hiding won't help. I gave you a chance, and you didn't take it. Now I've revised the divorce agreement. Take a look."
Michael pulled out a new divorce agreement and roughly shoved it into Cleo's hands.
She glanced at it - just one page, not much to see.
"You're despicable! You want me to leave with nothing?"
I was shocked. What kind of evil intentions did Michael have? He was the one who did wrong, yet he wanted Cleo to leave with nothing, no compensation at all?
"When I tried to talk to you nicely, you hid from me and refused to divorce. Now I want the divorce, and you won't get anything."
Cleo closed her eyes and opened them again, nearly dying of anger.
"Then we'll drag this out. Even if you sue, you won't win. I never imagined you could be this heartless. I've given you my whole heart all these years - how could you betray me like this!"
Cleo was truly heartbroken. She'd gathered her courage to meet him, and he was this cold.
"The love between us ran out long ago. Dragging it out won't help. I won't spend one more day with you, and don't come back to my house."
Michael was being ruthless, every word cutting deep.
They kept arguing. I watched but couldn't interrupt. I couldn't even find a way to ease the tension. I felt like an explosion was about to happen.
Sure enough, while they were tangled up in their argument, Levi stepped in front of his sister.
"If you won't take the easy way, we'll do this the hard way."
Levi took out his phone and called the company's finance department. He withdrew all support for Michael's company and immediately demanded dividends in accordance with their contract terms.
This made Michael lose his composure instantly.
Flustered but still stubborn, he said, "You think I'm scared? You just want money? I'll give it to you. I'll cut ties with the Morgan family completely."
"Is that even possible? Don't you know in your heart how much you've benefited from our family all these years?"
Cleo accused him hysterically. "I got you good resources. Do you think people would work with you solely because of your connections? So many times my brother helped you out."
"You want to settle accounts with us? Then what about Hayden having your blood in his veins - how do we account for that? I can accept that you're sick of me, but you're actually abandoning your child - you scumbag!"
Cleo angrily tore up the divorce agreement. "Let me tell you, I'm really going to drag this out with you. Don't think you can easily divorce me and marry some other woman!"
Michael laughed and pulled out a stack of divorce agreements from his bag. "You want to tear them up? I've got plenty. Let's see how long you can keep tearing. You're getting divorced whether you like it or not!"