He was stunned by my sudden outburst of laughter, furrowing his eyebrows at me. “What are you laughing about? Do you find this funny? Did I say something wrong?”
It took me a long while to calm down, wiping away tears from my eyes. “There’s no way you believe the words that are coming out of your mouth, right?” I said sarcastically. “How could you say such a thing so confidently? You say that she’ll lose everything if she goes to jail, but I honestly want to ask you: are you absolutely sure that you have no way of getting her out of there? Is the Kane family so powerless that they can’t rescue a single person from prison? Besides, did you think that she was really going to become famous, even if she hasn’t been sent to jail? Of course not. Everyone in our circle is aware that she’s your and Ashton’s precious little doll. Did you think that she would find a partner among us when you let her fly out of the nest? You know more than anyone else that she’s just going to end up relying on some old man’s money to survive and become nothing more than a toy.
“Admit it. You’ve fallen out of love with her a long time ago and started to resent her. Why else would you tell her such horrible things at the hospital? You wanted to force her to leave you, yet didn’t want to be stuck with the reputation of an asshole, so you just let go of her reins and watched as she made mistake after mistake, until she’d finally reached the point of no return. You are half the reason why she’s turned out this way. You were satisfied with the outcome, but you despised the thought of having to take responsibility for your actions! So, in an act of fake self-righteousness, you came to interrogate me and pushed all the blame onto me, making me out to be the villain in the situation. Although, to be honest with you, you really shouldn’t have wasted your efforts. Even if you force me to take the blame for your actions, you’d still be regarded as a scummy human being in other people’s eyes. So please quit the whole good guy act, or I might just throw up.”
I hadn’t meant to verbally abuse him, but I couldn’t stop myself.
Joe was flushed all the way up to his neck in anger, and I let out an internal scoff at the sight. Nothing about this man was genuine. He’d already committed so many evil acts, yet still insisted that his hands were clean. How ridiculous!
There was no point in continuing the conversation any longer. “You better watch out!” I warned, turning on my heel and walking away.
“You have some nerve—forcing other people to take the fall for you!” he roared out from behind me. “No wonder Ashton is head over heels for you! You’re a conniving, sneaky witch!”
I glanced back over my shoulder at him, flashing a polite smile. “You flatter me, Mr. Quinn. Look, if you really can’t let go of this, I have a suggestion for you: wait until she gets out of prison, then you can bring her back home to be your precious little doll once more. But by that time, she’d be old and wrinkly, and you’d probably refuse to take her in. There’s no way you could appreciate a woman like that, right?”
After saying so, I left him and headed for the restaurant. Ashton was already waiting outside for me, approaching me as soon as he spotted me. “What took you so long?”
Looping my arm through his, I said cheerily, “Just met a familiar toilet and had a chat with him, so I figured I might as well take out the trash! My mood’s greatly improved, and I feel so refreshed.”
“What are you talking about?” His eyebrows knitted together.
“I meant to say that I had a nice trip to the loo!” I grinned.
Sighing in exasperation, he flicked my forehead lightly. “Watch your mouth.”
Joe, who was trailing behind me, brushed roughly past us as he stormed off towards the lobby, spitting out, “Shameless woman!” as he did so.
“What did he say?” Ashton looked at me, perplexed.
I shrugged. “It’s about Rebecca. He didn’t want to abandon her in a distasteful manner and wanted to keep his image squeaky clean. When that plan failed, he got frustrated and took out all his humiliation on me.”
Ashton’s lips pursed as he stared at the back of Joe’s silhouette. “He’s getting married to that woman from the Harrett family soon, so it’s about time he moves on from Rebecca. The Kanes and the Harretts’ future business cooperations will benefit each other greatly.”
I wasn’t interested in any of Joe’s business. “Rebecca’s life has all gone down the drain. She didn’t have any good people around her, and she didn’t have a career of her own,” I lamented.
The worst thing a woman could do was to entrust all of herself to a man and spend all of her time and energy on him only to get dust in return. Then, there was nothing she could do except to wait until she had become useless to him and get thrown away like an old rag.
Perhaps Rebecca’s misfortune had started from the moment Parker entrusted her to the group of friends.
The poor woman had never gotten a chance to plan her life out properly. She had not only lost her pride and independence because of love but had now also lost the motivation to continue living. There was nothing more she could do now except be another rich man’s eye candy, but her beauty could only last for so long. She had already ruined her own life with her own two hands.
“I have to go to A City tomorrow to handle some things,” Ashton suddenly spoke up. “It’s time we start living for ourselves too, Scarlett.”
