Chapter 96



Carola stayed quiet for a lengthy period.

Breaking the silence, Belinda chuckled lightly and said, “You came here to ask me to apologize to Kylee, right?”

Carola met her gaze and replied in a calm voice, “I’m here to seek the truth.”

“The truth?” Belinda’s voice took on a bitter edge. “It’s elusive.”

Without any surveillance in the dining room and just our conflicting stories, how can the truth be definitively determined?”

Carola fell silent once more. After a moment, she exhaled softly and said, “Belinda, you seem so different now.”

The Belinda she remembered would never have retaliated against Kylee in such a way.

Belinda acknowledged this with a nod and responded, “Yes, I’ve changed. And honestly, I’m okay with the person I’ve become. I’m not letting anyone push me around anymore.”

She looked intently at Carola and asked, “Carola, do you really think I would intentionally scald Kylee’s hand? You remember the incident three years ago—Kylee wrongly accused me of pushing her on purpose, and Dad beat me so badly that my back was left in tatters. If I had really scalded her hand on purpose, what would be in it for me? That would only make Dad think even less of me! Plus, you know how much I cared for Lucas before. If I had acted so cruelly in front of him, what would he think of me?”

Belinda had never expressed these thoughts so openly before, knowing that doing so in front of Baker and Holley would have been futile. Baker and Holley had never taken her side. But with Carola… Things were different.

Up to this point, Carola had not once implied that Belinda had deliberately hurt Kylee or that she owed Kylee an apology.

Carola considered Belinda’s words for a while, her gaze lowering. Then, with a light chuckle, she said, “And yet, you ended up deliberately pouring the soup on Kylee’s hand the second time.”

A slight smile touched Belinda’s lips. “Since Dad and Mom were convinced I did it intentionally, I thought, ‘Why not fulfill their expectations?’ If they were determined to see it that way, I might as well show them exactly that,” she said, her expression growing a bit cold.

Carola was lost in thought for a moment before she slightly shook her head and said, “You know, your fiery spirit reminds me a little of myself in my younger days.”

Facing Carola, Belinda pressed her lips together before replying directly, “Carola, I’m going to be straight with you. I’m not going to apologize to Kylee.”

She paused, her resolve deepening as she continued, “I don’t apologize for things I didn’t do, and for the things I think I did right… I won’t apologize for that, either.”

At her words, Carola’s expression was somewhat resigned. After a brief silence, she said, “Let’s just have our meal now.”

The topic was dropped and did not resurface during the meal.

Midway through, Belinda stepped away to use the restroom. After flushing the toilet, Belinda was about to leave the stall when she caught snippets of a conversation outside.

“Kylee, it’s unbelievable how your sister could do such things to you, splashing you with soup twice! You can’t let her get away with this easily!”

“Absolutely, Kylee! You should really let your father step in and teach her a good lesson!”

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