Tempted Trapped and Too Late to Run novel Chapter 725

Once the hall emptied out and it was just the two of them, the old lady let out a long sigh. “The Head Elder—he’s actually your uncle, your father’s older brother. Hardly anyone knows this, but he and your father never got along. Actually, it was pretty awful between them. They cut ties years ago. If it weren’t for you, your uncle probably would’ve ignored the Ferguson family here in Country Z forever. There are just too many branches of the family. Do you even know why your father married me?”

Dylan glanced up, caught off guard. He honestly didn’t know. No one ever talked about the previous generation—it all felt too far away.

The old lady’s expression darkened. “At your father’s eightieth birthday, your uncles told you and Colin not to turn against each other over a woman. They weren’t just talking for the sake of it. Your father and his own brother ruined their relationship over a woman. He was never supposed to marry me. The Ferguson and Chester families overseas have kept their distance for years, never working together. And the current matriarch of the Chester family? She was your father’s first love. The two of them were torn apart.”

She hesitated then, her face clouding with old secrets she’d never wanted to say out loud—but she pressed on, needing Dylan to understand.

“Back then, your father and Sydney were in love. As for me… Have you ever heard me talk about my own family in all these years I’ve been in the Ferguson family?”

She paused, looking at Dylan.

“I always said I wanted to prove myself. Sydney once pointed in my face and called me ungrateful, said I betrayed her with outsiders. I couldn’t defend myself. I was only seventeen, and I did love your father. But after so many years of a polite, distant marriage, I’ve tasted the bitterness of those choices. I should have been grateful to Sydney for taking me in, but I always wanted to outshine her. The pain of loving someone and not getting them—I felt it even before you did. Dylan, do you really think I don’t get it? The Ferguson family was never full of hopeless romantics. Even if your father loved Sydney, to men like them, women are still just women. They didn’t become enemies over love—it was about pride, about refusing to back down.”