All Chapters of My Abusive Ex Watched Me Marry His Stepbrother: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

"That's exactly what I'm doing.""You think you can tell me you would have done the same with anyone? That any man could have touched you the way I touched you last night and it would have felt the same?""Yes." The lie tasted like ash.His hand tightened on my arm. Not hurting. Holding. Like he was trying to keep me from running before he finished saying what he needed to say."You came to my room, Lara." His voice was rough velvet, scraping across my nerve endings until every hair on my body stood up. "You kissed me first. You wrapped your legs around me and whispered my name, not anyone else's name, mine. You think I'm going to forget that because you're embarrassed this morning?""It was a mistake.""It was the most honest thing that has happened between us since you signed that contract, and you know it."My breath caught. The truth in his words hit something vulnerable inside my chest, and I could feel my armor cracking under the pressure of his proximity, his voice, his eyes th

"It's devastating." Sarah dabbed at her eyes. "Maxton has always been sensitive. Always been the one who feels things too deeply. Losing Lara broke something in him, and then watching her parade around with Kyle at parties and galas while he was falling apart, it was too much."Sarah pulled out her phone and showed old photos to the camera. Maxton and me at a restaurant, smiling. Maxton and me at a park, his arm around my shoulders. Maxton and me looking like the perfect, happy couple that we never were."She moved on so fast," Sarah whispered, shaking her head. "Like he never mattered. Like the baby never mattered. And now my son is in a hospital because the woman he loved chose money over love."The host asked about Kyle. Sarah's expression shifted to something colder, more controlled."Kyle has always been competitive with Maxton. Their relationship has been strained for years. I believe Kyle pursued Lara specifically to hurt his brother. He saw an opportunity and he took it, regar

"I'm not going anywhere with you." I pulled the door handle, trying to close it, but his hand held it firmly open. His body blocked the entire doorway, tall and immovable and infuriating."You're going to visit Maxton." Kyle's voice was flat, but his eyes were burning. "In a psychiatric hospital. Where the media is camped outside waiting for exactly this kind of photograph. Are you out of your mind?""Move, Kyle."He did not move. Instead he leaned down, bringing his face level with mine, and the proximity sent unwanted heat flooding through my body despite the fury consuming every rational corner of my brain."If you walk into that hospital," Kyle murmured, his voice low enough that only I could hear, "every camera outside will capture it. Tomorrow's headline will be Gold Digger Wife Visits Traumatized Ex to Gloat. Sarah will have exactly the ammunition she needs to bury us both in court.""I don't care about the headlines anymore.""You should care. Because those headlines will affe

I looked over my shoulder twice before the taxi pulled up. The lobby was empty. No tall shadow. No black sedan pulling around the corner. No bodyguard emerging from a side door.He let me go.The relief should have felt good. Instead it felt like something tearing loose inside my chest, something I had not realized was attached until the moment it came free."Where to?" the driver asked."Away from here." I climbed in and pulled the door shut. "Just drive."The city blurred past the window. Blocks of concrete and glass and people who had no idea that the woman in the backseat of this cab was falling apart so quietly that even the air around her did not know.The driver took me east. Past the financial district. Past the park where Maxton used to walk with me while planning how to keep me dependent. Past the coffee shop where he grabbed my wrist and Kyle appeared like a storm in a black jacket."Here is fine," I told the driver when the meter hit my limit. I handed him my last forty do

Marcus dispatched his team. Carter pulled traffic camera footage from the building's perimeter. Within twenty minutes, they had the taxi's license plate and a general trajectory heading east.I poured more whiskey but did not drink it. The glass sat on the counter, amber liquid catching the fading sunlight, and I stared at it without seeing it because every thought in my head was occupied by a woman with red lipstick and a temper that could set fire to concrete.What if Maxton found her first? The question circled my brain like a predator stalking wounded prey. Sarah had resources. Sarah had connections. Sarah had proven she was willing to do anything to protect her son and destroy Lara in the process.What if someone recognized her on the street? The internet had turned her into a target. Her face was on every gossip site, every social media feed, every news broadcast where Sarah cried her manufactured tears for the cameras.My phone rang at five fifteen. Carter's name on the screen.