Episode 55
Oliver paused, his resolve wavering under their unified instruction. Reluctantly, he stepped aside, allowing Elizabeth to leave as dictated by Elijah’s grim nod. “Sis, did something happen between you and your husband? Did I just hear you say something about a divorce?” Elizabeth had just started to walk away when Yara Elizabeth, her half-sister, emerged seemingly out of thin air, eyeing her with an unsettling smirk. Yara, eager to stir up some drama, reached out to link arms with Elizabeth. It was apparent that Yara had overheard the heated exchange between Elizabeth and her husband, Elijah, although she likely missed the finer points of their argument.
Elizabeth instinctively pulled away from Yara’s touch, her expression one of clear distaste. Unperturbed, Yara’s eyes followed the retreating Rolls-Royce. “Your husband sure has a way of treating you like you don’t exist, doesn’t he? Just ditched you here on the curb. Need a ride?” Yara was a year younger than Elizabeth. Their father, Oliver Elizabeth, had struck gold in a business venture when Elizabeth was just five. His first act upon coming into wealth was to leave his wife for his mistress. Left broken by Oliver’s betrayal, Elizabeth’s mother, Sandra Moran, fell into a deep depression and eventually ended her life. Elizabeth, the true heiress of the Elizabeth family, was sent off to live with her grandmother, Gracie Moran. In the tangled web of their family’s emotional entanglements, Yara stood as Elizabeth’s foe. Despite the family wealth amassed from Sandra’s efforts, Elizabeth saw no benefit from it and struggled even to cover her grandmother Gracie’s medical expenses.
These straits had pushed her into a marriage of convenience with Elijah, a union that was flawed from the start. “Oh, so everyone’s family all of a sudden? Let me remind you, my mother only had one daughter, and that’s me,” Elizabeth stated icily before heading off. “What are you so damn smug about, Elizabeth?” Yara pressed, unwilling to back down. Abandoning her thin mask of civility, she scoffed disdainfully, “Even the distant relatives in the James family manage to throw lavish weddings, keen to broadcast their joy to the world. Yet here you are, married to the James family’s patriarch, with nothing but a marriage license to your name. Meanwhile, the netizens rave about Sandra, Elijah’s true love, as if you, the so-called Mrs. James, don’t even exist.”
Elizabeth stopped, the sting of Yara’s words halting her retreat. She couldn’t refute the truth in them. Her union with Elijah had begun as a mere business arrangement, never meant to see the light of public scrutiny.
