He Broke My Heart, My Family Broke His Empire Chapter 24

He Broke My Heart, My Family Broke His Empire Chapter 24

After the divorce, I walked through life in a fog.

Ashworth Investment couldn’t be saved. That pack of wolves from Texas, the Calloways, had used the most brutal methods imaginable to tear apart a century of my family’s wealth and reputation.

The company went bankrupt.

I was saddled with an astronomical amount of debt.

The Beacon Hill apartment, the ancestral home in Nantucket—everything was liquidated.

And Felicity’s belly grew larger by the day.

The truth was, I didn’t want the child.

But she threw a tantrum in front of my grandmother. After her stroke, my grandmother couldn’t speak. She just sat in her wheelchair, staring at me with cloudy eyes, her hand gripping mine so hard her nails dug into my skin.

Her meaning was clear.

Let Felicity have the baby.

The Ashworth family needed an heir.

My grandmother left me a trust fund, the last of her private assets.

I used half of it to pay off a fraction of the debts. The rest was meant for living expenses.

But Felicity’s spending was out of control.

She wanted Chanel. Harry Winston. The most expensive restaurants in New York.

Did she think I was still the Julian Ashworth who could buy half of Boston on a whim?

I couldn’t afford her.

One day, she came home with a brand-new Birkin.

When I confronted her, her face twisted with impatience.

“There’s still plenty of money left! You just refuse to buy me anything! Julian, are you even a man?”

I immediately checked the bank account.

When I saw the balance, all the blood rushed to my head.

The money was gone.

Every last cent.

I was shaking with rage.

That day, I was too angry. I didn’t know my own strength.

I only pushed her once.

The baby was gone.

She hemorrhaged. They had to perform a hysterectomy.

After that, all that was left between us was endless, bitter resentment.

I still took care of her when she was discharged from the hospital.

On the third night, she picked up the fruit knife I had just used to peel her an apple and stabbed me in the chest.

As my vision began to fade, all I could see was her face, twisted with hatred.

“You murderer! You ruined my life! Go to hell!”

In that last moment, I thought of Clara.

I saw her standing under the John Harvard statue, bathed in golden sunlight. She turned her head and gave me a smile as bright as a Texas afternoon.

“Hi. Need any help?”

I started to laugh.

Clara, I regret everything.

If there’s another life, I’ll be good to you. I swear it.