Then, after a long silence, she let out a soft sigh and said, "I know."

She sank her head once again, mustering all her strength just to keep her emotions at bay.

"Mark felt that he failed to do right by me, so he didn't want to drag me down when he became ill," she murmured.

"He chose to face his illness alone and prepared for the worst. But Peter, he has thought and accounted for everything but my feeling! Did it ever occur to him that if he really couldn't make it, I would regret fighting with him and separating from him? Did he ever think that I would blame myself for the rest of my life?"

Peter remained silent, unable to deny it.

Cecilia flashed a faint smile and continued, "That day, he said that he wanted to accompany me for the prenatal checkups. When I heard that, I almost burst in joy because he wasn't there with me when I had Edwin. But then, when I went to see him, he had only left me a letter, telling me that I shouldn't wait for him anymore. From that day on, I took his words to heart and stopped waiting for him.

Although I'm glad that he came back alive, there are some things in the past that you can no longer change."

To Cecilia, it wasn't that she no longer loved Mark. Rather, she didn't see any reason for her to be with him anymore.

Peter knew this as well.

The entire time, he just stayed quiet as he stood by her side and accompanied her.

After a while, Cecilia turned around and smiled.

"Thank you for taking care of him. Because of you, Edwin and Olivia can still have their father."

When Cecilia left, she felt a hollowness in her chest that was hard to explain.

She was cold and unfeeling. She knew that she shouldn't get back together with him because if she did, her heart, which had been broken countless times already, might break again into a million pieces. And if that were to happen, she was afraid she could no longer recover from it.

Right now, all she wanted was for herself and Mark to be a family.

Peter walked her downstairs.

When he opened the car door for her, he hesitated for a moment before saying, “Lina and I adopted that child."

As Cecilia sat in the car, her body froze midway in shock.

Peter patted her on the shoulder and said, “Drive carefully, okay?

Don't be so absent-minded."