Stella hesitated for a moment, but finally spoke. “My mother said… if you’re willing to cut ties with Aurora, she’ll come back.”
The smile on Skyler’s face faded away.
He frowned. “She’s not a kid anymore. Why is your mother still so unreasonable at her age?”
Stella’s mother had indeed said to her, “If your father or your brothers ask why I refuse to come home, just tell them—as long as they cut Aurora off, I’ll become Mrs. Williams again.”
Skyler’s words made Stella’s heart sink a little.
Before she returned to the Williams family, her mother had laid out everything for her, holding nothing back.
In this whole tangled mess, her mother was the biggest victim.
Yet Skyler just brushed her off as childish.
Before Stella could say anything else, her third brother, Coleman Williams, burst into the room.
He fixed Stella with a cold, hostile look. “You’re really something, aren’t you, Stella? All this scheming just to get Aurora out—you’d even use your own mother.”
Since Stella’s return, Coleman had shown her nothing but open disdain.
Stella saw no reason to keep pretending either.
“If you think I’m so manipulative, why don’t you go see Mom yourself and ask her?” she shot back.
“You think I haven’t tried? She refuses to see me!” Coleman snapped. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the reason she won’t see any of us!”
“If I was really so persuasive, don’t you think I’d convince Mom to come home in the first place?” Stella’s voice was icy.
Coleman fell silent, unable to answer.
Skyler stepped in, cutting through the tension. “Enough, both of you. If she doesn’t want to come back, so be it. Give it some time—she’ll miss Raven soon enough and come home.”
With Skyler’s word, Stella and Coleman let the argument drop.
But after that day, she and Coleman barely spoke a word to each other.
Later, word spread that Aurora’s old childhood fiancé, Sherman Burton, had returned after hearing about the family drama.
He had a sharp tongue and sometimes mocked her, but at least he was smarter than Jasper.
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