While He Waited in Aspen, I Married His Rival Chapter 19

While He Waited in Aspen, I Married His Rival Chapter 19

Ethan and I dressed and went downstairs.

In the yard, the uninvited guest looked jarringly out of place in the Montana morning sun.

Liam Henderson, once so polished and put-together, now wore a wrinkled shirt. Blue stubble shadowed his jaw, his hair was a mess, and his eyes were sunken, as if all the light had been drained from him.

The flight back from California must have been a trip through hell.

His tech empire, the company he once believed could conquer the world, had seen its stock collapse after losing the Blackstone Valley project. Investors fled, and the company was forced into bankruptcy. He’d gone from chairman of the board to a defendant drowning in debt.

Yet when he saw me, there was no anger about his business failure on his face. There was only a desperate, fragile hope.

With a trembling hand, he took the necklace from his pocket—the one he’d let Chloe make from our family brand—and held it out to me.

“Ava, it was supposed to be yours… I got it back for you.” His voice was hoarse, as if scraped raw by sandpaper.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t be bothered to lift a finger.

Ethan stepped forward and took the necklace from him, his face impassive, as if accepting a piece of evidence that had nothing to do with me.

Only then did Liam’s gaze shift to Ethan, his expression twisting with rage.

“It was you! I thought you were my friend, but you were after my fiancée the whole time!”

Ethan pulled me into his arms, his hand resting steady on my shoulder, a look of undisguised victory on his face.

“If it weren’t for Ava,” he said, meeting Liam’s gaze, “I wouldn’t have bothered with someone like you.”

“Shut up!” Liam roared. He turned back to me, a wild hope igniting in his eyes. “Ava, listen to me. Chloe’s been fired. I left her in Aspen. She’ll never work in this industry again. I got revenge for you.”

He took an anxious step forward, but Ethan blocked his path.

“It’s not too late. Divorce him, Ava. I’ll marry you. Have you forgotten? We swore to your grandfather that we would protect this land forever.”

His words made me laugh, a cold, sharp sound.

“Weren’t you the one who forgot that vow first, Liam?”

I looked straight into his bloodshot eyes and shattered his last illusion, word by word.

“You say you got revenge for me, that you got my things back. But who was the one who broke my heart for her, over and over? Who was the one who had my family’s brand made into jewelry and gave it to her? Wasn’t that you?”

I watched the color drain from his face.

“And I think there’s something else you should know,” I continued calmly. “When I accepted your proposal, it had nothing to do with your ridiculous acquisition payment. By then, Blackstone Valley’s finances had already recovered.”

“I said yes because I was naive enough to love you.”

“But,” I paused, making sure he heard every word, “the water rights value of my ranch is ten times your company’s peak market cap. I was willing to give that to you because I loved you. And you treated it like a transaction you could humiliate at will.”

Liam swayed, as if struck by an invisible blow. His face went white as paper. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.

A sudden wave of fatigue washed over me. I yawned and rested my head against Ethan’s strong chest.

“Husband, I’m so sleepy… I didn’t sleep well last night. Let’s go back inside.”

“Of course, wife,” Ethan answered, turning with me toward the house.

Before we went in, he looked back and delivered one final blow to the man frozen in the yard.

“Still, I should thank you. Ever since I heard you proposed to Ava, I never gave up hope. And thanks to you putting all your energy into that resort and your project manager, I finally got the chance I was waiting for.”

I didn’t look back to see Liam’s expression. I just covered my mouth and yawned again.

In my head, I was already calculating whether, among the assets Ethan had acquired, we should fire all of the former Henderson Company employees or keep the few who were actually useful.

After all, my honeymoon wouldn’t last forever.