A Widow's Poison, A Wife's Rebellion novel Chapter 269

Starla wanted half the assets, and Darleen refused to give in. With both sides at a stalemate, the conversation collapsed. Furious, Darleen slammed the phone down.

...

On her end, Starla heard the dial tone and a small smile played on her lips.

A servant brought over the freshly roasted fruits. Garret took the platter and placed it in front of Starla.

"Miss, why bother with the Yelchins' money? It's not that much."

Starla paused. Not that much? To the Hoggart family, the Yelchin fortune probably was pocket change, hardly worth the effort of fighting over. Only someone like Darleen would guard it so fiercely.

But to Starla, it was different.

"Every little bit counts. When I was poor, I learned a simple truth: what's mine is mine."

She wouldn't take what wasn't hers, but she wouldn't give up what she was owed. It was a principle forged in her childhood, a refusal to be short-changed, especially by people she despised. She would never let them get the better of her.

"But won't this take too much time?" Garret asked. "You seemed quite anxious to finalize things before."

He had seen how urgently Starla wanted the divorce. Now, she seemed to be dragging her feet. Had she changed her mind? The thought made his stomach clench.

"I still have three months, don't I?" she replied calmly.

Garret knew she was referring to the deadline before her father Elmer's birthday celebration. But still, why waste so much time on the Yelchins?

"It was different before," Starla explained. "Fairfax refused to let me go, so of course I was anxious. But things have changed..."

"How have they changed?" Garret asked, confused.

"Like what?" A frown creased Starla's brow.

Surely not. Could Brinley really be so monstrous as to harm her own child just to frame her? If so, Brinley’s obsession with getting her out of the picture was more pathological than she'd imagined.

"If it were a natural death, the body would have been taken back to the family for arrangements," Garret explained. "But Harriet's people took the body away."

"Harriet?" Starla looked at him, puzzled.

"It's possible the child's death has something to do with Harriet."

"But that was her own granddaughter!" Starla exclaimed.

While Harriet's rise to power had been marked by ruthless tactics, this was on a whole other level.