Now You Want Me? Too Late

Amber froze.

Elena’s last words kept echoing in her ears, but she still struggled to understand what she was hearing.

Then the truth struck her.

Elena was that little girl she had left behind all those years ago.

Amber’s breath caught painfully in her throat. Her face went pale, and her hands turned cold.

"No..." she whispered, almost as if denying the truth could make it disappear. "It can’t be..."

Elena looked at her for a long moment. She had imagined meeting her mother countless times, asking why she had left. She had imagined hearing an apology.

But she had never imagined that their first meeting after all those years would be about money and saving Vivian. And now, even after learning the truth, Amber seemed to be denying it.

"What? Are you denying it? Or did you forget about her altogether?"

Elena’s mocking tone landed sharply on Amber’s heart.

"I never forgot about her." She sobbed, hiding her face in her palms. "How could I forget my daughter?"

Elena laughed mockingly. "You remember you have another daughter? Just now, you claimed that Vivian is your only daughter."

"No..." Amber quickly lifted her tear-streaked face. "I said that because I didn’t know you were my daughter."

"Please..." Elena held up her hand. "Don’t humiliate me by calling me your daughter. You stopped being my mother the day you left my father and me. A woman who only cares about herself, money, and status is nothing but a heartless monster."

Amber flinched as if Elena had slapped her.

"You thought I would save your precious daughter," Elena went on. "Dream on. She tried to hurt me several times. She wanted to break my marriage. When she couldn’t, she framed me for leaking the confidential files to the rival company. And then she killed someone..."

Amber sobbed harder. She was so ashamed that she couldn’t even lift her head.

Every word Elena spoke reminded her of the daughter she had lost because of her own choices.

"She should rot in jail," Elena continued harshly. "And your dear husband. He will be punished too for conspiring against the Rowans."

She smiled smugly. "And then I want to see what you will do. Will you go find another rich guy?"

"Enough..." Amber snapped suddenly. She couldn’t tolerate the hostility from her own daughter anymore. "You know nothing. You have no idea what I went through."

She could barely speak because of the tightness in her throat, but her tear-filled eyes suddenly blazed with a mixture of pain, helplessness, and years of buried resentment.

"You are blaming me for leaving you. But have you ever wondered why?"

"Isn’t it obvious?" Elena scoffed. "You wanted a luxurious life. You wanted money. So you left your husband and daughter to marry a rich man."

"That’s not true..." Amber’s voice shook. "I never loved Thomas. The only man I ever loved was Cedric—since the beginning."

"What?" Elena’s head spun. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. "You are lying. You are trying to cover up your mistakes."

"No..." Amber replied.

She had spent years trying to bury those memories. She had never wanted to remember them, let alone sit across from the daughter she had abandoned and tell her the truth.

"Cedric and I loved each other. But his family wouldn’t accept a woman from an ordinary background," Amber recalled. "Cedric refused to marry me. He told me to wait until he claimed the family business."

The bitterness of those memories returned. Amber lowered her eyes.

"I was pregnant with Vivian at the time. I told him about the pregnancy. He said he would take the child away once she was born. But he couldn’t marry me yet."

Elena blinked, stunned by how heartless Cedric had been. And more importantly, she couldn’t understand how Amber could still choose him in the end.

’How pathetic.’

"I thought he would eventually marry me once I gave birth to his child, but I was wrong," Amber continued. "His family took the baby away right after the childbirth."

Amber smiled through her tears. "Cedric said nothing. He didn’t take me away with him. I was devastated, angry, and helpless."

She took a shaky breath. "So I chose to marry his assistant."

"What did you say?" Elena exclaimed with shock and disbelief. "You married my father to spite Cedric Sterling?"

Amber met her eyes directly. She didn’t deny it. "Thomas treated me well. But I never loved him. I was only using him to get back at Cedric."

Elena’s eyes filled with tears. "You never cared about my father. You didn’t care about your marriage with him. It was all just revenge?"

Amber remained silent. She couldn’t defend herself. Because Elena was right.

Fury surged through Elena, hot and violent. Her nails dug painfully into her palms as she fought to keep the anger from spilling out.

"Why? Why did you do this to him? If you loved Cedric, you could have waited for him. Why drag my father into this?"

Amber lowered her head. She had no explanation. She knew she had been wrong. And she had regretted marrying Thomas out of spite every single day.

But regret couldn’t change the past.

It couldn’t erase the years of pain she had caused. It couldn’t give Thomas back the life he deserved. And it couldn’t give Elena back the mother she had lost.

"Have you ever loved me?" Elena asked. Despite all the hatred and anger inside her, a tiny part of her still hoped for the answer she had spent years longing to hear.

"Of course, I loved you," Amber replied. "I always did. You are my daughter. How could I not love you?"

"Then why?" Elena finally broke. The emotion she had been trying to hold back spilled out. "Why did you leave me? You never contacted me. You never came to see me. Why?"

Amber closed her eyes momentarily. The tears slipped down her cheeks. When she opened them again, there was nothing but despair in her eyes.

"Cedric wanted to marry me," she said. "He finally took over the family business and became the chairperson. The elders could no longer force him not to marry me. I was happy that I could finally be with the man I loved."

Elena rolled her eyes. "So that’s it. Your wish came true. And you abandoned your family without a second thought."

Amber’s face crumpled. She suddenly reached across the table and grabbed Elena’s hand.

"Believe me, Elena. I never wanted to leave you."

Elena’s body stiffened at her touch.

Amber’s fingers trembled around her hand. "But Cedric had a condition."

She swallowed painfully. "If I wanted to marry him, I had to cut all ties with Thomas. I couldn’t bring my daughter."