Forgive My Ex-husband
Chapter 120 Tearing The Contract

"Mellie, did I upset you?" Jonas called out as he strode behind his marching wife. It was a spur of the moment gesture; he didn't expect her to react the way that she did. He had already been unsettled to begin with, and now that he was seeing his wife obviously displeased with something, he teetered on the edge of panic.

For a brief moment he wondered when he started to fear the instances when his wife just walked away without a single word.

He finally caught up to her, and reached out for her hand and held it tightly. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice low and heavy with some unnamed emotion.

Melinda turned to look at him, and said with utter indifference, "I hope this doesn't happen again."

Jonas felt his breath hitch. There was no mistaking his wife's disgust, nor the object of such emotion.

The fact that he had no idea how to salvage the situation only made him further disheartened. "I... Yes, I will be more careful in the future."

Melinda turned away from him and looked ahead. His grip was still tight around her hand. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to steady herself

She needed to harden her heart, to separate her emotions from the circumstances. She had been burnt many times before, and she would only continue to take painful hits if she revealed her true feelings to this man. "In the future," she repeated his words, saying each one crisply, "we will be divorcing. Just as soon as you get the right to inheritance. Like we agreed to."

She knew, despite being buried deep in her own personal affairs, that Aron and Rey had been more involved in business matters in recent days.

They were no doubt establishing their foothold in the company, making sure Nelson acknowledged their existence and contributions to the family enterprise.

Jonas's hold on her finally slackened. It seemed to him that the place grew colder as soon as the word "divorce" came out of her mouth.

He felt tight on his chest and found it hard to breathe, so he tugged at the collar of his shirt in an attempt to loosen it, with no small amount of irritation. "It's up to you," he said, his voice cold and hard. To his wife, however, his answer sounded noncommittal somehow, and it didn't satisfy her. Well. Enough with this farce. "Let's go home." She matched his cold tone, not bothering to look back even once. He didn't reach for her again.

It was already eight o'clock when they arrived back at the mansion. It was well past dinner time, but the main villa was still lively.

Emily sat lounging on the sofa with Queena, reading fashion magazines. Across the living room table, Yulia was peacefully nibbling on a bowl of fruit while browsing the internet as per her usual hobby. Attuned as she was to the dynamics of the household, she could sense something wrong as soon as her brother and his wife entered the foyer. 'Did they have a fight?'

She decided to prod. With fake cheer, she called out to her brother. "Oh, Jonas, you're back. Aunt Queena had some dinner prepared for you in the kitchen."

At that, the other two women raised their heads from their magazines to look at the young couple. Emily, in particular, looked at them with an innocent expression on her face.

The truth was that all evening her attention had been towards the driveway, anticipating Jonas's arrival the entire time. She had known they were back the moment their car drove through the gates. "Where have you been?" Queena said in a reprimanding voice. "Did you really have to miss dinner for your little trip outside?"

She had put down the magazine she was reading, and directed a hostile look at her daughter-in-law. Melinda only paused and waited for Jonas to say something from behind her.

There was a beat of silence before he managed to read her intent. He scrambled for an excuse. "I had something I needed to deal with. I asked Melinda to accompany me."

Yulia didn't buy it, and wanted to say as much, but held herself back. She never really wanted to risk her brother's temper any more than was necessary.

"Such ill manners!" Queena barked. "Your husband may have asked this of you, but you really went ahead and left the mansion. Didn't you already know we have a guest in the residence? Don't you even know the basics of entertaining a guest, even after being married to the Gu family for so many years?!"

She was, of course, yelling at Melinda. She could never bring herself to be angry at her darling boy, so naturally she vented her anger on his wife.

Melinda said nothing, in spite of being insulted by her mother-in-law in front of other people-a sister-in-law that despised her, and her husband's old flame. And lest anyone forget-in front of her very own husband. Her face remained stoic.

Yulia, on the other hand, was practically bounding in her seat with glee. She always loved witnessing Melinda being thrust into such humiliating positions, and she jumped at this chance to further fuel the flames.

"You know very well that the thing between Emily and my brother was all in the past," she said to Melinda in a fake, cajoling tone. "You must let go of your grudges now, Melinda, and stop treating her like this." She knew all too well that Queena had a mind to set her son up with Emily, after all. It was no secret that if the older woman had her way, she would rather have Emily next to Jonas instead of Melinda. "Yulia," her brother said, looking at her pointedly. There was a heavy warning in that single word, and she shrank back in her seat immediately. It was Emily's turn to step in and manipulate the conversation. "Yulia is still young and naive. Please be considerate towards your sister-in-law, Melinda."

Melinda raised an eyebrow at that, and looked at the two conniving women under her nose. They were really pushing it, especially Emily.

How dare she say such things to her? It was as if Emily was the family member in the scenario, and Melinda was the outsider.

"She is indeed young naive," Melinda finally spoke. She kept her tone civil, but couldn't help the haughty edge to it. She tilted her chin slightly upward, as if to emphasize that she was talking to people beneath her.

"If she wasn't then, she probably wouldn't have such scheming friends."

Then she gave them a regal smile that didn't reach her eyes.

A pregnant silence came over the room. She mentioned no names, and still everyone present knew of whom she spoke.

Emily's face twisted with all the ugly emotions she felt at the moment. Beside her, Queena's displeasure at Melinda's attitude also showed in the older woman's face.

"This girl, what are you even saying? We are discussing your poor hospitality to an esteemed guest. Don't you dare change the subject! It seems like you really are lacking in proper manners. I will have to ask Gavin to arrange for an etiquette teacher to school you immediately."

Melinda remained calm in the face of such blatant bullying, and her response was classy and civil, contrary to her mother-in-law's furious claims.

"I am not feeling well today. I'm sure that mother-in-law and sister-in-law are more than capable of entertaining your esteemed guest by yourselves. I won't be disturbing you any further."

A headache was indeed starting to throb at her temples, and she reached a hand to rub them gently.

Yulia must have been triggered, because she grabbed at the chance to retort, her brother's earlier warning seemingly thrown out the window. "If you were feeling so ill then, why did you even leave the house? Stop pretending to be sick!"

She even stuck a finger to the air, and was pointing at Melinda rudely as she spat out her accusations. She was disappointed to see the other woman unbothered by her words; she had meant to irritate and provoke Melinda.

Instead, her brother's wife didn't even look at her, and only continued to rub at her temples. "Your brother knows all too well how I'm really feeling. My head is killing me right now."

Melinda finally looked at Emily, shooting her with a weary glance. "Miss Bai, I do apologize. You can come visit the Gu's mansion some other day, and I will make sure to take care of you during your stay." Then she turned to the stairs and walked to her room, leaving her husband to deal with the aftermath of their fun little confrontation.

"Mellie is not feeling well," Jonas said, rather absentmindedly. "She needs a good rest." Without waiting for anyone to say another word, he called for Gavin, asked for something light to be prepared and sent directly upstairs to his wife.

Seeing how careful he was in giving out his instructions, Emily felt the jealousy rear its head. Her fingernails dug into the palm of her hand, and when she smiled there was a cold hard edge to it. "It's getting late," Jonas turned to her. "I'll ask Gavin to arrange a driver to take you home."

Emily's smile faltered. This was his way of asking her-politely to leave. Despite his manner, she was mortified at being chased away.

Thankfully, Queena interjected. "I'm still enjoying my time with Emily." She sniffed at her son, and then looked at their guest warmly. "There are dozens of spare rooms in this mansion. And it is rather late; you can just spend the night here."

"Mom," Jonas uttered yet another heavy single-word warning. Queena knew that tone. And she knew her son well enough to keep her mouth shut after that.

Seeing that the older woman was at a loss on how to proceed, Emily bit her lips and decided to let the matter go this time around. "It's all right, Aunt Queena. I'm so sorry for overstaying my welcome. I have a launch event to attend tomorrow morning so I should go now. Let's meet up again soon."

The older woman beamed. "What a good girl you are! Well it isn't safe for a girl going into the city at night. Let Jonas take you."

"I'm attending to my wife." Jonas's tone implied that he was at the end of his tether, and the smiles among the women faded completely. "The driver will take Emily home."

He knew it was all because of his childhood friend that Melinda was in a bad mood for most of the day.

He may still be a fool when it came to his wife, but not fool enough to invite further misunderstandings to an already fragile relationship.

He had been here many times before, after all. How could he call himself a man if he never learned a lesson at all?

"I'll be fine, Aunt Queena," Emily said to Queena, saving them both from embarrassment. "I'm no longer a child, after all. I'll be okay with a driver."

Considering the issue settled and the night concluded, Jonas trudged up the stairs without another word. His mother walked their guest out, continuously apologizing as they came to the door. The shower was running when Jonas came to Melinda's room. He walked around for a while, finally stopping at her desk, where her laptop was left on. Her browser was opened to a Weibo forum. Unable to help his curiosity, he bent over the device and read bits of the discussion. It was a thread with a fan, who was discussing-rather avidly-calligraphy and a certain painting exhibition. Intrigued, Jonas found himself clicking away and navigating around the forum. After a few moments and several threads of online conversations, he finally understood what was going on. He took a deep breath as he mulled over all the things his wife had done for his mother's sake. Then he thought about how his mother treated his wife. He shut his eyes in regret. This was all a mess. Finally pulling himself together, he changed Melinda's screen back to how it was when he found it. Then he quietly took out some of his clothes and went to the bathroom next door to take his shower. When he was done, he returned to the room he shared with his wife, and found her on her desk. A bowl of noodles was set beside her laptop, and he observed that she had been eating, noting the utensils placed absently in the dish.

Her eyes, although, were glued to her screen, whether in absolute concentration to whatever she was working on or in deliberate disregard of his presence, he couldn't tell.

"Be careful not to burn yourself with your food," he said nonetheless, to which he only gained an indifferent "Hmm" as response.

Her cold attitude brought to mind the words she said to him earlier in the cinema, and Jonas left the room and strode into his study. It was a large room that housed countless books and documents.

He made a beeline for the safe, which was lodged into a secluded yet inconspicuous area. He went through the necessary fingerprint and iris scan, and fished out a document from within.

It was the contract he had signed with Melinda, cementing the terms of a marriage of convention between them. His eyes flew over the words on paper, and his heart clenched. They were cold and heartless words, and grated at his nerves.

In his mind, the memory played again, of her speaking of divorce. He remembered her tone, its quality of unrelenting certainty. He remembered how he struggled to breathe after hearing her.

He remembered other things, too, vaguely, but all had to do with his wife. Good and bad memories assaulted him, but ultimately came back to the moment she invoked their agreement.

A divorce.

He tore the contract apart without hesitation, the sound of paper ripping oddly loud in the confines of his large study.

'A divorce?

Yeah, that's never going to happen!'

Not even after he got his right to inheritance. He would never let that happen.