Stella’s breath was instantly sucked out of her chest. She turned slowly towards the voice and her eyes
widened.
Aunt Diana…
She almost blurted out those words but managed to stop herself in time.
The woman walked up to her with eyes red and teary, saying, “Is it really you, Stella? I thought I’d
never see you again…”
Yvonne was completely clueless as to what was going on, so she asked, “Who is this, Ella?”
Stella stood up abruptly and shook her head, saying, “I don’t know her.”
“You don’t know me? How is that possible? I’m your aunt Diana! Have you forgotten me?”
The woman wiped away her tears and turned around to address the man behind her.
“Honey, come here! Isn’t it Stella?”
“I’m really sorry,” muttered Stella. “You’re completely mistaken. I truly don’t know who you are…”
The man walked up with his hands full of shopping bags, and when his eyes fell on Stella, he was
visibly floored.
But his reactions were much more subdued than the woman’s.
“Please forgive us, but you look very much like my niece,” he explained after a long bout of silence. “My
wife must’ve mistaken you for her.”
“Your niece?” asked Yvonne. “Does your niece happen to be Stella Sealey?”
“Yes! Do you know her?”
“Well…” Yvonne glanced worriedly at Stella. “Yes, I do know your niece. But this woman is definitely not
her. She’s called Ella Steele.”
“Ella Steele?” The man raised his brows as he looked at Stella. “Even their names are similar!”
“Yes,” Stella replied while avoiding eye contact with him. “What a coincidence . Anyway, I’m a little
busy, so I’ve got to go now…”
“Wait!” the woman interrupted, obviously still unconvinced. “Are you sure you’re not my niece Stella?”
“She really is someone else,” Yvonne reassured the woman. “She’s definitely not Stella Sealey
because I used to know her too. When I first met Ella, I was just as shocked as you are. I thought they
were the same person, but it turns out they really are different people.”
Hearing this, the woman finally calmed down a little.
“I suppose you’re right,” she shook her head slowly.” Stella is dead. How can I still think that…”
The woman almost collapsed, but the man rushed up in a hurry and held her still in his arms.
“Are you all right?” he asked with a look of concern.
“I’m fine…”
The woman then looked up at Stella with eyes full of anguish.
“I didn’t even get to see Stella before she died,” she lamented. “I never had a chance to find out why
she ran away from home…”
Stella mustered up all her self-control not to look back at her aunt. It was clear now that in that family of
hers, the only one who genuinely cared for her was Aunt Diana. It was a shame that she was kicked
out of the Sealey family before she even had a chance to talk to her.
She heard that Michael Sealey somehow found a way to move abroad after she was kicked out, taking
Aunt Diana with him, and they hadn’t returned to this country for a long time. Perhaps he was scared
that Stella might tell his wife what he had done to her.
She still remembered that when her family was notified of her death, none of them showed up or asked
any questions, as if her existence meant absolutely nothing to them, dead or alive.
But Aunt Diana was different. She tried her best asking around for news of what happened to her. She
simply wouldn’t believe that Stella really was dead.
Michael Sealey, on the other hand, was glad that Stella died. Now, no one would ever expose his
secrets, and he would forever be his wife’s family’s favorite son-in-law. In fact, he only decided to return
to this country with his wife because he’d learned that Stella was dead.
He glared at Stella one last time. A skeptical man by nature, he would never have believed that such a
wild coincidence was real. But he did read about Stella’s death in the news with his own eyes, so all he
could do was gawk at the woman called Ella Steele quietly.
“Come on,” he said, wrapping his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Let’s not disturb them. She’s really
not Stella. Let’s go home.”
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