Divorce With Benefits: A Second Chance At Love-Chapter 134: One Stormy Night

It all spiraled out of control when Lydia became convinced that Joan Baxter, the daughter of Tony Baxter—a longtime family friend of the Sutherlands—was their lost child.

At first, her interest seemed harmless, even understandable. Lydia gravitated toward Joan, who was just days older than their late daughter. Friends and family hoped this connection might provide Lydia with some solace. The Baxters, empathizing with Lydia’s pain, kindly allowed her to spend time with Joan, thinking it might ease the deep wound in her heart.

But what started as a tender attempt at healing soon veered into obsession. Lydia became increasingly convinced that their baby had been swapped at birth. She drew elaborate conclusions, claiming that the child diagnosed with Trisomy-18, who later passed away, couldn’t have been her biological daughter. Joan, healthy and thriving, had to be hers.

Arthur, heartbroken and desperate, sought professional help for his wife. But before progress could be made, Lydia turned to her own family—the influential Glover dynasty. They adored her, indulged her, and, much to Arthur’s dismay, fed into her delusions.

"Why can’t she have that girl if it would make her happy?" Lydia’s father, blind to the absurdity of his words, dismissed any attempts to reason with him. DNA testing, though rudimentary compared to modern methods, conclusively proved Joan wasn’t their child. Still, the Glovers refused to accept the results, choosing instead to coddle Lydia and create a twisted reality to pacify her grief.

Arthur, young and deeply in love, was caught in an impossible position. He adored his wife and wanted to protect her, even from herself, but his voice was drowned out by the Glover family’s overwhelming influence. His protests were ignored, his pleas dismissed.

Then the unthinkable happened. Lydia’s father, in his misguided attempts to bring his daughter happiness, used his power to forcibly take Joan from her mother. For a fleeting moment, Lydia’s world seemed whole again. But the price was unimaginable. Joan’s mother, shattered by the loss, took her own life, leaving behind a child too young to understand the tragedy that had unfolded.

This was Arthur’s breaking point. Fueled by grief, guilt, and the fierce desire to save his wife, he fought tooth and nail against the Glovers’ control. It was a grueling battle, but he prevailed. He secured the help Lydia desperately needed, pulling her back from the edge of madness. Slowly, she confronted the painful truth: their daughter had died, and in her grief, she had unwittingly torn another family apart.

The guilt was overwhelming, but Lydia, with Arthur’s unwavering support, began to heal. She distanced herself from the Glovers, shedding the identity of their pampered daughter. In time, she embraced her role as Lydia Sutherland, Lady of Sutherland—a title Arthur ensured was not merely a formality. To him, she was his queen, no longer a broken princess trapped in a gilded cage.

For years, they lived in peace, the dark Chapter of their lives firmly behind them. Or so Arthur thought. That tranquility was shattered when Lydia began to fixate on Jerica.

At first, Arthur feared it was history repeating itself. But as he delved deeper, he realized Lydia’s intuition was startlingly accurate. Jerica wasn’t a mere fixation. She was, in fact, their daughter.

The truth unraveled through a conversation with Henry Bassinger, a former family confidant. Henry had harbored a secret for decades, one that would alter the Sutherlands’ lives forever.

Arthur vividly recalled the stormy night of their daughter’s birth. A hurricane raged as Lydia went into labor. Amid the chaos, another woman—a foreigner—gave birth at the same hospital. Just as both babies were born, the power went out, plunging the hospital into darkness. When the emergency generators finally kicked in, the staff resumed their duties, unaware of a critical mistake. In the commotion, a nurse had accidentally swapped the newborns.

Henry, devastated by Lydia’s anguish, had quietly investigated at the time but found no evidence to support her suspicions. Years later, he encountered the nurse on her deathbed. Wracked with guilt, she confessed to the accidental switch.

Henry, burdened by the weight of the truth, made a painful decision. He knew how hard Lydia had fought to reclaim her life after years of grief and delusion. Revealing what he had discovered could unravel all the progress she had made. The knowledge that her daughter might still be alive was not a gift he could give her lightly; it was a double-edged sword.

Fearing the potential consequences, Henry chose silence. He refrained from investigating the child, not wanting to trigger suspicions or alarm anyone. In his heart, he consoled himself with one assumption: the baby swapped at birth must have been raised in wealth and privilege. After all, the hospital where Lydia gave birth catered exclusively to the uber-wealthy, a sanctuary for society’s elite. The thought brought him a modicum of solace—at least Lydia’s daughter would not have grown up in hardship.

Unable to carry the burden any longer, Henry resigned from his position with the Glover family, stepping away from the web of influence that had both nurtured and constrained him. For years, he avoided contact with the Sutherlands, choosing to live with his guilt in quiet isolation.

But fate had other plans. When Henry encountered Lydia again years later, he saw a woman who had found her strength, her identity, and her peace. She was no longer the fragile, broken soul he had once known. In that moment, Henry realized she deserved to know the truth—not to rekindle old wounds, but to have closure—him and her finally.

With newfound resolve, he reopened his investigation, tracing the fragments of evidence he had long buried. This time, he followed the trail to its conclusion. Piece by painstaking piece, the truth emerged, leading him to Jerica.

Jerica, the girl Lydia had grown fond of, was not just a coincidence or a fixation. She was the child Lydia and Arthur had lost to the chaos of that stormy night—their daughter, alive and thriving.

Lydia listened intently as Arthur recounted Henry Bassinger’s report, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Her face was calm, her expression thoughtful, but Arthur could see the storm of emotions flickering behind her eyes.

"I used to tell you," she began softly, "that I dreamt our daughter was alive, that I heard it through angels?" She paused, her voice trembling slightly. "Maybe... maybe I heard the nurses talking to each other while I was resting after childbirth. It’s possible, isn’t it?"

Arthur drew her into his arms, holding her as if to shield her from the weight of her own memories. He pressed a kiss to her hair, his voice steady. "It is possible," he assured her. "It’s more than possible, Lydia. You were right all along."

She let out a shaky breath, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. "I’m sorry," Arthur said suddenly, his voice breaking. "I didn’t handle it properly back then. I didn’t even stop to think that you might be right, and I—"

"No, Artie," Lydia interrupted, her tone firm but gentle. She pulled back just enough to look into his eyes. "You don’t get to take the blame for this. You did your best to handle the mess I caused. I... I am the one responsible for the death of a young mother. That’s something I have to live with."

Arthur’s throat tightened as he saw the pain etched into her face. He knew how deeply she had carried the guilt, and how much it had cost her to rebuild herself.

"You were right," he said quietly, "but the way things unfolded wasn’t your fault alone. You weren’t well, Lydia. We didn’t know the truth. We both made mistakes, but we’ve come so far since then."

Lydia’s gaze dropped, and she nodded, her voice barely a whisper. "I might have been right, but the way I went about it... it was wrong. It was... psychotic." She swallowed hard, her hands trembling. "I caused harm, and you—you tried your best to mitigate the damage. You always did."

Arthur cupped her face, tilting her chin up to meet his eyes. "Our daughter is alive, Lydia. That’s what matters now. We should be grateful for that. Talking about the past won’t change it." 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

She stared at him for a moment before giving a small nod. "You’re right," she murmured, her voice steadier now. "It’s time to move forward."

Just as the tension in the room began to ease, a sharp knock echoed from the door.