Chapter 471 Loveless
The Stewart family only heard about Burnham and Stella from someone else.
Before they asked Burnham about it, they had already done a thorough investigation on Stella.
They had found out everything about her and Damian, including why Clarissa had been so against Stella dating Damian in the first place.
When Burnham reached home, his family remained silent and tossed the sheaf of documents at him.
“This is impossible!” he cried out, refusing to believe the information on the documents.
Stella slept with old men for money and was even violated by her stepfather once. She had also suffered a miscarriage before.
His dad remained silent and let his wife do all the talking.
She turned toward her son with a gleam in her intelligent eyes.
“I’m not as indirect as Mrs. Tyson. I’m much too afraid of letting you get hurt. That’s why I’ll be as straightforward as possible, and it’s also why we want you to know the truth. You know how accurate our investigations always are.”
“This is impossible, Mom. Stella isn’t like that.”
She just scoffed coldly, choosing not to answer to her son’s ignorance.
Instead, she asked a different question.
“What kind of person do you think your Aunt Clarissa is?”
“She’s gentle and kind-”
“Apart from those. Do you think she has the same upbringing as we did?”
“No, but Stella-”
Before he could speak, she cut him off again.
“Mrs. Tyson only bloomed in her later years, so of course, she wouldn’t have the same upbringing we did. But even someone like her was against Damian and Stella dating. Do you think it’s purely because she hated Stella’s family? You may not know this, but Mrs. Tyson herself didn’t come from a good family. So that wasn’t the reason at all.”
“But-”
“You don’t have to argue with me. You’re my son, and I know both your strengths and your weaknesses. You’re too gullible and I know Stella must have told you plenty of nice things, but these facts are in black and white. I know you won’t suspect us of anything otherwise.”
Burnham was truly stunned speechless, and his mother finished her talk with a last warning.
“I don’t care if you’re just playing around with her, but don’t bring her home. Don’t even think about marrying someone like her. Your father and I will not touch upon this anymore, but I trust that you understand well enough.”
Burnham remained quiet.
His mother smiled. “Oh, a friendly reminder. You should protect yourself well, especially as a doctor. Who knows what kind of men she’s been sleeping around with.”
After that, she turned around and walked upstairs.
Burnham stayed in the living room, staring blankly at the documents in front of him as he fell into a dilemma.
Wrenna and Damian visited the Tyson residence for dinner and heard Ellie saying something to Clarissa the moment they walked in. While their conversation was mostly unreadable, they did hear the name ‘Stella’.
Ellie immediately changed the topic once she caught sight of the couple.
Wrenna, however, didn’t think too much of it.
She sat down and smiled. “Were you two talking about Stella? It’s alright, I know she’s dating Burnham now.”
Everyone was taken aback by her words, even Damian.
She shrugged. “What’s wrong? I just happened to bump into him picking her up from school one day. He told me himself.”
Since Wrenna didn’t seem affected at all, Ellie didn’t feel the need to be all secretive about it.
“We were just talking about how the Stewart family was against her dating Burnham.”
Wrenna thought this was strange, but she didn’t press any further.
In terms of family background, the Stewarts definitely had higher requirements compared to Clarissa.
She seemed to know what Wrenna was thinking, so she glanced at Damian and he shook his head.
Clarissa frowned slightly before rushing to explain. “Wren, it’s not actually all about the Stewarts’ prejudices. Of course, they might have certain existing impressions, but it’s not all about that. After all, Stella is also an exceptional lady. If they were purely basing it off of her education and abilities, they would have no issue with her marrying Burnham. They probably heard about Stella’s real personality. That was also why I was against her from the very beginning.”
Wrenna widened her eyes. She hadn’t imagined that there could be even more to this story.
Clarissa started nagging Damian before she continued explaining to Wrenna.
“Damian! I told you to tell Wrenna everything. Why doesn’t she have a clue about all this?”
“It’s okay, Mom, I’ve been really busy recently-”
“You don’t have to cover up for him, Wren. Whatever it is, he is at fault. Let me tell you everything. Stella did a lot of unspeakable things back then. In fact…”
Clarissa told Wrenna everything that had happened with Stella, including every nitty-gritty detail.
Wrenna was in shock after hearing everything.
She glanced at Damian, unsure about how he would feel about all this.
Is he sad or disappointed?
“Don’t worry, he knew all along. We didn’t even know he knew everything until recently, when in fact he knew since before Stella left to go overseas. That was why I told him off. He knew everything, and yet he let us worry so much. He also never felt anything toward Stella, but because he got tricked into dating her, he couldn’t let go of his pride to admit that he’d been tricked and didn’t say anything.”
Wrenna looked at Damian, who was quiet and looked embarrassment.
“What is it, Wren?”
She fell silent and shook her head.
Despite that, she didn’t feel happy or anything else.
All she said was, “That’s pretty wicked of her.”
That was all. It was probably the most neutral statement one could actually say after being told such a thing.
Clarissa felt like something was off, but she couldn’t put a finger on it.
If a woman heard that her rival in romance was actually a bad person all along and that their love interest knew since the start, she should be ecstatic.
But Wrenna’s reaction was way too calm.
Clarissa wanted to ask something, but she decided against it.
Ellie glanced at her, clearly thinking the same thing.
But now wasn’t the time to talk about such things.
Damian had the same suspicions when he was going home with Wrenna.
Rather than suspicions, it was more a sense of dissonance between how he had expected Wrenna to respond and her actual response.
Wrenna just stayed silent the whole way home.
Her calm demeanor freaked Damian out even more once they reached home.
“Wren?”
He reached out to hold her wrist gently and she turned back to look at Damian, nonplussed.
“What is it?”
“You- aren’t you…”
He trailed off, meaning to ask, ”Aren’t you happy?”
But that didn’t seem appropriate.
All he could do was apologize. “I’m sorry for not telling you earlier, Wren. I should have told you about Stella long ago.”
“It’s fine. You shouldn’t feel obligated to tell me either, Damian. After all, it really doesn’t have anything to do with me, and besides, it’s all in the past.”
“But-”
“I know where you’re coming from. I’m surprised to know that Stella is someone like that, and I’m glad you could see through her lies from the very beginning. At least she won’t try to fool you or me from now on.”
“Yeah.”
Wrenna turned to walk upstairs, and Damian didn’t stop her this time.
However, he had a strange feeling that things were slowly spiraling out of control.
As for Wrenna, she genuinely wasn’t especially overjoyed about learning this.
If she had known before their marriage, she would have been jumping with joy. She’d be ecstatic that Damian didn’t like Stella at all and Wrenna actually had more of a chance than Stella of marrying Damian. She no longer had to be afraid of that wicked woman ruining her marriage.
However, that didn’t happen.
Wrenna wasn’t happy or overjoyed, or even thankful.
On the contrary, she was more sober than ever.
She now knew that Damian not loving her didn’t have anything to do with anyone else, not even Stella.
He simply didn’t love her, and that was that.
Wrenna chuckled self-deprecatingly.
After zoning out on her bed for a while, she finally had enough of laughing at herself and went to wash up in the bathroom. She went to study, and after she was tired, she finally went to bed.
……
Burnham didn’t ask Stella whether she had done all those things.
He was having a pretty hard time too. He didn’t have anyone he could talk to, so he settled on having a drink with Colton.
Colton listened to Burnham ranting with a calm look on his face.
“I don’t get it. How could someone as good as Stella do all those things? Even if she was broke all those years ago, she could have just told us. Wait, no- she only met Damian because she planned everything out, and she wouldn’t have met us otherwise. But that’s not the truth, is it? She couldn’t have done something like that. There has to be something off about this whole thing. She’s so strong and independent. She’s the girl every other woman wants to be! I like her for her personality, not her past…”
Burnham continued talking to himself as Colton stayed quiet.
“Colton, I really don’t know what to do. I genuinely love her and I even promised her that I would take our relationship seriously.”
Colton still didn’t say anything.
After Burnham finished his rant, he glanced at Colton with slight annoyance at his silence.
“Colton, did you hear me? Say something.”
“What do you want me to say? It’s nothing to do with me whether you marry Stella or not.”
“You’re a good friend, so of course, I’d like your input on things.”
“I never liked Stella from the very beginning, but you went ahead and approached her. Did you ask for my input then?”
Burnham went quiet, clearly feeling guilty.
After a while, Colton chuckled. “That’s not all Stella did. She’s a deep, murky swamp that you’d better watch out for. If she were to pull you down, you wouldn’t be able to crawl out of it.”
“No. No! Stella must have had no other choice back then. She’s just not that kind of person!”
Colton eyed Burnham in disappointment. He knew his friend was hopeless.
He stood up and walked away quickly, completely ignoring Burnham calling him from behind.
As for Burnham, he continued downing drink after drink until he couldn’t think or walk straight and the alcohol flowed like liquid adrenaline through his veins.
He rushed into Stella’s house, which was an apartment unit in a pretty well-off area that he had bought for her.
He waited in her living room for her to come home.
10 p.m. passed, then 11, then midnight.
Stella only returned at 3 in the morning.
She was also slightly tipsy and her face was tinged with red. After feeling around to turn on the light, she jumped at the sight of a man sitting on her couch.
“Burnham? You have scared me.”
Burnham looked behind him and saw Stella.
“Why are you back so late?”
His tone was much colder than his previous affectionate way of talking.
Stella knew she had to tread lightly and smiled helplessly. “Just work stuff. I want to leave, but my company probably has it out for me. It’s like they’re purposely interfering with the process. Even today, they forced me to go out to entertain clients.”
As she spoke, she curled up next to Burnham and said, “I’m so tired, Burnham. Thank God you’re here. I feel much better just knowing that I have you.”
Burnham’s heart immediately softened at her words.
He pulled Stella into an embrace and was about to say something, but decided to stop himself.
Instead, he bent down and kissed her firmly. He was already lit up by the flames of his desire and pinned her down on the sofa.
Their bodies entwined together and for the moment, Burnham forgot about all the disappointment and confusion he had felt earlier. For now, they were just a man and a woman, taking what they needed the most from each other.
