Chapter 1896

Hearing Belinda still call her “Carola” instead of “Mom,” Carola felt a dull ache in her heart, but she understood. Belinda simply wasn’t ready to call her that yet.

“Okay, I won’t cry anymore.” Carola nodded slightly, accepted the tissues, and gently dabbed at her tears.

At that moment, Lucas spoke up. “Mr. Happer, is the reason you suddenly began doubting Kylee’s parentage connected to the Wright family in Soling?”

Galen froze for a moment, clearly surprised. He looked at Lucas and asked, “How did you know that?”

Lucas spoke plainly. “To be honest, Nalani has already told Belinda and me everything about what happened with Kylee. Before that, my people tracked down the nurse who assisted with Holley’s C-section. She clearly remembered that Holley’s baby was born with a dark red birthmark on the right side of her lower back. But I was certain Belinda had no such mark. Later, I checked again with both Belinda and her grandmother, and they confirmed she had never had a birthmark at all. That’s why we concluded Belinda couldn’t possibly be Holley’s daughter.”

After a brief pause, he continued, “It was around that time that I first began to suspect a connection between Belinda and Carola. After hearing Nalani’s account, that suspicion only grew stronger.”

“I understand now!” Galen’s face lit up with sudden clarity.

“Kylee has a dark red birthmark on her lower back,” Carola said firmly. “But as she grew older, she began to despise it, especially when it showed beneath crop tops or low-rise clothes. Eventually, she had it removed.”

That revelation erased any remaining doubts about Kylee’s parentage.

Galen continued, “Later, during our investigation, we also found the doctor and nurses who assisted with Carola’s delivery. They confessed that they had been bribed at the time. After Carola gave birth, a nurse pretended to wipe the sweat from her face, but in truth, the towel had been soaked with a drug to render her unconscious. She never even had a chance to look at her child before blacking out. When she woke up, her baby had already been switched with Kylee.”

His voice trembled with fury, veins standing out on his forehead as he spoke.

? ? : ?

“Belinda, you endured so much. This is our fault. We should have been at the hospital with Carola when she gave birth. If we had stayed by her side, such a nightmare would never have happened.” The one speaking was Mose.

Belinda lowered her gaze, her long lashes trembling slightly as she shook her head. “I didn’t really suffer that much. My grandmother was always good to me, and even Holley treated me well when I was young. She never hit me or scolded me. Instead, she raised me with too much indulgence.”

She paused briefly. “In the beginning, no matter how many mistakes I made, she never blamed me or corrected me. It was always Kenia who scolded me, teaching me what was right and wrong. That was how I learned the difference between good…”

and bad, and I never dared repeat my mistakes. Also, Holley never asked me to study things like music or painting. When I begged her to let me learn the piano, she refused, saying all I needed was to be happy and that those things weren’t necessary. She clearly wanted me to remain as unremarkable as possible.”

That was also why, years later, when Belinda met Rowell and Jazmine, who taught her medicine and piano, she kept it hidden from Holley.

Because Holley would have been furious if she had found out.

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