“Enough!” Clara’s voice cut through the murmurs like a blade. She drew a steady breath, her gaze sweeping the crowd before locking on Adrian’s ashen, twisted face.
“Put away your so–called love and your empty threats.“”
“What happens to Jonathan is none of your concern.”
“And Vanessa?” Her lips curved coldly. “Even less mine.“}
Her eyes gleamed sharp as glass shards, dissecting him without mercy. “You say she’s gentle and devoted, clinging only to you? Then go to her. Why come crawling to me, your ‘tyrannical, suffocating ex–wife‘? Don’t you see how pathetic that is?”
“I’m not crawling–I’m giving you a chance.” Adrian clung to the shreds of his pride, but his voice trembled.”
“A chance?” Clara stepped closer, her calmness laced with scorn. “Adrian, listen well. I don’t want you. Not now, not ever.” Her words struck like a hammer.
“From the moment you threw me out for that lunatic woman, let her torment Snowball, froze my cards, and forced me into the street half–dressed–you were dead to me. Now I see you begging, deceiving yourself, and I feel nothing but relief that I left. The years I loved you are nothing but the greatest stain and shame of my life.”
“You…” Adrian’s pupils contracted; the color drained from his face. He staggered back, as if stabbed.
“Go.” Clara turned away, her voice flat with exhaustion. “Return to Baybridge. Be your king, wrestle with Vanessa–just stop revolting me.”
Her words shattered the last of his illusions. “Stain… shame…” he muttered, trembling, eyes vacant, as though the ground beneath him had collapsed.
Jonathan’s gaze was ice. A slight nod to the security guards, and two tall men stepped forward, ushering Adrian out with no room for protest. The clamor vanished with him.
Clara’s shoulders finally sagged. Fatigue lined her brow; the old wounds, torn open, bled anew.
Jonathan quietly pressed a glass of warm water into her hands. “He isn’t worth your pain. You did well, Clara.“}
Her fingers were cold as she accepted it. She didn’t drink, only stared at the night beyond the window. After a long silence, she gave a bitter sigh. “I know. It’s just… it still hurts.”
Not for the broken man screaming her name tonight, but for the memory of the boy who once gave her his egg in a bowl of noodles, who once swore he’d bleed for her. That boy was gone forever.”
Jonathan looked at her fragile profile, pity and heartache flooding his chest. But he said nothing. He simply stayed, her silent shield. He would wait–wait for her to heal, to see him not as support but as the one beside her, always.
After that day, Adrian became a beast in a cage, pouring every ounce of hatred into destroying Jonathan. Ignoring the Cole Corporation elders, blind to the company’s faltering state, he launched reckless offensives against the Hale Corporation- desperate to prove he was not beaten, desperate to make Jonathan pay for “stealing his wife.”
But Jonathan was no longer the young heir who needed caution and calculation. With a rock–solid foundation and a strategist’s mind, he dismantled Adrian’s attacks with ease.”
Round after round, Adrian failed. Instead of wounding Jonathan, he drove the Cole Corporation into crisis: stock prices collapsing, capital chains snapping, vitality bled dry.
And the world watched him fall.
8:36 AM P P
