He Brought His Mistress, I Brought My Lawyers Chapter 28

He Brought His Mistress, I Brought My Lawyers Chapter 28

“It isn’t over.”

Ethan shook his head, his face pale, as if trying to convince himself. “It isn’t over, Avery. Please…”

Hearing this, Avery let out a short, cold laugh.

“It is over, Ethan. What was our engagement to you? Something you could put on pause and pick back up after you finished dealing with your ‘guilt’ and ‘responsibility’?”

She took a step forward, the disgust in her eyes deepening with every word.

“When I agreed to marry you, I truly wanted to. But what about you? You didn’t just refuse to believe me; you let Sloane humiliate me again and again. You even became her accomplice.”

Her voice rose, full of long-suppressed anger and pain.

“Now you come here, pitifully telling me you love me? Don’t you find that laughable?”

“When I was locked in that room at the Newport estate, what were you doing?”

“When I was forced to apologize to Sloane on the yacht club terrace, what were you doing?”

“When blood was running down my head and you personally smashed our wedding champagne against me—what were you doing?”

Those images, that sharp pain and extreme humiliation, still woke her in the dead of night, even across the country. She dreamed of glass shards piercing her skin, of being watched by everyone like a pathetic failure.

Ethan was pinned in place by her questions, speechless. The wound beneath the bandage on his forehead seemed to ache, but it was nothing compared to the tearing pain in his heart. He had to say something. He could feel that if he failed to change her mind today, he would lose her forever.

His Adam’s apple moved. His voice was hoarse as he defended himself.

“Avery, with Sloane… it was only guilt. Because I owed her husband my life. And that photo—that was an accident. I swear, you’re the only one in my heart.”

His words were sincere, as if he were laying his heart bare.

But Avery only felt sick.

Ethan could always find a reason for everything he did. But he never understood that what she wanted had never been a reason.

Exhausted, she rubbed her brow and pulled open the door, using the last of her patience.

“Please leave.”

Seeing her hard, resolute attitude, a massive panic seized Ethan’s heart.

His knees weakened. Under Avery’s cold gaze, he knelt before her without dignity.

“Avery, don’t be like this…” His eyes were bloodshot. Those blue eyes that had once bewitched so many people now looked up at her, filled with shattered pleading. “I know I was wrong. Please, please give me one more chance. Forgive me, all right?”

He anxiously listed his “achievements,” like a child waiting for a reward.

“Everything I owed you, everything that hurt you, I’ll repay it, twice over.”

“Don’t you hate Sloane? I’ve already gotten her out of my life. I promise she’ll never appear before you again.”

“Our apartment in Boston… I’ve redecorated it just the way you liked. All the haute couture gowns you missed, I bought them all back. They’re in the closet.”

He shuffled forward on his knees, trying to touch the hem of her clothes, his voice humble enough to kiss the dust.

“Avery, as long as you come back with me, we can be like we were before.”

Like before?

Avery asked herself silently.

Ethan had barged into her life tonight, and she felt no surprise, not even a ripple. Only the annoyance of being disturbed.

She placed a hand over her chest. Her heartbeat was steady.

The once-surging love that could have burned everything down had been worn away, disappointment by disappointment, injury by injury.

“We can’t go back,” she said calmly, each word a hammer, smashing his final illusion.

She opened the door wider and looked coldly at the man kneeling on the floor.

“Go, Ethan. I don’t want to call the police and make this any uglier.”

Ethan had not expected her to be so heartless.

It felt as if a piece of his chest had been carved out, the pain so severe he could hardly straighten. He braced himself against the cold wall and barely managed to stand. Then, looking back every few steps, he gave one last, pained, reluctant look at the woman he had pushed away with his own hands.

In the end, he staggered away and vanished into the cool Santa Fe night.