When There Is Nothing Left But Love

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!

conversation any longer. “You better watch out!” I warned, turning

he roared out from behind

“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.

headed for the restaurant. Ashton was already waiting outside for me, approaching me as soon as

said cheerily, “Just met a familiar toilet and had a chat with him, so

about?”

had a nice trip to the

flicked my

roughly past us as he stormed off towards

say?” Ashton looked at

“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