His Final Betrayal Was My First Move Chapter 13

His Final Betrayal Was My First Move Chapter 13

“Someone unimportant?” Griffin’s voice rose sharply. He threw her hand off him, the fatigue between his brows pierced by a sudden, sharp irritation. “She sent me a message saying she wanted a divorce! Daphne, what the hell is going on?”

The seductive flame in Daphne’s eyes went out, replaced by an offended coldness. She folded her arms and looked at him, as if he were an unreasonable child.

“How would I know? She sent me a message saying you two were already divorced and all the paperwork was done.” Daphne’s tone was light, every word a poison-tipped dart. “I just assumed you couldn’t wait to be with me and had cut things off with her. What, she didn’t even show up to your own party last night, and you’re still thinking about her?”

“Divorce paperwork?” Griffin was stunned. He felt like a complete joke. “I’m divorced? Why am I the last to know?”

He’d been informed he was divorced, and then accused of being “impatient” to boot?

A ridiculous anger burned in his chest. He admitted he owed Amelia, but how could she just sentence him to death like this, finishing the process without even a word? The Amelia he knew, always so gentle and so concerned with family dignity, would never do something like that.

Seeing Griffin’s dark expression, Daphne immediately realized that simple contempt wouldn’t be enough to erase Amelia. A flash of calculation crossed her eyes. She put on an injured expression and pushed all the blame onto Amelia.

“It’s because she threatened me! She told me to help you find a way out, otherwise she’d go to the foundation board and spread rumors that I was a mistress, so I’d never be able to show my face in Boston again!”

“She really said that?” Griffin could hardly believe it. The Amelia in his memory, the wife who would say “thank you” softly even to a server, the quintessential East Coast lady, would resort to such tactics?

“You don’t believe me?” Daphne’s voice sharpened, her eyes reddening. She glared at him and abruptly turned away, leaving him with a back that trembled with anger.

That sight softened him. He immediately gentled his tone and, as he had done countless times before, began to coax her.

“I’m not saying I don’t believe you. It’s just… I can’t believe she would treat you like this. Weren’t you two best friends at Harvard?”

“Friends?”

Daphne spun back around as if she’d heard the funniest joke in the world, her eyes full of resentment.

“She was never my friend! She was jealous of me from the start, jealous that I could get into the best sororities, jealous that everyone liked me!” Daphne grew more and more agitated, grabbing his arm as if to force him to see how foolish he’d been. “If she hadn’t told me she liked you and begged me to set you two up, I never would have introduced you to her!”

“She asked you to introduce me to her?” Griffin’s attention was successfully diverted.

Daphne wouldn’t let this chance go. She had to completely erase the last traces of Amelia from his heart. She would not allow him, after being divorced, to feel any guilt or longing for that woman, not when she had just confessed her love for him.

“Back then, at a Harvard party, she was the one who introduced that low-class band loser to me, then forced me to introduce you to her and help you get together!” Daphne’s voice was thick with tears, every word an accusation. “She threatened me, saying if I didn’t, she’d get that loser to break up with me… Griffin, she used me. I was deceived. That’s why I didn’t see my own heart clearly…”