I’ll Marry His Rival and Burn His Empire to Ash Chapter 20

I’ll Marry His Rival and Burn His Empire to Ash Chapter 20

I looked at him as if he were a distant, ridiculous stranger.

“Hate you?” I repeated. There was no bitterness, only absurdity. “Jackson, you think too highly of yourself. Hate is an intense emotion. You don’t deserve it.”

I stood and walked to the window, watching the rain wash over the magnolias in the garden.

“Let me ask you. Who brought his mistress into our home while I was unconscious from a car accident and slept with her in our bed? Who got that woman pregnant and still expected me to be a dignified, silent wife, raising your illegitimate child?”

His face grew paler. His lips moved, but no words came out.

“Who locked me in a stable to protect his mistress’s lie? And who, when Chloe tried to save me, let his dogs loose?” I turned abruptly, my voice striking him like shards of ice. “That wasn’t an accident, Jackson! That was your violence, your arrogance, spiraling out of control! You think anyone who doesn’t bend to your will deserves to be punished, to be crushed!”

“So you found Ethan Blackwood?” he finally found his voice, like a trapped animal. “You used him to get revenge on me?”

“Yes.” I admitted it cleanly, enjoying the way the last trace of hope died in his eyes. “And I’ll tell you a secret, Jackson. I saw all of this coming. My life was previewed for me. In that nightmare, you did the same thing. You destroyed everything the Monroe family had. So this isn’t revenge. It’s damage control.”

“A preview? What insane nonsense are you talking about?” He couldn’t understand, and he didn’t want to.

“You don’t need to understand.” I walked up to him, looking down at the man I had once looked up to. “You only need to know this: in three days, the Devereaux family’s century-old reputation and fortune will be worth less than the muddy water at your feet.”

I gave the butler a look. “See him out.”

“No!” Jackson grabbed my wrist with astonishing force. “Ava, don’t do this! I… I can stop seeing Savannah-Claire! I swear I’ll never see her again!”

I looked coldly at his hand on my arm, then lifted my eyes.

“And the child?”

He froze. Struggle and calculation flashed across his face. Those few seconds of silence stretched longer than a century.

Then he said, in a transactional, almost calm tone, “If you don’t want to see him, I can… send him away.”

In that instant, the last of my faith in the lower limits of human decency collapsed.

I flung his hand away as if I had touched something filthy.

I pointed at the door, my entire body cold with disgust.

“Get out.”

My voice wasn’t loud, but it made him flinch.

“Get out of my house. And never appear in front of me again.”