He Left Me to Freeze, So I Burned His World Down Chapter 23

He Left Me to Freeze, So I Burned His World Down Chapter 23

The housekeeper quietly returned with a rag and mop, then knelt and meticulously wiped the water stains from the marble floor around Graham’s feet.

He stood frozen, humiliation seeping into his bones like the cold rain.

At last, he spoke, his voice raw. “I used to… keep some clothes here.”

“Could I shower and change?”

Ava finally lifted her gaze from the spotless floor to his face. There was no hatred in her eyes, nor love. Only the detached calm of someone assessing a problem to be dealt with.

“They’re gone.”

Her voice was flat.

“Besides, I’m getting married next week. It would be inappropriate for my ex-husband to be showering in my home on the eve of my wedding.”

Graham didn’t move.

It hadn’t been like this before. In the past, if he’d been caught in the slightest drizzle, she would have rushed to him with a soft towel, fussing over him, terrified he might catch a chill.

Now, she looked at him with a brisk, businesslike impatience.

“I really don’t understand,” he said, his voice trembling. “What did I do to make you hate me this much?”

He took a step forward, his voice rising with an anxious, defensive edge. “I already told you, Nora was an accident. I never thought something like that would happen.”

Ava let out a short, cold laugh.

“You’re still asking that?”

Her voice suddenly sharpened, a scalpel finally unsheathed.

“You were married, but you slept with another woman and got her pregnant. You pushed me away for her, again and again. You locked me in a boathouse and nearly froze me to death.”

“And you’re standing here asking me what you did wrong?”

She advanced a step, her gaze pinning him in place.

“Nora was an accident? Fine. But it was an accident you allowed to happen because you were protecting your mistress. For that, I will never forgive you.”

Graham stumbled back, all the color draining from his face. At last, he voiced the question that had been tormenting him. “So you had Bennett come after me? You hate me so much you want to destroy everything I have?”

“Yes.”

Ava looked at him, her eyes holding a bottomless chill, a resolve he had never seen before.

“Because in another future, you destroyed me the same way.”

“…What?”

Graham was stunned. He couldn’t comprehend what she was saying.

Another future? What did that mean?

He could only stare at her. This woman he thought he knew so well now seemed like a stranger, her face holding not a hint of a joke, only a cold, fated judgment.