Chapter 40

Claire's POV

For as long as I can remember, I've called Wendy and Hope mom and dad, but I always had a feeling that I couldn't fit in at this house, and even though Wendy and Hope seemed to be very nice to me, that kind of niceness always made me feel less real and less natural.

Especially in Lydia's presence, they would always favor me, and once Lydia was gone, their words were all in favor of Lydia.

I used to see pictures of Lydia as a baby and try to ask Wendy and Hope for pictures of me as a child, but in the pictures, I was alone, unlike Lydia's pictures that had Wendy and Hope with her. We didn't have a family photo until we were six years old.

I also asked why we didn't have a picture together, but Wendy told me that it was because of a theft a few years ago, and the thief stole all the pictures.

Even though I was not very old at that time, I had a vague suspicion that I was not their biological daughter. This suspicion stayed with me growing up and made me feel very insecure. So when I was young, in order to get more attention from them, I had to study hard and keep proving that I was good and worthy of being loved.

It wasn't until the time of the car accident that this strange feeling was finally answered. It turns out that it wasn't me who was overly concerned, but rather because I really didn't belong to this family. I had, except for the name Claire, which belonged to me, even the surname Green, which was given to me by Wendy and Hope.

The man who called himself my father, took out more pictures of me as a child with him, took out a DNA test report of me and him and me and Hope.

He told me that he, a former punk, was my father, and that I was just a wild child born out of wedlock to him and Wendy's maid, not some Miss Green family.

Although I was aware of it, I couldn't accept it coming from a strange man. I tore all the photos and DNA test reports into pieces and tried to escape.

He asked his men to stop me, not letting me go, and I slapped him in the face in my desperation.

Now that I think back on it, I actually began to suspect that I was not the Green family's youngest daughter, but I just couldn't accept it for the moment from a "father" who only gave me the genes and was more like a stranger to me. If I had been given a few more days and a little more cushion, I might have been able to accept it openly.

But the truth is, the man who told me he was my biological daughter was just trying to give me the emotional touch to help him do what he wanted to do.

Because when I denied it, he imprisoned me and had his men do cruel things to me. After letting me go home, he kept blackmailing me with this matter.

After the cruel treatment that no ordinary person can accept, I started to miss my mother and started to hate the Wendy family, if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be trapped here now.

At this point, the man told me that my mother's death was not an accident, but was caused by Wendy, and that he planned the accident today to avenge my mother, the woman he loved so much.

Nearly fourteen years ago, Wendy met a man at a cocktail party that she fell in love with at first sight. Although she already had a family and a lovely daughter at that time, she insisted on running away with the man, so she packed her bags and dragged my mother along with her.

My mother, that poor woman, couldn't let go of what she had here because she had a family in London. Although she discouraged Wendy many times, Wendy still insisted on making this wrong decision, and she, too, had to follow her master in the taxi that was headed for the airport.

On the way, the taxi was involved in a car accident, and out of a sense of duty and responsibility, my mother was killed in the accident to protect Wendy.

After listening to Peter's account of my mother's past, my hatred for the Green family grew even deeper.

I knew that Connor, Lydia and Hope must not know this secret, so today at the Green's house, in front of everyone, I will reveal this scandal, so that they can see what kind of person their beloved mother, his beloved wife, really is, and what she has done in the past! Let them know that their family owes me and has no position to accuse me!

After a long silence in the room, Hope slowly spoke up and said, "Claire, I guess you know about this from your real father Peter's mouth, and I want you to know that these are all lies he made up, although I don't know why he did it."

"Hahahahahahahahaha!" When I heard Hope open her mouth, I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

It's so ridiculous, this cuckold man, being sold by his wife and still counting money for his wife, was he not green enough?

"Who are you to say Peter is lying to me, he is my real father, how can he lie to me! Maybe even your own daughter is not your own." I poked at his cover-up without mercy and sarcastic again.

I saw the cuckold man clenching his fist, as if he was holding back something.

And his wife pulled his sleeve, and exchanged a look, as if to tell him not to get excited.

He shook his wife's hand away at once, and turned around and went upstairs.

"Your scandal from more than ten years ago just fell through, now what do you have to say?" I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at Wendy smugly.

Her face was pale and her body trembled, as if she wanted to defend herself, but there was no evidence to clear her.

"Now what face do you have to accuse me, it seems that seducing other men has become a gene in your Green family." I looked at Wendy like this and couldn't help but mock her again.

Before she could retort me, Hope's hurried footsteps came and everyone looked towards the stairs.

He came over with a stack of paper-like things and dropped them on the table at once: "Here's the truth of the matter, read it yourself."

Puzzled, I picked up the papers on the table, which recorded the evidence from the scene on the day of my mother's car accident, which detailed the police investigation of that accident.

The key words baby clothes, Alice clothes, and baby bottles appeared in the document, along with some of the crash witnesses, Wendy and the driver's recollections of the crash.

Looking at this document, I felt like the scene of my mom's car accident was playing in my mind like a movie.

It was a drizzly day when Mom packed her bags and mine, cried and said goodbye to Wendy, intending to leave London and my asshole punk father.

Because of that man, he was out there causing trouble and making a lot of enemies. After getting into trouble, he found a place to hide himself and the enemies couldn't find him anyhow, so he decided to go after my mother and young me.

The two of them had a deep bond, and Wendy wanted to hide her at the Green family's house, but even a big family like the Green family couldn't stand up to the harassment of the thugs, who couldn't do anything about it because they didn't have any mob background.

Wendy gave her mother a sum of money and told her to take me to another city to settle down first, and then return to the Green family after a longer period of time and things had passed, but I never thought that this send-off would be the last time she would see her mother.

On the slippery highway, the taxi's brakes failed and hit a large moving truck. At that time, Wendy used her body to protect me, while mom used her body to protect Wendy. In the end, it was the cargo on the truck that fell down and hit the people sitting in the truck, mom was killed in the crash because of the heavy hit, Wendy only suffered minor injuries because of mom's protection, and I was safe and sound because of Wendy's protection.

"Now, do you know what's going on?" Hope's voice rang out coldly beside me, waking me up.

"Although you are not our biological daughter, the sincerity we gave for you is not fake, not to mention that you are such a big person alive, even if it is a small cat or puppy, after raising it for so many years, it has got feelings, I really can't believe why you do this to Lydia, why you do this to us." Wendy's tears fell again, and this time, her tears smashed into my heart.

"No way!" I slammed the papers to the floor, I didn't want to believe this.

There was no stopping me, or maybe there was, except that I was so caught up in my own emotions that I was unaware of what had just happened in that moment, and I just ran out of the Green house.

It was pouring outside, and with my drenched hair and clothes hanging wetly on me, I just felt my body as heavy as my heart. Only the weight reminded me that none of this was a dream, that I was living in a real world that was made up of lies.

The world is so big, and I don't know who to trust or where to run to.

Why, for so many years, has everyone lied to me?

I lived in a world made up of lies about my birth, and just when I happened to learn the truth and it was as I had predicted, I was told it was a lie.

I feel like Truman in Truman's World, living a life orchestrated by everyone and ending up as a laughing stock for everyone to laugh at.

Now, I just want to find a place where I belong and hide, a place where no one knows me. Like a lonely, wounded beast, licking its wounds alone.

In a busy street, I looked up and there was a motel in front of me, and without thinking, I walked in.

This was not the home of Green, who had adopted me, or Connor, who had betrayed me, but a space that I had paid for and that belonged to me alone, even though it was mine only for tonight.

With no energy for a shower and no desire to blow-dry my hair, I simply stripped off all my clothes and threw myself into the soft, cold bed with my wet hair on top.

"It's okay, Claire, if you're not happy, just sleep, everything will be new when you wake up."

I hugged myself and said softly to myself, just like I did after being hurt as a child.

In the last moments before I lost consciousness and went into a deep sleep, I thought of my mom again. I couldn't help but think, if this bed was warmer, wouldn't it be as comfortable and secure as staying in my mom's tummy?

Immediately afterwards, I had a warm and beautiful dream in which my mom was no longer a maid, but a gentle and elegant woman like Wendy, and my dad was no longer a vicious and sinister gangster, but a calm and rich man like Hope ......