Chapter 5 She Did Not Ask For A Single Cent

• The word “uncomfortable” was not good enough to describe how Alexander felt that day. Initially, he thought divorcing Sophia was something he should feel happy about.
• However, shortly after news of their divorce was made known to the public, he received multiple calls from his childhood friends.
• The first sentence he heard from the calls he picked up was, “Alex, did you and Sophia get a divorce?”
• He was not troubled by the question since he had no intention to hide the divorce from Sophia. Moreover, there was no way he could keep the divorce a secret after the incident that happened in the morning.
• “Yes,” Alexander answered in a direct and cold tone.
• Upon hearing his reply, the other party of the phone call gasped loudly, “Oh my God! That silly woman, Sophia, finally gave up on you? This happened so suddenly that I'm not sure if I should congratulate or sympathize with you. It's rare to find a woman like Sophia in our social circle. We know she's dumb, poor, gold-digging, and kind of a pushover. But, she only had eyes for you. So after thinking about it, I don't think that's anything wrong with her.”
• Alexander was expecting his friend to congratulate him on the divorce, so he was confused when his friend was putting a good word for Sophia.
• What kind of a friend is he?
• It was one thing to hear one person speaking up for Sophia, but he did not expect to receive three consecutive calls that said similar things to him over the phone. By the end of the last call, a look of thunder had clouded his face.
• Already feeling frustrated from handling phone calls from friends who were behaving like spectators watching his divorce like a dramatic play, Alexander felt even worse when Felix told him that Kristen had arrived.
• After the news about the divorce between Sophia and him became a trending topic online, he had expected Kristen would come looking for him, and he knew why she had come to look for him.
• On the way to Alexander's company, Kristen could barely hide her excitement when she discovered that Sophia and Alexander had divorced. However, her excitement died after seeing the trending posts about Sophia.
• How did Mason get involved with Sophia? In the post, he mentioned that he had a crush on Sophia for many years. Even though he knew that nothing would ever happen between them, he prayed every day for Sophia to escape from the hell pit named the Xenos family. Now that she has regained her freedom, Mason is very happy for her as an ex-admirer and a friend.
• After reading the few sentences written by Mason, Kristen could sense that he was implying something else between the lines. Almost instantly, the grin on her face had disappeared.
• The moment she had reached the company, she barged into Alexander's office and questioned, “Alex, tell me. Did you divorce Sophia because she was unfaithful to you?”
• Even though the marriage of three years with Sophia was almost non-existent, no man would be able to accept himself being cuckolded.
• “Mom, what are you talking about?” Alexander's face immediately turned icy.
• Kristen was already feeling annoyed when Sophia talked back to her a few days ago. Thus, when she read the article that called the Xenos family a hell pit and insinuated that Sophia was unfaithful to her son, she could no longer keep her composure.
• “Look at this! Right after you left the City Hall, this woman already had her admirer come pick her up! For all you know, they might have gotten involved with each other long ago! The Xenos family will not tolerate being bullied!”
• Alexander had been busy with paperwork since he returned from the City Hall. He knew that the news of his divorce from Sophia would cause a buzz online, but he did not expect things to turn out this way.
• When he saw the phrase “had a crush on Sophia for many years,” it felt like a stab in his heart. For a moment, he suspected the reason Sophia was so quick to agree to the divorce was that she had been seeing Mason.
• However, that suspicion only stayed in Alexander's mind momentarily. Although he had never liked her, he knew that Sophia was too busy following Kristen's orders in the Xenos residence every day that she could never have the time to see another man behind him.
• “Mom, Sophia and I are already divorced. It was a peaceful divorce, and she did not ask for anything from us. So let's just pretend that she never existed in our lives. You should spend lesser time on entertainment news like this.”
• The reason Kristen was so agitated was not only due to the trending topic online. It was also because she thought that Sophia had managed to get a considerable advantage from the Xenos family through the divorce. Hence, she was surprised when Alexander told her that Sophia did not ask for anything from him.
• She could not believe her ears. “She didn't ask for anything? Didn't she marry into our family because she was eyeing our wealth? Now that she's divorcing you, how is it possible that she's not expecting anything from us?”
• Not wanting to deal with Kristen any further, Alexander used the intercom to ask Felix to enter the room. “Show the divorce papers to my mother.”
• With that, he picked up his jacket and left.
• As he was taking his leave, Kristen called out to him, “Wait, Alex. Aren't you going to have dinner with me?”
• “I'm busy.”
• For the past years, Alexander rarely returned to the Xenos family's mansion because, firstly, Sophia was at the Xenos residence, and secondly, his relationship with Kristen was never as good as what outsiders saw.
• When he returned to his condominium, Alexander felt his ears were finally at peace.
• He had been busy with work for the entire day, so he did not have time to think about the divorce from Sophia. When he went to meet Sophia in the morning, he had only intended to see what she was up to.
• He did not believe that she wanted a divorce because, as Samuel said, despite being a gold digger, Sophia was indeed in love with him.
• Therefore it was hard for him to believe that a greedy woman like her, who wanted both his wealth and his love, would give up on their marriage so easily.
• With that mindset, he did not even bother to bring the divorce agreement papers she passed him the other day. Much to his surprise, the first thing she did when she saw him was to hand him an exact copy of the divorce agreement.
• Honestly, Alexander was so shocked by her actions that he blindly followed whatever Sophia told him to do. When he finally came back to his senses, the divorce certificate was already in his hands, which was now in his pocket.
• He pulled out the divorce certificate and realized how similar it was to a marriage certificate, except that the word “marriage” was replaced with “divorce.”
• Somehow, the word “divorce” was extremely offensive to his eyes, so he threw it into the trash can not far away from him.
• Suddenly, his phone rang and caught his attention. He turned his head in the direction of the phone and stared at it with no intention of picking it up.
• However, the caller did not seem to get the hint and kept calling repeatedly.
• In the end, Alexander could not take it anymore. He looked at the caller ID with a grim expression and picked up the call. “What is it?”
• The call was from Samuel. After the call in the afternoon to gloat over his situation, Alexander could not think of any other reasons, besides mocking him, for Samuel to call him again two hours later.
• “What's wrong? Aren't you going to celebrate your singlehood after the divorce?”
• “Get lost.”
• He was not in the mood to speak to Samuel, so he planned to hang up the call after giving him a scolding. However, Samuel's following sentence changed his mind. “By the way, I'm at Sophia's singlehood celebration party right now. Your ex-wife is really generous. She's paying for everyone's drinks at the bar tonight. I bet most of the money she's spending is your hard-earned money, right?”
• Alexander furrowed his eyebrows and replied, “She did not ask for a single cent from me.”
• Samuel was so shocked that he was rendered speechless.
• Everyone in Jadeborough knew how much of a gold digger Sophia was.
• Back then, Sophia bumped into Kristen when she fainted from hypoglycemia, so she sent her to the hospital. When Alexander asked what she would like as a reward, she immediately asked for ten million. Right before Alexander was about to agree to the amount, she changed her mind and asked for a hundred million.
• After hearing her new request, Alexander's expression darkened. However, she was still unsatisfied with the amount she requested, so she changed her mind again. “I want you to marry me.” The scene of Sophia asking for such an outrageous reward was filmed secretly and posted online. Hence, the people who watched the video knew her as a gold digger who married Alexander since his net worth was much higher than a hundred million.
• Three years later, the two were still only married in name. Everyone in their circle was mocking Sophia and was discussing how much money she would rip off Alexander when they were to get a divorce.
• Yet now, Alexander said that she did not ask for a single cent from him.