CHAPTER 84: CHAPTER 84: YOU WERE FORCED TOO

"The life you’re living now isn’t what you wanted." Ethan Harper looked at her, "I know."

"But how we live is something no one can choose." Florence Fuller put the food she had picked up into her bowl and put down her chopsticks, meeting Ethan Harper’s gaze, "My biological father used my foster mother’s health to force me into a marriage with the Gardiner Family. So I married, but if you hadn’t left without a word back then, do you think I would have gotten married if you were around?"

If it really had happened like that, Florence Fuller wasn’t so sure herself.

Amelia Linney raised her, and the Shaw Family treated her well. Even though they returned her to the Fuller Family for money, she couldn’t bring herself to hate the Shaw Family.

Because she also wished for Amelia Linney to live.

Her biological parents used Amelia Linney’s health to threaten her. If she didn’t marry, Michael Fuller had ways to ensure Amelia couldn’t stay in the hospital or receive treatment.

Back then, Florence Fuller had no one to turn to, no way to retreat.

She realized she didn’t have any means to resist the Fuller Family. Even if she had money, it wasn’t enough; she needed power.

What she held in her own hands was the only thing secure.

"Florence!" Ethan Harper looked at her with a serious and grave expression, "If you had told me you didn’t want to marry back then, I wouldn’t have let you go. But I know the importance of your foster mother to you... you’d do anything for her."

If she had to choose between Ethan Harper and Amelia Linney,

Ethan Harper believed Florence Fuller would choose Amelia Linney without hesitation.

If things had truly happened as Florence Fuller described and he hadn’t silently left back then, at the moment when the Fuller Family forced her into marriage, he could have taken her away without looking back. But Florence Fuller wouldn’t choose to leave with Amelia there.

His response struck Florence Fuller’s heart, and she bit her lip; Ethan Harper wasn’t wrong.

If things did turn out embarrassingly... would Ethan Harper’s sudden disappearance back then have been the right choice?

"But if it’s now..." Ethan Harper spoke deeply, "If you want to leave here, I can arrange everything meticulously so that no one can threaten you to stay. Florence, just tell me."

"What if after the divorce, I decide not to choose you?" Florence Fuller said.

Ethan Harper was taken aback, nearly unable to respond to her words.

He gazed at Florence Fuller silently, his long lashes slightly lowered, his expression solemn, "As long as... you’re happy."

"You said you’ve spent six birthdays with me... this is the seventh, right?" Florence Fuller said.

Ethan Harper: "Yeah."

"Today, Evelyn Shaw and the others said they wanted to fly over to celebrate my birthday, but in that moment, I subconsciously thought of you. I knew you’d definitely have prepared this birthday for me; look at this table full of food, cake, nothing missing, just like before!"

"So I agreed to you and turned them down because I felt that some things needed to be clarified." Florence Fuller looked at Ethan Harper, "What do you say, Chairman Harper?"

She didn’t know what Ethan Harper had become since he returned, but she still had Adrian Morrison investigate. Previously, Adrian always hit a wall when inquiring about him in France, but now with his return and presence by her side, it was easy to find out.

The new chairman of the Polaris Conglomerate last year, Ethan Harper.

He had spent the last three years fighting for the family estate.

Ethan Harper spoke in a muffled voice, "What do you want to say?"

"My marriage with Luke Gardiner isn’t easy to end. Your timing in showing up isn’t right either. If you’re waiting for me to get a divorce and be with you again, then I think you need to abandon that idea."

Ethan Harper was hit by her words, feeling a dragging pain, "I can’t be your choice anymore, can I?"

"With Polaris’s background, and a family like the Harper Family, Ethan Harper, I don’t want to jump from one pit into another." Florence Fuller looked at him seriously.

"Who would want to jump into such a pit?" Ethan Harper’s eyes gradually reddened, "Florence, you just said, not everyone can choose their own life."

"Are you saying you were forced into all of this too?"

"I had no choice back then!" Ethan Harper grasped Florence Fuller’s hand, lowering his head as a tear fell hotly onto the back of her hand, "You don’t know the news I received at the time... When I returned, my mother was already a cold corpse."

Florence Fuller was shocked to her core, her limbs growing cold. She looked at Ethan Harper in disbelief, her lips moving but no words coming out.

Aunt Monrose was already dead!

How could that be possible!

A woman so gentle, intellectual, and captivating, how could she be dead!

She did say she was leaving for a while, and Florence Fuller had seen her off at the airport that day.

She was gone for a few months, and then Ethan Harper left.

"How... could it be." She struggled to vocalize.

Ethan Harper’s mother was, aside from Amelia Linney, the woman who treated her the best.

She was her tutor, and the first time Florence Fuller ran away from home at the Fuller Family, lost in the whole Silk Cloud Villa, it was she who found her and took her back.

She couldn’t believe there could be such a gentle, beautiful, and kind-tempered woman in the world.

But now Ethan Harper was telling her she was dead.

"I didn’t want to tell you now... I thought I’d explain later... but now I only have you." Ethan Harper’s voice trembled, "I’ve always only had you."

"How could it be..." Her tears streamed out, and she kept shaking her head, still unable to believe, "I don’t believe it..."

Ethan Harper pulled her into his embrace, "Back then I was taken back to France, all my communication devices confiscated. If I didn’t compromise with my father, then what... what would have happened to you!"

Having lost his mother, he had only Florence Fuller left.

And Florence Fuller had faced life-threatening situations twice before, all thanks to his father.

So his mother ultimately compromised and returned to France, but in the end...

She chose to end her own life.

"How could this be... You must be lying to me! You’re just saying this so I won’t be heartless to you... Aunt Monrose must be fine." Florence Fuller sobbed in his arms.

"My father killed her!" Ethan Harper held her tightly, "I had no way out."

He could still remember the words from back then, the grand yet silent funeral of his mother.

His father stood right beside Ethan Harper, the cold, handsome face showing no trace of grief.

"If you don’t return to the Harper Family to join this feast, then perhaps your mother’s fate will be that girl’s fate. Having her accompany your mother wouldn’t be lonely, would it? Third time... do you think it would fail again? My son!"

Besides the legitimate son Ethan Harper, he had many illegitimate children as well.

He allowed them equal inheritance rights, but required those children to compete fiercely, harming each other, and then he would choose the final heir and set the will.

That’s what he called the "feast."

So those illegitimate children unanimously targeted Ethan Harper, the legitimate young master.